"What happened here! What did you people see?"
It was the mermaid man still riding on his thundercloud who initiated the 'conference', unconsiously swiping his long, fish tail into the air with an aura of absolute dominance.
He tooked at the other fours almost like they were his subordinates and he was waiting to hear their report.
The other powers naturally did not take kindly to such a rude address, each producing a scowl of varying degrees.
However none of them reiterated… the man before them was the strongest among them and also the most foul tempered.
"We also got here just as you did, Your Majesty Ozeamriths." Lightly stepping forward, as the eldest of the group, Elder Cinthalo took charge, stretching the ends of his reptilian lips into a gentle curve,
"Just like you, we too sensed that burst of immense mana and came rushing as quickly as we could. Other than that, we are really unaware of anything more."
The lizardman's voice was dignified yet cold, treating the man with respect but not servility.
"We are so glad to see you come here personally, Your Highness, With you here, we will all feel so much safer exploring, hehehe." He then joyfully added with a tinge of relief in his voice.
However, although the elder appeared genial and warm, none missed the plain innuendo hidden in his words.
The way he said this, clearly showed he really wanted to use the royal man as the tip of their exploration spear, and the cannon fodder against any unknown threat.
This was the elder's way of slightly getting back at the man for his rude attitude. And his words quite pleased the other three.
"...." While the bulky, muscular 'king' only wrinkled his nose in visible disgust.
But this was not due to that small slight.
Unlike the others, he saw the elder's words more of a praise, a testament to his great strength. The proof was that they only dared to nudge him using sweet words that had double meanings but never challenge him directly.
Now, if the man was in his typical mood, he might have still bickered at this.
But this time he declined to comment, feeling more instead repulsed by the quality of the lizardman's 'report'. If this was any of his subordinates… he would have given them an extreme ear full.
"You mean it was none of you that caused this?" He thus growled, bulgering out his muscular arms and swiping his imperious eyes over to the others, "Then who?"
"Who cares about that mana explosion? The only concern is where is that abominable beast?"
His question however was rudely thrown out a shrill cry from that silver haired human lady, whose beautiful face now appeared quite a bit more frazzled.
Then instead of waiting for the others, she took it upon herself to activate her crystal blue eyes, swiftly scanning the wastelands around her like a distressed hawk.
Her eyes very animatedly shimmered and glowed with blue and golden light, with many tiny gears moving deep inside her black iris, proving these were not actually biological but mechanical.
They were capable of seeing a lot more than just 'light'- heat, invisibility, camouflage, concealment and traces and trails of mana to name only a few.
Her actions easily said all that was needed about how wary she was of that wolf.
"Hehehe, Knight Legate Esthrad, it would be actually better if you could find its corpse!" It was then that the pale man in the jet black suit suddenly quipped this right next to her.
Licking his lips in anticipation, his voice was laced with great want, yet his tone was so cold that it made one's ears hurt.
The man sounded more like a corpse than a living being.
However right now it was the meaning of those words that caught everyone's attention, stunning them!
"Dead? You mean it is dead?" Even the mermaid king Ozeamrith lost much composure in his voice, unconsciously bulging his eyes and thrashing his huge blue finned tail.
He could not believe it.
As too did not Elder Cinthalo, gravely musing, "Hmmm… that monster can even regrow its heads. To think it died… can it really be true?"
He passed his gaze over to the tiny Fairy Agatha as he said so.
"Old dog Feyngan's sensed it right." And the mature voice was forced to clench out the confirmation, albeit with some bitterness in her tone,
"The aura of that beast is all this over the place. There is your wolf."
The miniature lady then pointed to the ground, spreading her small hands fully abreast as a way to show the extent of the spread of the 'corpse'.
The gesture instantly drew the other three's eyes around the entire expanse of the wasteland as all of them then quickly began to scan all the charred, dispersed remains.
Yet, even after laying their eyes on the solid evidence that was right in front of them, they still seemed to have a hard time believing the conclusion.
"Dead? That thing! Dead? Are you sure Madam Agatha? I thought there was a great battle and these were just the bits hacked off that accursed beast!"
This fact seemed especially hard to swallow for that silver haired lady- Esthrad, who cried as such with great incredulation in her eyes,
"Last time, even thirteen of us were not its match. We could only join all our forces and contain it here, in his mana less zone, hoping it would simply starve to death. So how can it be dead?"
Recalling that fateful battle, the buxom lady's previous wariness quickly turned to palpable fear. She feared that wolf and even more than that, she now feared the possibility of something being able to kill.
It was a feeling that affected the others too, including the strongest of them, the mermaid king, "Mmmm…Lady Esthrad makes a fine point. I was there too and last time, we only succeeded because the beast was half mad to begin with, fighting us with brute strength and little intelligence. If not for it repeatedly falling for the same tricks….. So who could…."
The regal man's eyes flickered with extreme wariness as he recalled the grievous injuries he had suffered in that battle.
He had never been so wounded before or after that battle.
But then greatly it violently shook, for it had come to a very, very dangerous conclusion.
A conclusion that made this king's heartbeat at a rate he had probably never felt before!
And as if being in simpatico, that corpse like pale man chimed out that very conclusion in a cold, crisp tone, "The answer is simple- it was an expert from the higher planes."
"....." The words were like a small bomb had gone off among the five, stunning all of them mute. Only looks of apparent or disguised horror masked their face and none spoke…..
"Impossible!"
The elderly lizardman even instinctively shouted the rebuttal to this 'fantastical idea', spitting out a great deal of saliva in the process and turning his eyes bloodshot.
But although he outwardly refused to believe it, his body language said otherwise.
All his muscles bulged noticeably, fully tensed, his pupils dilated to the extreme and the grip on the staff wrapped around his tail tightened to the point he was at risk of snapping it.
The man was fully on guard about this presumed 'expert'.
It was also a move almost perfectly mirrored by Fairy Agatha, who, while readying herself for any threat also continued to deny the explanation,
"Mmmm… Elder Cinthalo is right. Even a newborn babe knows our connection to the higher planes has been severed after the Great Extinction Wars. There has been no contact from them… for hundreds of thousands of years! So let us not jump to any conclusions. Perhaps one of the other powers… "
"There were no other powers."
The hopeful words were however coldly stomped out even before it could come out of the lady's mouth, as Lord Feyngan firmly insisted on his explanation with eerie blue flames coming out of his eyes,
"Just because we cannot reach the higher planes does not mean they cannot reach us! Nothing else could have killed that beast!"
"...."
'Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable is the answer'.
Looking down at the evidence all around them, all five of them knew deep in their hearts this was indeed the only explanation.
And it filled them with both dread and greed.