Ethereal Ascendance: A Journey of Transformation

"This is my last move!" I thought.

Things looked bad, so I threw my thin needle with all my strength.

It was easier the second time. The water element needle went right through Camille's head like it was nothing.

She even put up a dark element shield in front, which could usually stop my "Lost Paradise Shockwave" easily. But it didn't seem to do much against the water element.

Everything happened in less than a second - first a tiny hole appeared in the dark shield, then Camille's whole body froze in mid-air and fell to the ground at my feet. In a flash, she was lifeless and didn't move at all...

I did it! Even though only a tiny bit of matter-changing water element got inside her, it took all my energy to make it happen. The nasty side effects were already kicking in again.

"Move away..." I heard Adrian yelling from far away. He must have seen the whole thing, and was running towards me fast.

But halfway here, something weird seemed to happen. He suddenly stopped, stared behind me for ages, then finally came to my side.

"Didn't we already win?" I was so happy I didn't get why Adrian was acting so strange. But I couldn't think about it much - the side effects were hitting me hard and I felt like I was about to fall over.

Next thing I knew, I lost my balance and fell into his arms.

Even lying down, I could see Camille's face close by, eyes wide open in shock. Gross red, white and black stuff was leaking from the hole in her forehead. It was a bit yucky, but I felt it was worth it no matter how bad I felt!

"You used the Water Angel's power just now, right? That's way too dangerous. Why didn't you talk to me first? Your soul is already not whole - using that kind of power could really mess it up!" Adrian sighed. He sat down on the ground holding me, and started lecturing me like the old Soul Academy principal after checking Camille's body and figuring out what happened.

When the water element needle with the element-changing rule went through Camille's head, it changed all the brain parts it touched into the light element structure I set up beforehand. This light element immediately reacted with all the dark element in her body, like a chain reaction. It bypassed her super tough outer defenses that even a Gatling gun couldn't break, and destroyed her mind from inside her vulnerable brain. No matter how strong she was, it didn't matter anymore.

By the way, the target element to change into wasn't just light. The Water Angel can actually change any element into any other element - that's its special reality-changing power. What I can do now is less than 1% of that.

But as long as I limit the number of elements involved to what my mind and calculating power can handle, I could even pull the water element out of her body to dry her out, in theory.

"Number 14 Feliciana told me I was supposed to be able to do this stuff in this world's original history. That's why she kept teaching me tricks and methods!" I perked up after resting a bit, feeling the headache slowly fading as my energy came back. I quickly reassured Adrian: "So you don't need to worry. Too bad it looks like I've already reached my limit now..."

"Even so, the side effects are way too much, especially in the middle of a fight!" Adrian still sounded really serious, pointing out something I'd totally forgotten. "You know what? Not only was using the Water Angel's power dangerous, but that dark element blast Camille shot at you at the same time didn't disappear when she died!"

"Oh yeah! What happened with that?" I suddenly remembered - when Camille rushed at me, she also released a ton of dark element, making a black "pillar" fall from above me!

If that powerful element attack had hit me in my super weak state after using my trump card, I might have died or at least been badly hurt!

No wonder Adrian kept yelling for me to dodge. But in the end that deadly danger never actually hit me. I almost forgot about it completely if he hadn't reminded me!

"Just when the attack was about to hit you, I saw that black pillar suddenly vanish into thin air for no reason, like it had never existed! Then a Cyra appeared silently behind you out of nowhere. I don't know which world she was from - she wasn't wearing any number tag and didn't even have her wings out! But she only showed up for a few seconds before disappearing again. She probably left already."

Adrian described what he saw that shocked him so much he couldn't figure out what was going on. No wonder he was acting so strange.

"It was really Cyra? But which Cyra has the power to erase Camille's trump card like that?"

At first even I couldn't help questioning it, wondering if he saw wrong. But as I started thinking more, I suddenly remembered - could it be that Number 18 Cyra who kept popping up out of nowhere, like in the base cafeteria and my bedroom?

That Cyra is totally different from Cyras from other worlds! She always has a water element aura, hardly ever talks, and when she does it's all choppy and never makes sense. Like there's something wrong with her mind.

But whether she has the power to easily cancel an attack from a 7th level monster... Although I've never seen this Cyra's true power, my gut tells me we can't rule it out, given how she pops in and out like Number 14 Feliciana!

"Ah whatever, let's not worry about that now! Since the big boss is confirmed dead, the vampire crisis in M-country should be totally over! If nothing else goes wrong, the space portal should be back to normal now, right?"

Since we just finished a big battle, I decided to focus on some happy stuff. With Camille dead, all that dark element gathered in her body would slowly scatter in the air, and the magic source controlling the whole vampire bloodline would be gone for good.

I finally managed to stand up again. To be honest, it was hard to leave Adrian's arms after cuddling for so long, but I had to force myself to think about how to clean up this mess.

I bet it won't be long before nearby M-country humans who got their minds back discover their president's house got totally wrecked! I don't want to cause any misunderstandings or chaos, and I definitely don't want my special identity or Camille's body exposed to Earth humans.

"I just got intel! There's evidence that M-country already started their nuke launch a little while ago!"

But just as I was about to use my mini-communicator to contact Luke Channing, he interrupted me with this bad news in a super serious voice.

"No way!"

Adrian and I could hardly believe it at first. Of course we suspected Camille first - maybe she wanted to take all of humanity down with her as she died!

But the problem is, things were so quick, and I killed her instantly at the last second. Once she died, her control over her minions would be gone too. She couldn't possibly have time to pass on orders to the launch site.

"Uh... This urgent update came directly from Number 0 Cyra on the rescue team - the Cyra from our world! She says she beat the original target, the ancestor, but when investigating the base afterwards, they found some leftover vampires had activated the nuke network launch program! Even though they took out those operators right away, the launch is already in countdown now!"

The answer came quickly as Luke Channing told us more details.

Looks like Rasambla might have given the nuke launch order on his own just before he died!