Soon enough, the water level started to drop at a pace visible to the naked eye as the tide receded further and further away from the harbor. Yet, neither Nyell nor Allen seemed bothered by the unusual event, or alarmed, for all that mattered. Instead, they both continued dancing, their movements fluid and poised, even when the music came to an abrupt halt as the musicians grew too shocked to continue, mouths hanging open and fingers frozen. The last note of the flute stretched, accompanied by the ominous sound of the retiring tide.
In the end, they stopped moving only when the wooden platform touched the ground, tilting sideways due to the uneven sea floor beneath it. Then, they stood still, facing the bare lagoon, their straight backs offered to the crowd's eyes.
"Couldn't they at least have the decency to wait until we were halfway through the dance? What was the point of practicing so much…" Nyell clicked his tongue, rubbing the nape of his neck as he glared at the now very empty lagoon. He caught sight of entire schools of fish helplessly flapping amid the seaweed and fearful crabs roaming on the unveiled, ruggy rifts. "Let me guess, the water is all going to come back crashing onto the land soon, right?"
"Probably, yes," Allen nodded.
"So annoying."
A deafening silence shrouded the harbor, and in this condition, their voices reached far and wide, leaving the people even more shocked. The nonchalant tone didn't match the direness of their words, making it hard to tell whether they should be panicking or not. Maybe it felt too unreal, and no one knew what to do. Whatever the case, no one moved an inch. To begin with, it wasn't as if they could escape; there was nowhere to go. The ships were now lying on the seabed, useless, and the only other option was to turn around and climb high atop the mountain to escape the incoming wave, something they couldn't do in such a short amount of time.
Among the crowd, however, one person frowned in discomfort. Abby felt it. Something was amiss. Why were these two so calm, as if they had been expecting it?
"Oh my," Allen chuckled softly, gesturing toward the receding line of water to Nyell. "It looks like you'd have something to keep yourself busy in the meantime. Aren't you happy?"
"Hm?" Nyell hummed, squinting his eyes as he bent over to take a better look. Silhouettes seemed to be appearing under the moonlight: obscure, weirdly articulated, and muddy ones. Their movements were erratic, and gurgling sounds slowly traveled to Nyell's ears. "What are those things?"
"Sea monster corpses? And some water ghouls, if I'm not wrong."
"Oh? I've never had to deal with either before. How do I kill them?"
"Just tear off their heads. That should do the trick, but be careful not to get bitten or clawed. The wounds would fester in a matter of minutes if it happens, and you might lose a limb."
"Duly noted," Nyell smiled brightly, his eyes curving into crescent moons. "Will you be accompanying me?"
"No, sorry," Allen shook his head, pointing at the horizon where the water seemed to congregate, "I'll need to take care of that. I might be good at multitasking, but there's a limit; this one is going to be huge."
"Is that so?" Nyell cocked an eyebrow, unconvinced. Still, he didn't probe further and instead glanced over his shoulder at Yohan, who was sitting at the edge of a dock beside Miell, their legs dangling below. They seemed to be watching a good show, and both appeared relaxed enough to enjoy eating melon seeds, a foreign product they had bought at a stall earlier. They stood out amid the crowd, which was finally starting to panic. Fear was contagious, and slowly, people began to break down. Nyell ignored them, his gaze locked on the two men sitting leisurely. He asked, "Yohan, want to come with me and blow off some steam?"
"No, thank you. I'm good here."
"Couldn't you at least pretend to be worried and offer a bit of, I don't know, camaraderie?" Nyell rolled his eyes as he jumped off the platform, the wide outer robe fluttering behind him. Why were his acquaintances all so cold-hearted? His poor heart was hurt.
"And why would I do that?" Yohan snorted in response, propping his chin on his hand. "It's not like you need my help. If even I can handle a small horde of undead, there's no way in hell you can't take care of that one on your own."
"..."
"Oh, and also, I don't want to dirty my clothes."
"That's the real reason, isn't it?" Nyell laughed as he propelled himself forward, his nails sharpening into claws. Whatever else Yohan said, he pretended not to hear it.
Enough bantering and delaying—he had things to do.
If anything, Yohan was right. It wasn't as if Nyell needed help taking care of these things. It might have been another story if they were still alive and he had to handle them in water, as he, surprisingly enough, needed air to breathe and survive. Fighting in an aquatic environment didn't suit him, a terrestrial being.
But dead carcasses? Decayed, reanimated corpses? On solid ground? Might as well hang the victory over to him on a silver platter already. They couldn't be any worse than manticores or sabertooths. The only thing undead had going on for them was their tenacity and relentlessness, courtesy of their incapacity to feel fear and pain. However, if one knew how to kill them, they weren't that frightening, except, perhaps, for the diseases their claws and fangs carried. Still, they were slow and sluggish. Nothing he couldn't evade.
The first head flew fast, and Nyell didn't dally, going for the next one as swiftly. His movements were quick, and his reflexes, honed by years of experience, allowed him to react in the nick of time to avoid the hands and mouths of the monsters. He even pitted them against each other whenever the opportunity arose; a few amused chuckles escaped him every time a dead sea monster bit off a water ghoul's head, growling in annoyance after realizing it had missed the target, aka him.
There might have been a swarm of them, but none worked in tandem.
Meanwhile, on the platform, Allen watched his mate 'blow off some steam' from afar with a smile lingering on his lips. Nyell was incredible, and he'd have liked to watch for longer, if not for his own duties. While his mate occupied the undead, he had to take care of the mortal-yet-divine-engineered wave. Myrven and Dangu were tasked with something else and couldn't intervene this time. It would fall on his and Layla's shoulders to shatter it back into what it should be.
The first few times the tidal waves came crashing onto his land, Allen was unprepared and didn't know what he was dealing with. Now, however, he was perfectly aware of how the tidal wave manifested and who controlled it. But he had to wait. Interrupting it as it was being summoned would incur backlash to the child on the other end, and he knew Layla didn't want a comrade of hers to suffer unnecessarily. She still lacked in the emotional department, but it seemed like encountering others like her had somehow sparked the responsibility of an elder sibling in her. She was the oldest, after all, and as such, she should protect the youngest. Or more accurately, use her fathers to protect them. It worked either way.
'What wouldn't I do for her?' Allen sighed to himself, thinking that he had grown soft. The least risky manoeuvre would have been to interfere now, and not after the wave had been unleashed. But oh well. Who didn't have a sweet spot for their kid?
"Layla," he called.
A split second later, the petite woman stood beside him. She had jumped off from one of the highest mansions and glided over the harbor and crowd, almost like a bird. In the White Moon land, she was in her element, and the sea breeze carried her over. Today, she didn't need to hide her lineage or be careful not to be found out, so she wouldn't take her precaution. Not like she had been very good at hiding her strength, anyway. But it wasn't like Abby could point fingers at her in broad daylight, either—although assassins had been sent to her door frequently in the past, and Allen had to dispose of too many to bother to count.
"You remember what I taught you?"
She nodded.
"Alright then, I'll take the left side, and you'll take the right. The moment the wave falls toward us, Nyell is going to run back to our side, so we have to part the water in half to allow him enough time to reach us. Do you want to take my hand?"
Layla turned her head, lifting her beautiful, round eyes, and smiled. For a second, the image of her young self, broken and unresponsive, overlapped with her current self. But it was soon shattered to pieces as she took Allen's hand. So what if she still didn't understand everything, and sometimes lacked common sense? He was still proud of the woman she had become.
"Are you ready?"
Again, she nodded.
Then, a deafening roar echoed throughout the White Moon land, almost bursting their eardrums. The wave had been unleashed, and from afar, they saw Nyell round-kicking a ghoul away before turning on his heels and bolting toward them.
The wet ground was slippery, yet Nyell regained his balance almost instantly. He didn't look behind him, not even once, even as he heard the undead getting crushed by the ravaging wave that chased after him. No, he trusted Allen and Layla to create a path for him. His job had been to keep the undead away from the platform and the people on the harbor and washed up ships while the wave formed, allowing his mate and Layla to concentrate in peace. It would have been a shitshow if they had let the corpses reach the harbor; they might be sluggish, but they knew how to climb on top of each other to get their feast, and the crowd was packed, while those on the ships were trapped. Too many wouldn't have been able to escape.
Nyell could handle them; not the common folk of the White Moon land, even less the foreigners.
Soon enough, the wave reached him. Nyell didn't panic. As expected, it split in half, giving birth to a narrow corridor as he forced his legs to move faster toward the wooden platform. Allen had his left hand raised, while Layla had her right hand raised. Their visages were stretched taut as concentration made them frown and clench their jaws. They fought against the chaotic divine energy that imbued the water, slowly dispersing it to reduce the wave's momentum.
They seemed to be in a trance. If they were left on their own, they would be swallowed by the water at one point and drown. Thus, Nyell picked them both as he made way toward the pier. He passed under their hands, which were still holding onto each other, and grabbed them by the waist to hoist them on his shoulders. Without a break, he then jumped on the hold of a tilted ship, using it as a makeshift ladder before leaping toward the rocky wall of the shore and propelling himself to the dock, just beside Miell and Yohan.
"Damn, I've been taking it too easy lately," Nyell grumped as he glanced below him at the water, which was settling back into the lagoon, albeit with a few waves crashing against the infrastructure of a few docks and ships, destroying parts of them. But for the most part, everything held on, and the boats had been lifted up back. "I need to get back into shape. This was exhausting."
"Maybe getting some good night's rest would help, too," Yohan rolled his eyes, stealing a few melon seeds from Miell, who had been shocked silly by the scene he had just witnessed. In his defense, most of the crowd were left speechless, wondering if they hadn't dreamed awake. As for Yohan, unlike the beastman, he was well aware of what kind of monster Nyell truly was, and he had no doubt his mate was just as bad, if not worse. "Mind telling us what the heck happened, though?"
"Well, that…" Nyell eyed Abby before turning his attention back to Allen, whose eyes had started to return to normal. The strikes of red and silver had been flickering and swirling a moment ago, just as azure and golden strikes had been dancing in Layla's eyes. They seemed to be both gradually pulled back from their trance.
For what was to come next, Nyell didn't know. He'd need to let his mate deal with the aftermath. Politics wasn't his forte, and he had done his part.