The Conquerors Path

Chapter 1061: Chapter 1059 — The Obsidian Cascades

We transition from the grease-choked, violently heated lower markets to the absolute peak of Aethelgard’s architectural hubris.

“The lower terraces are excellent for culinary violence, but if you want to see where the Dukedom truly wastes its tax revenue, you have to look up.”

Krave announced, licking a final smear of fiercely spiced wyrm-grease from her pale thumb.

She pointed toward the northern quadrant of the capital. Even from a distance, peering through the densely packed layers of aristocratic estates and spiralling coral pathways, I could see the ambient light shifting. The golden, artificial sunset that washed over the majority of the Dry Wards was fractured here, violently intercepted by towering columns of piercing, colourful cyan and deep violet.

“Are those… waterfalls?”

I asked, narrowing my eyes to analyse the distant flow of mana.

“Not exactly, they are the Obsidian Cascades. It is the single most arrogant display of spatial engineering, and I once watched an elven emperor try to build a staircase to the moon.”

Krave beamed, her manic energy fully restored after her brief, nostalgic melancholy in the menagerie. She grabbed my sleeve, dragging me toward the wide, spiralling avenue that led toward the district.

I let myself be pulled along, keeping my hands resting casually in my coat pockets. As we ascended back into the upper echelons of the city, the crowds of sweating merchants and heavily armoured mercenaries thinned, replaced once again by the slow, deliberate pacing of the incredibly wealthy.

I adjusted my perceptual filter to match the new environment. The thick, slightly intimidating aura of unimportance I had projected in the lower markets wouldn’t work here; the nobles were too paranoid, their personal guards too highly trained in detecting localised magical anomalies. Instead, I wove a delicate, flawless layer of utter unremarkability around our trio. To the passing aristocrats, we registered as minor, boring nobility from a distant, irrelevant surface kingdom. Their eyes slid over my coat, Krave’s striking features, and the massive silver wolf draped across my neck without pausing for a single second.

We crested the final rise of the avenue, and the scale of the Obsidian Cascades finally came into full view. I actually stopped walking.

“Ridiculous.”

Luna muttered from my shoulder, though her ears twitched forward, betraying a microscopic sliver of genuine interest.

The district wasn’t built around a natural feature; it was a violent, ongoing argument against the laws of physics. The Aethelgard mages had taken the massive, terrifying amount of excess drainage magic required to keep the Dry Wards empty of ocean water, and rather than simply shunting it out into the abyss, they had weaponised it for aesthetics.

Colossal streams of highly pressurised, glowing ocean water were being violently ejected from enormous obsidian funnels carved into the city’s foundation. But instead of crashing into the streets below, the water hit localised, perfectly calibrated anti-gravity arrays. The massive streams arched upward, defying gravity, looping through the dry, artificial air in beautifully complex, twisting geometric patterns. The bioluminescent algae trapped within the high-speed currents constantly shifted colours, creating ribbons of neon blue, vivid green, and bleeding magenta that illuminated the entire quadrant.

The water continuously looped, spiralling hundreds of feet into the air before crashing down into suspended obsidian basins, only to be instantly sucked back into the spatial funnels and shot upward all over again.

“They built a localised, infinite hydraulic loop, the sheer, raw mana required to keep the pressure gradients from violently exploding the water into steam… It’s staggering. One microscopic misalignment in the spatial anchors, and those streams would cut through the surrounding buildings like a hyper-pressurised blade.”

I murmured, my eyes tracking the staggering density of the runework etched into the floating basins.

“Exactly! The sheer, breathtaking stupidity of it is what makes it so beautiful! Come on, the best view is from the suspended platforms.”

Krave clapped her hands together, thrilled by my assessment.

She didn’t wait for a response, immediately darting toward a sweeping staircase carved from polished bone.

I followed at a more measured pace. The viewing area consisted of a series of circular, flat platforms constructed from sheer crystal, held aloft entirely by independent levitation arrays. They floated precariously close to the roaring, gravity-defying streams of water, connected to the main avenue by narrow, railing-less bridges.

“I am going to that. It is a structurally stupid nightmare.”

Luna declared flatly. Her claws dug half an inch into the heavy fabric of my coat, locking her body securely against the back of my neck.

“The arrays are stable, Luna.”

I noted mildly, stepping onto the first crystal bridge. The platform beneath my boots didn’t even dip under my weight.

“That is entirely beside the point. Explain the logic to me, Austin. We are at the bottom of the ocean. We are surrounded by billions of tons of water. These mortals have expended an unfathomable amount of energy to create an artificial pocket of dry air, just so they can expend another unfathomable amount of energy to make water float inside the air.”

The silver wolf projected, her voice thick with absolute disdain.

I stepped off the bridge onto the primary viewing platform.

“It is an exercise in dominion. They are proving they can control their environment.”

“It is an exercise in redundancy. If they wish to look at floating water, why do we not simply collapse the golden dome and let the ocean back in? We could just swim up the water column. It would be infinitely more efficient.”

Luna snorted.

“Because then the tourists would drown.”

Krave laughed, leaning casually against the edge of the crystal platform, mere inches from a roaring stream of neon-pink water that was currently defying gravity to flow vertically upward.

“I fail to see how that is a negative outcome.”

Luna replied smoothly.

I tuned out their bickering, sweeping my gaze over the platform. The area was cordoned off by heavy, braided velvet ropes, guarded by a squad of Triton elites wielding heavy halberds. This was strictly a VIP viewing balcony, reserved for the absolute upper crest of Aethelgard’s nobility and the wealthiest of their surface-dwelling guests.

Because of my filter, we had strolled straight through the velvet ropes without triggering a single challenge.

A few yards away from us, a group of heavily jewelled human aristocrats stood perfectly upright, politely clapping as a particularly massive surge of cyan water looped through the air above them. They looked stiff, uncomfortable, and entirely focused on maintaining their rigid social decorum.

Standing near the edge of their group were three small children. They were dressed in excessively restrictive, heavily embroidered velvet coats that looked entirely suffocating in the humid, artificially heated air of the wards. They weren’t looking at the water; they were looking at their feet, clearly miserable, forced to stand in absolute silence while their parents engaged in hushed, cutthroat political bartering.

Krave noticed them instantly.

The divine kraken’s expression shifted. The manic, tourist energy melted away, replaced by a sudden, soft warmth that she very rarely displayed to anyone outside of our immediate trio.

“They look terribly bored.”

Krave observed, tilting her head.

“They are minor surface nobility; they are essentially political props for their parents. Decorum dictates they do not speak unless spoken to.”

I replied softly, keeping my voice pitched under the roar of the cascading water.

“Decorum is incredibly stupid.”

Krave stated.

Before I could reach out to stop her, Krave casually stepped away from my side. She completely ignored the invisible boundaries of high-society etiquette, strolling directly past the stiff-backed parents, and stopped right in front of the three miserable children.

Because of my perceptual filter, the parents didn’t even register her movement. But the filter was a suggestion, not a blindfold. Krave actively dropped the suggestion for the three children.

The youngest, a small boy with messy blonde hair, blinked in surprise as a tall, impossibly beautiful woman with dark, predatory eyes suddenly appeared in front of him.

Krave crouched down, balancing perfectly on the balls of her feet, bringing herself down to their eye level. She placed a single finger to her lips, offering them a bright, conspiratorial wink.

“Are you three having fun?”

Krave whispered. The oldest girl, perhaps ten years old, looked terrified. She glanced frantically toward her mother, who was currently entirely oblivious, sipping pearl-wine and nodding at a triton diplomat.

“We… we aren’t supposed to speak to strangers.”

The girl whispered back, her voice trembling slightly.

“Excellent policy, strangers are generally awful. But I am an extremely highly qualified tour guide, which makes me an exception to the rules.”

Krave agreed cheerfully.

Krave turned her head, looking at the massive, roaring stream of high-pressure water looping just a few feet away from the edge of the crystal platform. The water was currently glowing a deep, vibrant indigo.

“Watch.”

Krave commanded softly.

She stood up and casually reached her hand out over the edge of the platform, directly into the path of the cascading water.

I felt my heart skip a fraction of a beat. The water in that stream was moving at a velocity designed to shoot it three hundred feet into the air. The raw kinetic pressure alone should have instantly snapped a human wrist and sheared the flesh straight off her bones.

But Krave wasn’t human.

Her pale fingers slipped into the roaring column of water. The impact didn’t even cause her shoulder to twitch. I saw the localised, ambient mana violently stutter as her ancient, terrifying authority over the ocean effortlessly overwhelmed the complex runework of the Aethelgard mages.

She didn’t cast a spell. She simply told the water to obey its rightful ruler.

Krave pulled her hand back out of the stream. As her fingers cleared the roaring column, she dragged a thick, twisting rope of highly compressed, glowing indigo water with her. The water didn’t splash onto the crystal platform; it hovered in the dry air, violently spinning in place, trapped within the absolute grip of her intent.

The three children gasped, their eyes going wide as saucers.

With a few rapid, incredibly delicate flicks of her fingers, Krave began to shape the floating water. The twisting rope separated into three distinct spheres. The colourful algae trapped inside the water flared brilliantly, reacting to her divine mana.

“Have you ever seen an Abyssal Glider?”

Krave asked the children, her voice taking on the soft, melodic resonance of the deep ocean.

She swept her hand through the air. The first sphere of water elongated, stretching and flattening until it perfectly resembled the massive, armoured leviathan we had seen sleeping in the menagerie. She even managed to condense the water along the back to form the jagged, tectonic-like plates of its armour. The tiny, glowing water-beast began to slowly, peacefully ‘swim’ through the air, circling the blonde boy’s head.

The boy let out a delighted, entirely un-aristocratic giggle, reaching up to poke the illusion. His finger passed harmlessly through the cool, glowing water.

“What about a trench-wyrm?”

Krave asked, her eyes sparkling.

She flicked her wrist, and the second sphere violently uncoiled, transforming into a long, serpentine dragon made entirely of swirling cyan water. It zipped through the air with terrifying speed, playfully darting between the second child’s arms before looping back to hover in front of her face.

“And for you, the absolute terror of the northern depths.”

Krave looked at the oldest girl, the one who had been terrified of breaking decorum.

Krave raised both of her hands. The final, largest sphere of water exploded outward. It didn’t lose its shape; it multiplied, forming into a beautifully detailed, miniature kraken. Eight perfectly sculpted tentacles coiled and whipped through the air, the water shifting from indigo to a violent, deep violet. The tiny kraken drifted down, gently landing on top of the girl’s rigid velvet shoulder, its glowing water-tentacles lightly wrapping around her neck in a comforting, weightless embrace.

The girl’s stiff, fearful posture entirely broke. A massive, genuine smile spread across her face, and she let out a bright, ringing laugh.

The sound of the child’s unrestrained joy finally managed to pierce the aristocratic bubble of the parents. The mother stopped mid-sentence, turning around with a severe frown, ready to scold her daughter for violating the silence.

She froze.

The perceptual filter I had woven around Krave held, preventing the mother from seeing the ancient entity currently crouching in front of her children. But I hadn’t hidden the water.

To the mother and the surrounding nobles, it appeared as though the highly pressurised, lethally dangerous magical cascade had spontaneously gained sentience, broken containment, and was currently swarming their heirs.

The mother let out a piercing, hysterical scream.

“Guards! The containment arrays are failing! Shield the diplomats!”

A nearby triton lord bellowed, dropping his crystal flute, which shattered against the platform.

The entire VIP balcony erupted into instant, terrified chaos. Nobles scrambled backwards, shoving each other out of the way in a desperate bid to reach the crystal bridges. The elite halberd-wielding guards violently pushed forward, their eyes frantically scanning the runework on the platforms, entirely failing to understand why the localised alarms hadn’t triggered.

Krave looked up at the screaming nobles, then back down at the children, offering them an unapologetic, deeply amused shrug.

“Well, it seems playtime is over. Remember, kids, decorum is for cowards.”

Krave sighed, standing up and dusting her hands off.

She snapped her fingers.

The tiny, beautifully sculpted leviathan, wyrm, and kraken instantly lost their structural cohesion. The intent holding them together vanished. They reverted to simple, gravity-bound water, splashing harmlessly onto the children’s heavy velvet coats in a shower of glowing, wet sparks.

Krave casually turned her back on the screaming aristocrats and strolled back over to where I was standing.

“You are a menace to societal stability.”

I murmured, my voice perfectly even as I effortlessly adjusted the boundaries of our stealth. I widened the perceptual filter, ensuring that in the ensuing panic, not a single guard or noble would recall seeing three strangers loitering on the platform.

“I am merely providing educational enrichment; those children will remember the water-kraken long after they forget whatever boring trade dispute their parents were discussing.”

Krave smiled, looking immensely satisfied with herself.

“You made them wet. Humans despise being wet while wearing their heavy fabrics. You have likely caused them immense physical discomfort.”

Luna observed dryly from my collar.

“It builds character.”

Krave shot back.

I didn’t bother arguing. The halberd-guards were already charging past us, their heavy boots thundering on the crystal platform as they desperately searched for the source of the magical breach. I smoothly turned on my heel, placing a firm, guiding hand on the centre of Krave’s back to keep her moving.

“Come along, let’s go find the botanical gardens. I want to see how many priceless, ancient flowers you can accidentally destroy before they permanently ban us from the upper wards.”

I said lightly, steering us toward the exit bridge while the VIP balcony continued to melt down into a glorious, unregulated panic behind us.