The specter's howl faded, dispersed into the abyss like ink in water. The monstrous spirit of Elynas — ancient, broken, and howling with unspent fury — was undone with a mere wave of Neuvillete's hand. Its death was not violent… it was clinical. Cold. Merciful in the most surgical way.
The waters stilled. The light dimmed.
And within the floating seashell, the little girl remained.
Shaking.
Alone.
Neuvillete turned back to Orion, his robes fluttering in the wake of invisible tides, his expression that of a divine judge whose verdict had already been carved into the stone of time.
"The monster's spirit," he said, voice carrying the finality of a tomb being sealed, "escaped its death and took refuge in this child when its flesh was torn apart by Maréchausée Phantom. It fed on her emotions. Her grief. Her will."
He approached her again — no longer out of curiosity, but with a purpose that chilled the water.
"And now that the beast is gone, there remains one question."
"What shall we do… with the vessel that invited it in?"
He reached down, his hand gliding toward her as gently as a falling snowflake — and yet the moment his palm touched her head, the temperature of the abyss dropped.
"You struck a bargain with the spirit," he said, frowning deeply as if he could see through the strands of her soul. "You wished to soothe its hatred. To give it another chance. You believed mercy was the right path. But monsters do not change their nature… and they never pay their price. "
He turned towards Orion for a second,"Your arrival gave me an opportunity, The excuse I needed to appear in the world to pull her in."
Elynas whimpered, her voice shredded by guilt and terror.
"I didn't want to… I… I didn't mean to hurt anyone…"
Tears spilled from her cheeks like saltwater veins ruptured open, yet Neuvillete's grip did not loosen.
"Intent does not cleanse consequence," he said. "You allowed death to persist. If not for my hand—if not for my gaze—Ronovoa would have witnessed the half dead and half living state of the monster. The final judgment would have come for Fontaine then and there."
His fingers tightened ever so slightly around her head — not enough to crush, but enough to make her body tense with fear. The water itself wept as her cries grew louder.
"And so, to balance the weight you disrupted... the price must be paid. A death for a death. Only then can Fontaine return to stillness."
"NEUVILLETE, DON'T—!" Orion cried out.
With sudden, desperate strength, he surged forward, a rush of frost and steel breaking through the oppressive tide. Felix's roar echoed behind him, and Frieda's voice screamed within.
Orion reached her.
Just as Neuvillete's judgmental grasp prepared to extinguish her future, Orion tore her away — his arms wrapping around Elynas like a human shield, like a brother made of warmth and wrath.
The Sovereign's palm hung in the air, empty.
Time stopped.
The silence cracked.
Elynas sobbed into Orion's shoulder, shivering, her small frame clinging to his as though it were the only anchor left in a drowning world.
"She's just a child!" Orion growled, ice forming along his skin from the rising power within. "A scared, grieving child — not some Herald of Ruin!"
"That child made a deal with monster, which you don't seem to understand, that Elynas was the creation of one of the 5 sinners, Gold." Neuvillete said, voice now sharpened into something older than time. "A Sovereign's mercy cannot be given cheaply, Orion. We are not mortals. We cannot afford to pretend we are. Elynas was blinded by the amusement, he can't see what he was doing wrong. And because of her foolishness, Such a being continued to persist for longer than it was supposed to."
Orion stood between him and the girl, breath shaking, eyes blazing with Cryo light.
"Then let me pay it," he said. "If someone has to die for balance… take me."
Orion stood there, the trembling girl clutched tightly in his arms, his body shaking with the aftershock of defying a Sovereign.
Yet in that moment — something deeper than defiance began to stir.
The waters around them pulsed.
First a ripple.
Then a tremor.
Then—like a breath held too long by the world itself—release.
The elements responded.
Not with violence.
But with reverence.
Air, Fire, Electro, Geo — even the silent Cryo that whispered from the frozen lines of Orion's veins — all of them began to converge. They shimmered like ghosts, like memories, like constellations undone.
And then…
Hydro.
The ocean, Neuvillete's own kingdom — his blood — flowed toward Orion.
No command had summoned it.
No ritual had invoked it.
It simply came.
Streams of water curled around Orion's body like a crown of living rivers. They kissed his skin. Pooled at his feet. Lifted his hair into weightlessness. The space shimmered with bluish luminescence, and Elynas — in his arms — was washed in that glow. Her sobbing slowed, replaced by awe.
"What…?" Neuvillete whispered.
His voice was not furious.
It was shaken.
He took a single step forward — hesitant — like a priest witnessing a statue weep blood.
"This is… impossible."
The Hydro swirled around Orion like it no longer belonged to the Sovereign. As if it had remembered another master. A purer vessel. Or perhaps… a greater truth.
"The element I command—" Neuvillete's words faltered as he lifted his hand.
Nothing responded.
The tide did not rise.
The current did not bend.
The sea did not listen.
His command echoed into silence.
And the water remained loyal to Orion.
"You…" Neuvillete said, eyes wide with disbelief. "The Hydro has… betrayed me?"
No.
Not betrayal.
Revelation.
The water danced around Orion's form — droplets lifting like celestial pearls, orbiting him like tiny moons. The very magic of Fontaine pulsed in resonance.
"You who carry three souls…" Neuvillete whispered, voice barely audible now, almost reverent. "What are you?"
Orion looked up — no longer trembling. His expression was no longer just desperate.
It was certain. Calm.
"I don't know yet," he said. "But maybe… I'm not the only one who needs to ask that question."
The elements whispered around him.
And in that moment — for the first time in an age — Neuvillete looked small.
Neuvillete's form shimmered.
His human shape unraveled — elegance dissolving into mass, into might, into something primeval.
Water coiled upward like a reversed waterfall, scales forming in layers upon layers of liquid armor. His spine stretched, his neck elongated. Muscles surged beneath glowing hide, and his massive limbs touched down with the echo of thunder across the seabed.
Where once stood a man, now loomed the true Sovereign of Fontaine — the Dragon of Judgment.
He had no wings. He did not need them.
His throne was the ocean itself.
The platform beneath Orion cracked from the pressure. The water above began to twist into a spiral — not falling, but watching, as if the very sea was holding its breath.
"You carry a force that does not belong to you," Neuvillete rumbled, eyes glowing with abyssal depth. "And that child…" — he cast a glance at Elynas, still shaking in Orion's arms — "...carries a weight she was never meant to bear."
He raised a clawed hand.
And the Hydro answered.
The waters surged up like serpents. They listened to him — as they always had. His Authority over them remained intact.
And yet…
They did not strike.
They coiled.
They hovered.
Hydro's will obeyed — but it hesitated.
The sea had not forgotten whose heartbeat it had felt earlier. Whose sorrow it had tasted. Whose courage it had embraced.
"Strike," Neuvillete ordered again, his voice louder, edged now with frustration.
The water shivered.
But it did not move.
Instead, it circled Orion… and the child… protectively.
"You refuse me?" the Sovereign whispered, disbelief in every syllable.
In that moment, Frieda emerged.
She surged from within Orion's soul like a frost-laced wind — a warrior's soul, a healer's heart. She grabbed Elynas from Orion's trembling arms and clutched her to her chest.
"You've done enough," she said, voice low and shaking — not with fear, but with anger that barely contained itself beneath her skin.
Elynas wept into Frieda's embrace, the sound of a child too broken to scream.
Felix growled — a low, guttural snarl that reverberated through the water like a warning drumbeat. He slithered around them both, wings tucked, tail arched, eyes blazing with protective fury.
And for the first time in the entire encounter… Neuvillete paused.
The Sovereign — bearer of ancient Authority — stood there, drenched in silence, watching as his domain chose others over him.
"You would dare bare your fangs at me?" he asked, voice like a calm before a storm. But it shook. Slightly.
Frieda stepped forward, Elynas still wrapped in her arms.
"You nearly killed him," she spat. "You would've crushed this girl — a child grieving and broken — because she made a mistake out of compassion."
"You speak of compassion like it outweighs consequence," Neuvillete growled.
"No," Frieda snapped, "I speak of mercy. Something I thought a Sovereign of judgment would understand."
The Hydro around them surged again.
But not as a weapon.
It flowed gently around Elynas and Frieda, forming droplets that shimmered like protective charms, as if the ocean itself was shielding them from its own king.
Felix snarled again, lips peeled back, tail coiled like a striking whip.
"You're afraid," he said with a smirk that bared fangs. "You see something in him that even you don't understand."
Orion didn't speak.
He couldn't.
The elements around him still whispered. Still cradled him.
He felt the weight of their presence.
He knew what they were offering.
And Neuvillete — Sovereign, ancient judge, wielder of tides — stood there…
And the sea no longer rushed to his defense.