Leobruns and Banaikuj were the last ones to enter the portal, after they passed through it, the portal closed behind them.
"Poisudonom? Archilochus?" asked Rhihamr, a bit worried the moment he saw everyone returning except for them.
"Archilochus has turned into that final form of his, while Poisudonom decided to remain there, he said that after this fight he wanted to keep exploring the ocean… meh, as long as he is happy." Leobruns walked closer to Rhihamr, while Banaikuj waved at them.
"The fight against the humans got me tired, I'll go rest a bit, everyone," said Banaikuj as he walked away. Rhihamr and Leobruns waved at him, and the two Krukins remained talking until Anacreon joined their conversation.
"GUYSSS, HAVE YOU SEEN THE WHOLE CITY IN RUINSS??? YOU DID SUCH A GREAT JOOOOBB!" The moment Anacreon got closer to Rhihamr and Leobruns, he started to scream, happy about the outcome of the attack. "Ehehe, we did such a great job!!" Leobruns positioned his hand around Anacreon's shoulder.
"But are we sure that Archilochus and Poisudonom are enough alone? If I'm correct, leaving them alone wasn't in the plan…" Suddenly, they heard footsteps, the moment they turned around, they saw Phocylides walking towards them.
"Don't worry, Rhihamr… they are not alone," said Phocylides with a weird expression on his face. You could not tell if it was angry or excited, as Rhihamr looked at it, he felt it was both emotions.
After hearing Phocylides' words, Rhihamr suddenly realized something. "Don't tell me we really used her…" he said, lowering his voice as the sentence progressed. Leobruns looked down, and Phocylides still looked at Rhihamr without any concern.
"I told you that we should not have used her… WHY DIDN'T YOU LISTEN TO ME?" Rhihamr shouted, walking closer to Phocylides, their faces not far from each other.
"Hey, Rhihamr, calm down. Now at least we won, we should be happy." Leobruns walked closer and slowly moved Rhihamr away from Phocylides, who had an amused face, not a scared one. The fact that Rhihamr walked this close to him didn't make him scared at all.
"Yeah, he's right. We have such a strong weapon to destroy everything, and we aren't using it?" Anacreon asked a sort of rhetorical question. "And this is the main problem…" murmured Rhihamr, mad, but his voice was so low that it could barely be heard.
Phocylides had heard it quite well, but still, without any problem, he made fun of Rhihamr. "Speak louder, I can't hear you well." Phocylides, amused, positioned his hand over his ear.
Rhihamr breathed heavily, trying to remain calm. "She destroys everything. This is not a war, it's a massacre… this cannot be considered a war anymore," said Rhihamr as he clenched his powerful fists together, trying to vent the anger in his body.
"I've told you, Rhihamr, the humans are your real enemy, all of them should suffer," said Phocylides, still amused by the sight of it. Leobruns tried to calm Rhihamr by whispering into his ear, "You know what they were about to do to us, Rhihamr… it's thanks to Phocylides that we survived."
"Still… most of them were just poor people who didn't decide to fight." Rhihamr pushed Leobruns away with his hand. "We can't make civilians die because of a war, too. It's only the soldiers who decide to fight that have to die in a war… but not the people who didn't decide to fight…" Rhihamr looked down, some tears were about to flow down his cheeks as he remembered something, but the moment he shook his head, he snapped back to reality.
"It's the only way to win a war… it doesn't matter who dies anymore, much blood has already been lost on the battlefields." Phocylides turned his head away, he had a weird look on his face, that of a psychopath who only found excitement in seeing this much war.
"I know, but…" Rhihamr looked around; it felt like both Leobruns and Anacreon were on the side of Phocylides and agreed with him. "I still don't think you're on our side after all…" Rhihamr whispered before turning and walking away.
Phocylides coughed and returned to his normal expression. Looking at Rhihamr walking away with a low expression, he could only say his usual word: "Incessant." With that, Phocylides decided to walk away, not mad, but with an expression that was almost impossible to read.
Returning to Yalemba, the sun had just risen. The moment they buried Garoo's body, everyone in the town started to ask themselves what was going to happen now.
"The whole city is destroyed…"
"We can try to build it all again!"
"But look at the tower… and we don't even have the Voice guiding us anymore…"
Some people believed that they could remain there and build everything again, it didn't matter that the whole city was destroyed, they could build it once more. But other people believed that it was impossible, there were beautiful trees all around the city, and all of them were destroyed because of the fight.
Even the ground was ruined, but not only in the city, all the way to the sea, and even outside the city, Kyujin had destroyed everything. She didn't leave anything to build with anymore.
All the beautiful plants that were all around the city had been completely removed; now there was only ugly brown dirt. Before, there were the bodies of the innocent people too; now, after they were buried, there wasn't anything.
The horizon was empty. Before, it was possible to see cliffs that had a beautiful view, for example, the one on which the building of the Tideflares was built, but it was destroyed. The cliff had been completely destroyed, there were only the debris of the rocks.
"It's impossible to build it all again." Some people walked towards this fallen cliff, but it wasn't the only one that had fallen; there were many others all around Yalemba, but because of Kyujin, they had been destroyed too.
Some people walked towards the debris of the tower, in which there wasn't anything left, not even the old furniture, which was completely destroyed by Kyujin. All the papers flew away towards the sea, there wasn't anything left to discover anymore. Any secret of the White Wings project had been completely lost.
"It's hard to believe that the Voice had already stopped working for so many years…"
"Maybe the mayor didn't tell us to protect us? Yeah, he made the outsiders guilty… but still, in all these years, he was able to do it by himself."
"But are we going to be able to do the same, too?" Many people looking at the destroyed tower could only wonder what would happen to this town. Who would guide them?
"Hey Kael… have you got something in mind?" Liro and Kael were walking around the destroyed city. It was now 10 a.m. and the sun was already hot in the sky. Liro noticed that Kael was walking with his head up, distracted; in fact, he was bumping against multiple pieces of debris on the ground.
"Yeah…" Kael stopped. He moved his eyes to look all around the destroyed town. "Don't you think that it has become impossible to live here?" Liro looked at him, confused. "Yeah… but what are you saying?"
"I know how to help these people." Kael immediately started to walk towards Naluri and Tauren, who were helping the injured. "Naluri, can you please gather everyone here?" Naluri nodded her head. "And after you return, can you give me an exact count of the people, too?"
"Alright, I'll be right back." With that, Naluri grabbed her walking stick and went all around the town.
"What do you have in mind, Kael?" asked Tauren. Next to him, Darian and Snowy's bodies were still laying unconscious on the ground, in fact, all the injured people were laying on the ground, as there weren't any beds they could use. Thanks to the help of Kael and some people who could use earth magic, they were able to create a small building where people could relax and seek shelter from the hot sun.
"I realized that it has become almost impossible to build here again… everything is destroyed. They need to find a new place to live," said he, sitting next to Tauren. "What do you mean, Kael?" Liro sat down next to them too.
"I'm saying that… we should bring them somewhere else. They cannot remain here anymore."
"Somewhere else?" asked Liro, confused.
"Skar'Zhul is having problems with overpopulation… it is out of the question."
"Remember when I told you about the recent attack that Therya received in which around 500 people died?" said Kael, referring to when the city was attacked by the humans.
"Oh, when the two humans tried to conquer the city to make it a garden?" Tauren understood. When they were coming to Yalemba, Kael had explained the recent events that happened in the city. "Exactly. If I have seen correctly, there shouldn't be more than 1,000 people. I think that our city can welcome them."
"Kael, you're crazy! You really think that the Seven Sages would accept it?" said Liro, almost shouting. They were talking in a really low tone, in this building, there were multiple injured people still conscious, and Kael did not want to be heard.
"I know… but we can't leave them here, Liro, you know that." With that, Kael got up and walked away. "I'll think of how to convince them… I'll… return soon." With that, Kael left the building and walked around the city, thinking of a speech.
"I hope it will work…" Liro whispered, hoping that Kael's idea would not fail.
Around 30 minutes had passed. Naluri had returned with all the remaining people in the city. Kael had just returned and immediately called for them.
"Get here, everyone!" called out Kael. All the confused people walked towards him, he was currently floating, and all the people reached him.
Naluri walked right under Kael, who landed next to her. "The survivors are around 1,000," said Naluri to Kael.
"How many died?" he asked, worried about the answer. "Over 3,000." Hearing that, Kael made a sad face.
"Everyone, don't be scared, come nearby." With that, everyone in the city walked towards him. The outsiders remained next to him, and Enea remained behind Tauren, scared of the crowd.
"Everyone, listen to me. I know how hard it has been for you all," Kael started his speech. All the people agreed with him, indeed, it was hard. After a single night, the whole city and all the land around it were completely destroyed. Nothing was left.
"Each of us is close to you. We know that building the city again is going to be hard… but maybe too hard, don't you think?" All the people in the crowd started to ask themselves how hard it was really going to be.
"Maybe he's right… we don't have anything anymore."
"It doesn't matter! Yalemba will not fall here, we have too many memories of this city!"
"But there isn't anything to build the houses with anymore…"
"Everyone, calm down. I know… it's hard to build everything again… almost impossible, if I'm being honest… but! I have something else in mind." All the people immediately wondered what this idea was.
"You have lived here alone from the rest of the world for too long, you need a safer place to live. That is why you all should come with us. In our city, we have enough space for you all, and…" Kael couldn't even finish speaking before multiple people screamed.
"ARE YOU CRAZY??!!"
"WE WILL NEVER ACCEPT THAT!!"
"BUT HE'S RIGHT, LOOK AROUND!"
Kael tried to speak, but his voice was being overwhelmed by the screams of the people in the crowd. Suddenly Lily, who was right in front of the crowd, walked towards Kael. "Make me fly," she said with serious eyes. Kael immediately made her body fly into the sky.
"EVERYONE!! CAN YOU HEAR MEE!!" Suddenly, all the people turned towards the sound of the voice, just to see Lily floating right above them. After the incident with her parents, everyone knew Lily, so it wasn't hard for her to grab everyone's attention. The moment she started to scream, everyone turned silent again.
"I know how sad we are for all the loss that we received… I've lost someone important too, like everyone else. But we can't remain here anymore. You have seen around, there isn't anything left to build. We lost Yalemba; we need to accept it." With that, Lily kept speaking as everyone remained silent.
"WE SHOULD LISTEN TO WHAT HE IS SAYING. HE ISN'T WRONG AT ALL. YALEMBA HAS FALLEN; WE HAVE TO ACCEPT IT. BUT WE SHOULD NOT CRY OVER WHAT'S LOST, WE SHOULD JUST KEEP GOING AND KEEP LIVING, ACCEPTING THE FACT THAT FOR YALEMBA, IT IS OVER!"
With that, many people agreed with her, even though the few remaining old people were still against her idea. Lily floated right next to Kael, who made her land on the ground safely.
"We can't be this closed off, everyone. We need to accept that the world isn't only our city and there are more things that we can explore… but this doesn't mean leaving Yalemba behind… OUR BEAUTIFUL CITY WILL FOREVER LIVE INSIDE OUR HEARTS!"
"YALEMBAAA!!" everyone shouted the name of their beloved city. Naluri cried, seeing how much her child had grown over the years.
"I feel like you've been able to convince them," said Kael with a warm smile to Lily next to him. "Yeah… finally, I'll be able to see more than just this small city…" whispered Lily, looking at the happy crowd. There were still some people who weren't convinced at all, but it was definitely a big step forward toward a better future for everyone.