Angel Monarch

The two of them chatted for a while longer, but soon a deep rumble shook Sera's stomach. Only now did she realize how famished she was.

David was about to say something else, but Sera cut in, her face not showing even a hint of embarrassment.

"Hey, do you guys have some food? I haven't even for at least a day!" For a moment the cohort and David looked at her with confusion. One of the woman in the group quickly grabbed some leftover from her pack and gave it to Sera.

Without looking at what it was Sera devoured it. She didn't care about the questioning looks the others gave her. After about a minute of eating she finally finished. Her eyes instantly met David's, but she had no idea why he was staring at her.

"What is it?" She asked in her usual emotionless tone.

"It's nothing, just... It's weird you have no food. This island has so many monsters you could hunt... Why haven't you eaten for an entire day?"

Finally Sera understood why he and the others were confused. With a small nod she began to tell him about their journey from Skyros to Lesvos.

The whole cohort stared at her with wide eyes and mouths agape as she began the story with an abomination swallowing the whole island of Skyros. They looked terrified just by her account of the event.

Then their terror turned to awe and amazement when she spoke of their fight through the Aegean, then they became scared again when she recounted how the brain horror looked.

She kept their final escape brief on purpose. There was no way she would tell the truth about who saved her and her team. Even her own group had no idea of his identity and she preferred to keep it that way... Until the others arrived of course!

"Well... That explains it... Really?!... That's how an Abomination actually looks like... Scary motherfuckers that's for sure... Luckily all the Ethereals are gone from Earth.

Imagine how fast the Alliance would've died out if even one of those assholes would be here..."

Sera didn't have to imagine it at all, but just like always she knew more than most people.

When the whole Federal Alliance was born and the war had started, there was a worldwide operation lead by the high echelons of the Alliance. All of the Ethereals that were on Earth were in a different realms on that day.

The operation was highly classified, but Harold didn't really care to keep it a secret and he didn't find it strange when Sera asked about it.

Operation Enclosed Earth was its name. In the span of one day the strongest of the Alliance destroyed about a dozen realm gates cutting off access to every Ethereal.

Without them the Federal Alliance could thrive. If even one of them found its way back to Earth, it meant death to every war participant... Well, if the Ethereal felt like it of course.

There were multiple Stellar in the Federal Alliance, but the jump in power between a Stellar and an Ethereal was just simply too high, impossible to bridge.

Also evolving into an Ethereal isn't as simple. Even Sera had no idea how it worked since it was always some personal task people had to complete. It was never truly hard, but more time consuming than anything else.

For example be the ruler for 50 million people and have them fear you for generations, or kill a dozen different types of horrors in a days period.

They aren't easy to complete and sometimes very specific. Nobody knows what's the deciding factor when the tasks are given, but it always relates to the person's powers in some way.

Eventually Sera realized that she didn't say anything about what David said, so with a few second delay she spoke.

"Yeah, it was really bad. Just by it looking at me was dangerous... *sigh* Anyway that's my journey, I hope yours wasn't as exciting."

The cohort just collectively laughed in dejection. It should've made them happy that their journey was boring, but they loved to fight, so it was a bit sad that they had no chance to do so.

"As always these lands are quite peaceful. We still send out patrols around Antalya, but it's unnecessary. It makes city defense easy, but gives the soldiers less chance to practice... and we need to practice don't we?" The cohort cheered about what he said, but they didn't notice his wink towards Sera.

She showed a small smile and nodded in understanding.

They spent the next few hours chatting and catching up like this. When the Sun had finally come up, Sera's team started to stir and it was time to move towards their destination together.

...

The rest of her group wasn't that surprised by the Ouroboros Cohort. Sera was called into action, so they had already guessed that David and his team would be too.

What they didn't expect is that they would meet them on Lesvos, but when they asked about it David's answer brought light on the reason.

"We didn't actually plan to come this way, but some horror blocked our planned path so we had to make a detour." Said David while looking at Sera.

"Its good you did so, at least the rest of the journey will be much easier together." Said Sera, her voice didn't reveal any of her real thoughts.

She had the suspicion that David didn't came this way because of a horror, but to talk with her while the spies of the Federal Alliance were still out of earshot.

As she thought of that her eyes moved to the watch on her hand, with a few quick moves Sera turned the watch completely off. She didn't actually know if they were listening on it, but she wouldn't chance it.

David saw this happen, then discreetly done the same. When both could talk safely they moved out further away from the rest of their teams so they wouldn't hear them.

"How is the plan going?" Asked David after they went far enough away.

"By our current judgement it will start before the New Year. Everything is ready on your part?" She said in a whisper, her voice still emotionless, but also a bit excited.

For a moment David looked down at her curiously, then answered confidently.

"Yes. The Angelic Order has done their job and the device is ready to be activated at any moment. What I don't understand is where it gets all that energy from, I mean I know where the energy originates from, but how does it get there?"

Sera just chuckled a bit next to him.

"Fuck if I know! You should ask one of my scientists, they are the ones who are making this plan a reality!... I should really give them a raise!"

Both chuckled a bit, but Sera's just like always, sounded humorless. They stayed silent after that. When David was about to ask more they finally spotted the sea on the horizon.

They were currently at the northern edge of Lesvos island and they had to cross a more than ten kilometer span of sea to get to the mainland and continue their journey.

Before embarking in the morning they talked about how they will cross it. David and his team didn't really have methods to fly, his cohort had no flying transformation.

They crossed the island with the help of David's serpent form, but this span of water was different from the southern side... it was littered with corpses.

A shiver still went down on Sera's spine just by thinking about the brain horror.

The current plan was that Sera, Kathy and Percy would fly everyone to the other side as fast as possible. They were hoping the horror wouldn't notice them and they would be far enough away from this hellhole by the time it arrived.

This plan worked quite well, unlike their other previous plans.

They managed to transport everyone and didn't even see signs of that horror. The cohort left the seashore running. They didn't want to test fate and linger.

When they were in relative safety again, Sera and David moved away from the main group continuing their previous conversation.

"Anything else I should know about?" Asked David, his voice a lot more serious than usually. Sera looked forward for a bit in silence. She didn't know if she should tell this to David or not.

Eventually she sighed and told him anyway, there was no reason to hide it any longer.

"We found Harold's research facility." She said this even quieter than usual, like she was afraid of even speaking his name out loud. David's interest got perked up instantly.

By his knowledge they were looking for the place, but nobody knew where to find it. Looking at Sera though, he understood that they didn't find it recently, but they hadn't told him about it.

He nodded to himself in understanding and put a hand on Sera's shoulder. As she looked up David smiled down at her, not saying anything. Sera made a tiny smile as well.

They both understood each other and the meaning behind their silence. If there was no reason to tell him, she wouldn't. They worked on this principle for more than a year and so far nobody noticed the meaning behind their actions.

"So, where is it?" Asked David after a few seconds.

"Below the Italian Peninsula on a large island named Malta. We used my watch to pinpoint its location. It wasn't easy since his defenses block most signals, but with the help of one special item we managed to bridge that gap." Answered Sera proudly.

He looked at her with raised eyebrows. By her past accounts, she couldn't bring any items to the research facility.

"What kind of item?" He asked, but Sera's answer only confused him more.

"Nothing..."

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