The Word rang out, and now His coils shuddered and His head wavered, the great Clam about Him faltering and Its shell partially falling before It recovered. The Word of Creation echoed and re-echoed, as if sustained by the power and shocked Awareness of a High Emperor, smiting His ears again and again as it shattered the lies and preconceptions He had woven about Himself, forcing Him to look on that which He had done with absolute impartiality and soul-searing comprehension of His own arrogant presumptions and the mistakes made from them.

After all, even if He was not Good, He was a High Emperor with vast mental abilities and comprehension, and so was far closer to the meaning of TRUTH than lesser beings. That didn’t mean He could resist it more easily; it meant He was affected even more strongly by the absoluteness the Word represented!

The waters of the Court were swirling now in agitation, not merely from Him, but from the Clam behind and about Him, probably His greatest and most trusted advisor.

The eyes of the High Emperor and myself turned to look at the great mass of muscle and tissue behind Him supporting that vast Shell, as something else became apparent, too.

The Immortal Clam had the Curse Element!

Several things happened simultaneously.

One, the massive Shell slammed shut with impossible speed for its size, intending to entrap The Sea Emperor within.

Two, a great and deadly scarlet Rune blazed to unholy life on the inside of that Shell, a massive Curse aimed directly at the power of The Sea Emperor, raging with an intimacy of knowledge only beings who had known one another for countless years could have.

Three, a massive Psychic attack, reinforced by natural Formations of the Court, hit the whole area and the waters beyond with terrifying power. I sensed the minds of tens of thousands of Aquatics of Ruler-level and below get destroyed instantly just by the fallout of the attack. Even the Emperors waiting beyond reeled as their minds and souls were slammed and shocked by a strike particularly attuned to them, caught up in illusions and madness woven over endless years just for this moment.

And fourth, I was there.

My Arcane Fusion went off as the Sublime Chord rose to a sea-shaking crescendo, and with it went the double Spellflares, backed by full Sage Mana. The Court of the Sea Emperor lit up with radiant Silver Magic never seen here before.

The first Spellflare smashed into the Slaughter Rune designed to cripple The Sea Emperor in body and soul, slamming home before the Shell could close, even while the massive wave generated by the impossibly-fast snap-closing parted around me via Primus’ Water Elemental Command.

The Curse Magic ignited, went wild, and dancing sparks of multi-thaumic arcane energies thrashed wildly as the Shell slammed shut, trapping The Sea Emperor within it... but not a crippled Sea Emperor.

The second counter-slammed into the Psychic Magic smashing into my Will, and my Negapsi Reprisal, also juiced with Sage Mana, went off with the force of an exploding thunderstorm deep under the sea.

The magic here detonated, and fed back into the Formations... and then back into the Immortal Clam that was the original source of it. Thousands of raging Lightning bolts in three spectrums exploded over the Court and ripped the ancient structure and its Formations into scattered rubble before writhing over the walls, floors, and ceiling like thought-quick snakes pouring down into the original source of the Psychic energy, following it and bypassing material defenses... like the Clam’s Shell.

At the moment of Its own greatest weakness, the shredding force of my rebuttal tearing through Its mind, the Fastcast Command went off.

Simple, focused, precise. “OPEN!” I ordered It, and our Wills collided in Song and pain.

With an awkward, wrenching hesitation, the invulnerable Shell flipped about halfway open before Its subdivided mind managed to bounce the order around and start trying to isolate it from thoughts that were reeling from Lightning and Thunder pounding through them, a sensation It had not experienced in all Its many eons of existence. The single Word BURNED It with a dozen different energies, a catastrophic introduction to new pains of the mind and soul at a very bad time.

The Sea Emperor’s coils moved, almost spasmodically, whatever other magic was involved inside that Shell still not enough to kill Him, only injure Him in a moment of weakness. In seconds, the thousand-plus meters of the High Emperor’s body had slid from His former Throne, taking up position around, above, and behind me as we faced down the greatest traitor in the Court of the Sea Emperor.

“Psychic attacks, Elder!” I instructed Him, as I both extended the Domain of my Holy Water Seed and pulled in massive amounts of Earth Mana up through the ruins of His Courtyard.

Saltstone-infused Jade gathered in merely a breath, pouring inside the Shell that was jerkily attempting to close once again, millions of tons of stone animating even as the entire Court was swallowed in glowing, rapturously Singing Holy Water.

I could feel the stunned realization of The Sea Emperor as every bit of Water in the area was suddenly not in the control of Himself or the Clam. A Holy Light was illuminating the entire area with a radiance the world and its oceans had never seen before... and that Holy Water was incredibly hostile to the ancient Creature with Dark Mana bubbling out of It!

The Immortal Clam’s Shell clamped shut... or tried to, crunching loudly onto the very sharp, very hard, and very massive Pyramid of Saltstone Jade now sitting inside It, its material eating away at and repelling the Watery nature of the Clam like a massive suppressive Ward situated inside Its own Shell.

The pain had to be horrible, but that was the idea. If It wanted to close Its Shell and become nigh-invulnerable, It would have to punch through Its own Shell with the immovable spike I had just made inside It, a devastating catch-22. Without Water Magic to draw on, Its Psychic and Curse Magic simply could not move the mass of the stone, and It had no real appendages It could use to do the same.

Thrumming Psychic power lashed through the opening in Its Shell, and the Immortal Clam squealed in pain again as the Will of the High Emperor crashed into It. Other Runes etched unseen into the pearlescent interior of Its Shell flashed to life, trying to fend Him off.

Chained Spellflares crashed into all of them, and then my Shards began pounding into that vast agglomeration of muscle and brain tissue. There really wasn’t anything better for disrupting Its concentration than more wild feedback and pounding Chords bypassing Its resistance as Its magic went devastatingly wild. The ten-foot lance-like Shards of compressed energies filled with anti-Dark powers proceeded to punch into It.

Its Shell could probably have held me off, although I had no doubt The Sea Emperor could have eventually clawed through the thing... or the Hordemaster Starfish Emperor that was coming back this way could have pulled it open in time. But now, Its nigh-invulnerable Shell could not close, meaning It could not attack with impunity, and... It was weighted down too much to actually move, nor could it manipulate the Water to actually form the jets needed to do so!

The amount of Psychic energy being hurled around was massive, the waters congealing from the clashing Psychic waves, and I felt the Starfish True Emperor hold up, unable to continue in the face of the rapidly rising rage of The Sea Emperor’s attacks. The Immortal Clam was mounting an amazingly resilient defense, Its foundation a billion years old or something, but all that did was make The Sea Emperor kick His assault up to levels only a High Emperor could, bringing all that endless Mana and overwhelming force down on the Immortal Clam.

Parts of Its massive brain were exploding in eruptions of pale quivering flesh and shutting down, while my Shards were hitting with the force of chain-gun howitzer rounds, only getting faster and harder and deadlier with every repeated Casting. Psychic energies tore at reality and perception, I held them off, and my barrage grew faster, faster, and faster!

Tons of impossibly strong muscle fibers were blown through and sprayed everywhere. The Holy Waters around It ate at every cell in Its body, Dark Mana flaring and being devoured at a massive rate, Its immense form only making It more vulnerable to the Domain. It steamed and Burned and bubbled all over, even parts of Its Shell flaking off and away as vivus raged wildly around It under Its desperate magical throes.

The force and weight against the tip of the Pyramid rapidly ebbed as I ripped Shards across the anchor muscles. They burst, burned, tore, and ripped apart as anathema had its way.

The annoyance of the Shell dealt with, I began to follow The Sea Emperor’s Psychic assaults with Shard attacks to the same areas of the Clam’s mind and brain being assaulted, reading the targets and force of what He was doing. I both ripped open weaknesses for Him to exploit and followed in the wake of His savage Psychic rampages, magnifying the damage dealt with physical accompaniment to the assault on the Clam’s mind and soul.

Bubbling compressed Dark Mana long concealed in Its body and Shell was coming out, igniting vivic torches all over Its glowing mass now, while the wounds in Its massive internal body were also spurting heavy unwhite mists. Everything was smoking and bubbling at the same time as the Waters It should have been able to contend against The Sea Emperor’s power with simply refused to obey It, and It could only sit there and endure and die far more quickly than It had ever expected.

The Interdiction went off, the sphere of Veil-reinforcement filling the Court and area for miles around, just seconds before the massive Psychic Call went out. The Call was shattered and broken by The Sea Emperor, but it had been intended to cross space and bring aid... and there was absolutely no way for that aid to reach It from Below now.

It could, however, reach them in the real world, if the Tainted Emperors returned right now.

-Reynard, I have an urgent message to Leviathan Emperor and His Imperial Vassals. They need to be On Station above The Sea Emperor’s Throne to head off a possible assault by the corrupted Aquatic True Emperors, like, right now, if possible!-

-Relaying to Him and Ancestor!- Reynard /replied promptly, able to feel the urgency of the request.

With the surrounding Rulers either slain or catatonic, and the Emperors stunned, caught in illusions, or reeling in madness, it was the perfect time to strike, and there was no way the fallen Aquatic Emperors would not have planned for this, with the very deepest of their sleeper agents ready to pounce and strike.

They might even have been able to do it, unless The Ice Emperor intervened, or some strange random factor had not arrived. If the True Emperors had actually been inside the Court when that Psychic Attack went off, they would have been absolutely useless and totally slaughtered.

With the True Emperors dead, the surviving Low Emperors would only have been able to flee... either to The Ice Emperor, or to Leviathan’s Demesne, which even multiple True Emperors would find extraordinarily deadly to attack, especially if White Death Wolf Emperor happened to be on station, too.

---

It took less than a minute for the Portal to open above, just outside my Interdiction. Four Imperial Whales surged forth into the Atlantic there, Whalesong hitting the Sublime Chord and the whole ocean thrumming expectantly at their presence.

Very importantly, Blessed power over Water and Thunder energy was beating in the waters and psiscape, broadcasting the fact that not only were the Whales here, any arriving True Emperors were coming straight into a shitstorm!

They were going to find out about the Other Presence waiting patiently behind a hole in space there far too late to do anything about it, too.

I did feel Flowing Silver Emperor reach out and down with His thoughts and Psychic power, beginning to work on the floating and helpless True and Low Emperors down there. He leisurely broke the illusions that bound them, cut through the madness and set their thoughts aright, or jolted them out of insensibility one by one with the power of His thoughts.

It was not a display any other Psychic Beast would have been able to equal, but Flowing Silver had seen the power of The Moon and Stars to Restore minds and souls, and He had paid careful attention to how it worked...

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Writhing Dreams Krakenoid Emperor hadn’t been affected by the Psychic Assault of the Immortal Clam at all, despite being the most Psychically-adept of the remaining True Emperors, and so she should have been a primary target of it.

The Hordemaster Starfish had endured the attack by being incredibly resilient to such things coming from Mollusks, and being outside the focus. Its immediate reaction to return to The Sea Emperor and help with the fight against a probably ancient rival and default prey had probably kept the Writhing Dreams Emperor from coming in behind us to ambush us.

It had still been enough time for Her and the Sea Hag Emperor to slaughter Enthralling Song Siren Emperor and Deep Clouds Jellyfish Emperor, however.

Leviathan Emperor and His Vassals dove on them, wrenching absolute control of the Waters away from them with Blessed control and power that nearly equaled that of a High Emperor. The two traitors could only scream as the Psychic and Thunder assaults came down on them in tandem, shaking their bodies and souls with dreadfully enhanced attacks.

The pinpoint, precise, and surpassingly focused Psychic attacks by a High Emperor Fox were completely unexpected, and were not enjoyed in the slightest as Flowing Silver expressed His opinion of their rebellion.