"You're pretty good at fighting, aren't you? I guess those things Fulmine said earlier weren't overexaggerated at all." Zani said as she ducked under an attack from a Tacet Discord.
She immediately counter attacked by punching the exposed retina, instantly making it evaporate into light particles.
Not stopping there, she dashed forwards, tackling multiple smaller Tacet Discords at once and then throwing them towards one bigger Tacet Discord, effectively slowing down their advances.
Clank!
"Thanks for that." Zani thanked Rover without even looking back, as if she had eyes at the back of her head.
"No problem. I have many things I'm good at but I think fighting is my forte." Rover, who had just blocked an attack from a hidden Tacet Discord from hitting Zani, responded.
As she blocked and attacked, she took notice of the red flower stuck onto different parts of many different Tacet Discords.
They were all the exact same familiar flower.
Rover could vividly remember keeping the exact same flower that she had found during the Rehearsal's Echo Rampage incident, they all look exactly the same, at varying sizes.
Which means that the perpetrator of that incident also had a hand in staging this outbreak.
Now, she needed to know what these flower does.
Does it control the Tacet Discord or just merely playing with their thought process?
But she doesn't have the opportunity to wonder as the hordes of Tacet Discord never seemed to waver in term of numbers.
In fact, hasn't their number actually been growing?
How long have they been fighting?10 minutes? 30? She can't tell.
Both Zani and Rover combined could kill approximately... 25-ish Tacet Discords minute.
But it's exhausting.
At this rate, they might fall over first before the Tacet Discords' advances end.
Another thing, the amount of Remnant Energy inside every drop of rain was constantly rising, unexpectedly.
This is not normal.
In fact, the Etheric Sea have 2 stages. The Beginning Phase, and The Aftermath.
An Etheric Sea is at its strongest during The Beginning Phase, in which the Remnant Energy was most condensed during this time.
As the rain falls, the Remnant Energy would inevitably return back to nature, slowly making the Etheric Sea lose it's energy, effectively making it weaker with every drop of rain.
In other words, an Etheric Sea is the strongest the moment it appeared and slowly get weaker overtime.
But this one... it's not losing any energy, but is gaining energy.
It's like there's a source of Remnant Energy empowering the Etheric Sea.
...With that in mind, Rover remembered reading one of the past reports in the Black Shore containing information about the Etheric Sea and Retroact Rain.
The one creature that could empower an Etheric Sea... a Threnodian.
Which means that there's a Threnodian currently amongst these Tacet Discords.
"...That makes my job easier. If only other Threnodian would come out of hiding and face me in a fight instead of making me do useless chores. Then, more Lament could be prevented." Rover muttered to herself, thinking of the benefits of her current situation.
Scrit!
Suddenly, the surrounding changed.
"Gah!?" Zani fell over in the grass as she was in the act of punching a nearby Tacet Discord.
With the now lack-of-Tacet-Discord, she couldn't hold her balance and met the ground face first.
"W-What happened?" Zani sat down, confused on the current situation.
Rover stayed silent, also wondering what had aspired.
She unsheathed her sword and looked around.
The weather had changed, and so did the time of the day. While the shape of the geographic hasn't changed, everything else did.
There were now trees with a red flower growing on the branches around them.
Swoosh!
The wind blew over them as Rover and Zani squinted their eyes at the sudden breeze.
Still confused, Rover walked closer towards one of the tree.
From afar, she couldn't see it... but as she got closer, Rover could now make out the shape of a person from behind the trees.
A small person with long black hair was facing away from her.
"...How familiar?" She felt like she had seen that back before.
'Ah, right! Katsuri!' Then, she remembered their other companion.
Rover clutched her forehead, feeling it ache for some reason. Normally, she really wouldn't forget anyone like that, but for some reason, she had forgotten the existence of Katsuri for a while.
'No wait, I did not forget. I was made to 'ignore' her. Something had led to me ignoring her very existence.'
The black haired girl jumped a bit, as if shocked at hearing another presence nearby.
Then, she comically turned her head like a rusted hinge, slowly turning around and meeting the eyes of two other individual, both exponentially taller than her.
"Katsuri? So this is where you disappeared off to. I guess it was fortunate that we didn't bring you along with us up that hill. Otherwise, you would've been caught up in that 'Etheric Sea' phenomenon, or whatever Rover called it." Zani began stretching her body, still stiff from all that moving she had done earlier.
While she was still confused about the sudden change in everything, she didn't mind it.
In fact, it gave her some time to rest and get back into peak shape if she needed to fight again.
Plus, seeing Rover walk around like nothing else matters in the world made her relieved, knowing that this phenomenon is also probably something that could happen inside this Etheric Sea.
Since Rover knew more about the Etheric Sea, Zani had to depend on her on about practically everything related to it.
If Rover doesn't see anything as wrong, then nothing is probably out of place.
And now, they met their companion again! In a safe place too!
"It's quite weird though, it felt like I had forgotten you for a moment." Zani continued on her words, voicing out what Rover had also wanted to say.
"A-a-a-a? H-how...?!" In a sudden turn of event, 'Katsuri' moved quickly to hide herself behind the tree.
"...?"
"...As I thought." Rover began talking. "You are not the 'Katsuri' we know of, are you?"
Rover had asked a question, but instead of answering, 'Katsuri' instead asked her own question in the midst of her panic, "H-how do you... know that name...? I already threw that iden-" Her eyes began zooming, her pupils dilating as she met gaze of Zani.
"Ah..." Then, as if putting pieces of puzzle together, she stopped talking entirely.
Then silently, her gaze turned towards Rover's eyes, her mouth still opened as if shocked at what she saw.
She moved her gaze up and down, scrutinizing the appearances of the two individual standing in front of her.
"This... is a dream? There's dreams even in the afterlife...? I thought it was my safe haven here..." Katsuri began murmuring about some incomprehensible stuff on her own.
"Why is Zani and Rover here...?" She talked to them as if she had known who they were, even as a different 'Katsuri'.