Leveling Up by Seducing Milfs-Chapter 159. The Ocean Empress

Rick was back in the council chamber with his bonded partners and the Mage Council representatives before the sun had even risen over Valdris.

Fredrich stood at the head of the table with his usual calm look on his face. Zephyra sat across from him with her baby sleeping soundly in a sling against her chest.

Rick saw that even though it was early in the morning, Zephyra looked as sharp and awake as ever. "My god... I can’t stop looking at how beautiful Zephyra is."

"Will I be a dick by cucking Heinz...? There’s no fucking way that our spirit bond is going to have some intimate moments, right?"

"Still... my mind and body can’t control myself if it’s related to some lustful things. Maybe this is the reason why my libido starts going higher and higher?" Rick immediately shook his head and looked back at Zephyra. "No... stop! I can’t!"

Her brown eyes were already looking at everyone in the room through those elegant glasses. Heinz, her husband, sat next to her nervously, holding what looked like a bunch of magical scrolls. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

Fredrich started the meeting by saying, "Thank you all for coming on such short notice," as he spread a big map out on the table.

"As you can see, we’ve gotten some bad news from our scouts who are keeping an eye on the oceanic territories."

"Seems like those corruption won’t give us a tiny break because the Archon probably can fully utilize our breaks."

Zephyra moved her glasses and spoke in her usual flat voice. "The corruption in the Astral Deep... the ocean area that Ocean Empress Nerissa Abyssryn directly controls, has gotten worse faster than we thought it would."

Rick looked confused when he heard the name ’Nerissa Abyssryn’, and he probably thought it was her name. It’s impolite for him to ask while she’s explaining stuff.

"Two weeks ago, fifteen percent of the money was corrupt... and now, it’s almost thirty percent."

"Just for two weeks and it’s already... thirty percent?" Carmilla leaned forward, and her tactical mind was already working on what it meant.

"That’s twice as much as before."

"Indeed," Zephyra said. "But what worries us most is how it spreads.

"The corruption isn’t spreading in the usual ways... It’s coming from above."

She waved her hand, and the crystal ball in the middle of the table showed a picture of dark, swirling clouds over rough ocean waters. There was lightning in the clouds, but it was looking so distorted that it had some kind of purple corruption energy to it.

"A storm of corruption," Natasha said in a voice that cut through the room. "Atmospheric corruption falling straight into the ocean."

"T-That’s impossible because it’s never happened before..."

"You’re correct," Fredrich said with a frown. "The storm showed up three days ago over the Astral Deep and hasn’t moved or gone away."

"It just sits there, pouring corrupted rain into the ocean all day and night."

"None of the magical methods we have attempted have been effective against it."

Rick looked at the projection with his newly improved level 50 senses, which picked up on things he would have missed before. "If normal magic can’t stop it, that means the Archon is keeping it going."

"This isn’t merely random corruption... it’s a deliberate attack."

"Your deduction is right," Zephyra said, and Rick could have sworn he heard a hint of approval in her voice.

"The Archon is putting a lot of effort into corrupting the Astral Deep because it’s the center of the oceanic ward network."

"If the Astral Deep falls, all of the oceans on Zorathia will follow within weeks..."

Zara put her arms across her chest. "So we need to get to Ocean Empress and talk her into letting us help."

"Where the hell is she actually...? I haven’t heard her in years!"

Fredrich showed where the storm was centered on the map. "The Meridia Citadel, her kingdom, is deep below the Astral Deep."

He pointed to a coastal settlement on the map’s edge. "The only way to the surface is through Tidebreak."

"Tidebreak is the closest human settlement to the Astral Deep. In the past, it was a trading post between people who lived on the surface and the ocean kingdom."

"That’s where we need to start if we want to get in touch with Empress Nerissa."

"Still... there’s some slight problem," Zephyra said, her baby moving a little in the sling.

She rocked back and forth softly while she talked. "We all knew that the Ocean Empress had cut herself and her kingdom off from the rest of the world."

"For more than a month, she hasn’t talked to anyone in a diplomatic way."

"Wards that are so strong that even the best mages in my council can’t get through them have sealed off the underwater paths to Meridia Citadel."

Rick felt like he had been there before. "This sounds like something I’ve heard before."

"Isn’t this scenario pretty much the same thing that happened in the demon realm?"

"Powerful leaders cut themselves off, corruption spreads, and we have to break through and get them to accept help?"

Zephyra said, "The situations are similar but have important differences."

"Zork was alone because he was too comfortable after he retired, while Nerissa was alone because she was sad and felt betrayed."

"A betrayal...?" Liora’s soft voice had a worried tone. "What exactly happened to her?"

Zephyra’s face didn’t change, but the way she said it made it sound like she thought the story was sad too. "Nerissa Abyssryn has been in charge of the ocean kingdom for the last six centuries and is about eight hundred years old."

"She married Emperor Consort Typhon seven hundred years ago in what was called a ’great love match.’ Since then, they’ve had hundreds of children together."

Rick blinked while trying not to go insane. "H-Hundreds of kids!?"

"H-How is that even possible?" He asked while screaming inside his mind. "WHAT THE FUCK!? WHAT THE ACTUAL... FUUCCCKKKK...!?"

Rick thought. "I thought Zephyra was taking the spot as the most milf woman in one of the seven major powers, but there’s Nerissa here having a whopping hundreds of kids!?"

"That’s fucking insane... and I can’t wait to meet her just to see what she looks like!’ Rick can’t hide his smile anymore, even in this serious situation.

"Ocean dwellers have much longer periods of fertility than surface species," Zephyra said in a clinical tone. "They can have kids for hundreds of years."

"During her reign, Nerissa gave birth to more than three hundred children, all of whom are now important people in the oceanic kingdom."

She stopped, and for the first time, Rick saw something that might have been emotion cross her face. "Something changed fifty years ago..."

"We don’t know the exact details because Nerissa sealed all the official records, but we think Emperor Consort Typhon betrayed her in some important way based on bits of information we have."

"What kind of betrayal?" Sylvia asked, her dragon-like instincts always on the lookout for issues of loyalty and mates.

Zephyra said, "We don’t know the details."

"We do know that Nerissa never talked to Typhon again after that..."

"And what’s strange is that he still has the title of Emperor Consort, but he has been moved to a different part of the Meridia Citadel."

"Reports say that he just sits in his room, completely out of touch with reality. Some people say that age and guilt have made him senile."

"And some other people say that Nerissa cursed him to feel every bit of her pain for eternity...."