"What a load of crap, Sydra did not betray us," Lorey exclaims as the tent goes quiet. Slowly turning around, Sam and Gram look at Lorey in surprise.
"So you survived the fall... I guess there is no reason to continue this charade then," Sam says as Gram reaches into his backpack and pulls out the scepter. Commander Lufit is watching all this happen in confusion, unable to figure out what is happening.
"Can someone please explain to me what is going on, I thought you said my daughter was dead, but she seems just fine to me," Lufit says, looking back and forth between the twins, who are simply ignoring him.
As Sydra walks into the tent, he hears Lorey begin to explain what really happened to the Commander, whose face is becoming red with rage. Looking away from them, Sydra notices that even though their lies are being uncovered, the twins don't seem to care. In fact, Gram is still messing around with the scepter, and Sam has a black book with a blue pearl on the center in his hands.
Opening the book, Sam starts to mumble several incantations and the scepter in Gram's hands begins to glow with an eery red light. Reaching out his hand, Sam grabs the half of the scepter below Gram as the red light emitted from the scepter grows brighter.
"Hey, what are the two of you doing!?" Lufit asks, rushing across the tent to grab the scepter from their hands. Reaching the red light encircling the twins, Lufit slows down to a standstill, and the color in his face begins to drain away.
"What's happening to him?!" Lorey yells, watching Lufit's skin begin to shrivel up as if he was aging rapidly. With his skin barely hanging off his bones, Lufit falls to the ground, and a bloody mist leaves his body. Before the bloody mist can disperse, the light around the twins absorbs it, becoming a darker shade in the process.
Grabbing Lorey's arm, Sydra runs out of the tent, which is now glowing red with small tendrils of mist leaving the top. "We have to warn everyone about what is happening," Sydra says, looking around for Haley in the hope that she hadn't gotten too far.
Not hearing an answer, Sydra glances back at Lorey, only to see her looking blankly towards the tent. "They killed him... They killed my father," Lorey mumbles as a tear runs down her face.
'That's right, I heard that man say something about his daughter, but this is not the time for her to be out of it,' Sydra thinks, noticing that the tent is becoming harder to see as the tendrils of mist swirl around it. Before the tent is fully encased by the red mist, Sydra sees a giant clawed hand rip through the top, causing the tent to fall apart.
Grabbing Lorey's other hand, Sydra forces her to look at him. "Snap out of it! If we don't warn people, more than just your father will die," Sydra says, bringing Lorey back to her senses. Seeing a look of determination on her face, Sydra lets go of her hands and looks around. "Where do the temple explores live?"
Regaining her composure, Lorey points in the direction of several large buildings. "The living quarters are inside those buildings," she says.
Nodding his head, Sydra begins running towards the buildings while building up his lightning aura within his fist. Reaching the first building, Sydra slams his fist into the wall, creating a large hole in it. Jumping through the hole, Sydra sees multiple tents set up within the building, with people standing beside them.
"Everyone needs to leave now!" Sydra yells as loudly as he can. Glancing around, he notices that everyone is still looking at him with a confused look on their faces. About to yell again, Sydra stops when he feels the ground below him tremble with enough force to cause people to fall over. Turning around, Sydra sees that the red light is forming a large dome that is headed in their direction.
Turning back around, Sydra begins to run through the tents, telling people to leave as quickly as they can if they want to live.
"Hey, what's going on?" A man asks Sydra as he runs by. Skidding to a stop, Sydra turns and points towards the dome.
"Start warning others not to get caught by the dome if they want to live," Sydra says before continuing to run further into the living area, before continuing to warn others. Confused, the man looks back at the dark red dome that is slowly approaching them. As he watches it, the man notices a drunken man stumbling in its direction, shouting something about the end times. Stumbling across the uneven sandstone floor, the man trips over a raised slab and falls to the ground. Before he can get back up, the dome passes over him, and the man dissolves into red mist, just like Lufit did.
"Crap, why is it getting faster?" Lorey asks, noticing that the red light has picked up its speed by a small bit. Hearing Lorey, the people still standing around look back at the red light in fear.
"I'm not sure, but we should probably go faster," Sydra says, before barging into another tent and yelling at the people to get out or they will die. Leaving the tent, Sydra sees Robert and Cidre rushing over to him from the other side of the building.
"Hey, we just got back with our groups. Do you know what is going on?" Robert asks, looking around at the people running about everywhere.
Before Sydra can explain the situation to them, he hears a popping sound coming from the red dome dispersing into the air. Looking back, Sydra sees that the mist the dome was made from is now hanging in the air like a cloud.
"Ahh!" A woman screams with fear etched on her face. Her hand is pointing towards the hole that Sydra made and in the direction of the center of the temple.
Looking in the direction she is pointing, Sydra sees a dark humanoid beast, towering thirty meters above the temple below. The beast is wearing night-black armor, with a blue pearl on the chest plate, and on top of its head are two curved blue horns. With its dark red eyes searching the ground below, the beast opens its maw to release a torrent of bloody mist into the air around it.
"What did the twins summon?" Sydra wonders, noticing a larger version of the scepter in the beast's clawed hand.
Raising the scepter into the air, the beast slams it into the ground, sending waves of mist in the direction of Sydra and the others. Remembering what the light did to the other people, Sydra grows his wings and grabs Lorey, and flies her into the sky.
Seeing what Sydra had done, Cidre throws on his pendant and grabs Robert, before following Sydra up. Noticing both Sydra and Cidre flying up, people on the ground begin to move as well. Those with abilities that can get them out of the way from the incoming red wave use them, leaving the others behind on the ground to fend for themselves.
"Don't leave us here!" People start to shout, fighting with each other to be brought to safety. Unable to help anyone else out, Sydra watches as people betray each other in an attempt to save themselves.
"Can't we do anything to help them?" Lorey asks, despair on her face as people climb on top of one another to get to safety. Shaking his head, Sydra watches as the red mist washes over the people who hadn't managed to get out of the way. Screams begin to fill the air as their bodies disperse into more red mist.
Opening its jaw, the black beast begins to deeply inhale the red mist on the ground. With each intake of the mist, red veins begin to appear on the beast's body, and it begins to emit a bloody aura. Taking a step forward, the beast sweeps its scepter through the air, creating a red blade of mist that shoots towards the people flying.
"Dang it, we need to dodge that," Sydra says, folding his wings onto his back and dropping towards the ground. Following his actions, Cidre also drops to the ground, along with several other people.
The red blade flies over their heads, and the people who hadn't managed to get out of the way quick enough become engulfed by the mist, before meeting their ends. As their shriveled bodies fall from the sky, Sydra heads over to Cidre and Robert to make a plan.
"We need to come up with a plan to fight that thing before it kills everyone here," Sydra says, looking towards the towering beast that is once again inhaling the red mist of those that have died.
"Yes, but what can we do against something that size?" Cidre asks, "We don't even know its weak point, or what it is,"
"I know what it is," Lorey says, stepping out from behind Sydra, "That thing is called an Azierscail, and they are guardians of the Blood Gates to the afterlife. I'm not sure how the twins managed to summon one here, but the only way to send it back is to break the anchor keeping it here,"
"Anchor? What is that?" Robert asks, pulling his war hammer off his back, "And how do we break it?"
"I think the anchor is either its staff or the blue pearl on its chest. I saw both of those in the twin's hands before that beast was summoned here," Sydra says, turning everyone's attention to the blue pearl on the chest plate.
By now the remaining survivors of the beast's attacks had gathered together and were listening to the group's plan. Turning to these people, Sydra raises his hands into the air to gather their attention onto himself.
"As you all know, that beast has the ability to easily kill us all, and if we don't do something he probably will. To stop that from happening, we need to work together and take it out," Sydra yells, causing the crowd to gain hope. "Our plan is to focus our attacks on its staff and the blue pearl, which means we need people who can fly,"
Stepping forward, Lorey begins to speak as well. "We also need people to keep the attention of the beast on the ground, and away from our attackers. I will be leading a group to attack from the ground, and I need people who have powerful attacks,"
Feeling the atmosphere turn from despair into one of hope and anger towards the best, Sydra explains the plan in more detail. The people who are willing to go on the offensive gather with either Sydra or Lorey, and the others stay behind to take care of the bodies. Leading the charge, Sydra activates his bone armor, and flies into the sky.