After Djeeta and the others arrived at the cemetery mentioned by the villagers, they could see a small house next to the many graves.
"Oh wow... why would someone even live here...?" Djeeta muttered as she looked at where the house was built.
"Yeah, this place doesn't look good for a living space..." Katalina said while looking towards the graves.
"There's no point in just standing around here, how about we check inside the house?" Drang suggested to them.
They agreed with what Drang said and started walking into the small house, specifically Djeeta, Katalina, Drang, and Rosetta who entered the place.
The rest such as Lyria and Io were too afraid to enter the house, and the others also waited outside to accompany Lyria and Io.
They started rummaging through the empty house looking for any clues about the whereabouts of the doctor or what happened to him. For a while, they couldn't find anything except for dust or things that had decayed over the decades since someone lived in this house.
Finally Rosetta found a journal book. "Hey, look at this," Rosetta said to the others.
They all approached Rosetta to see what she found. "A journal? Let's read it, Rosetta," Djeeta said to Rosetta.
Rosetta nodded and started to open the journal, and they all began reading the contents of the journal.
After some time, they finished reading the entire journal and fell silent as they tried to process what they had just read.
"So... the doctor came here just to conduct experiments!? He sacrificed many lives of the villagers in this village to try to summon the Primal Beast Celeste to control it!?" Katalina said to them.
"That's so evil... sacrificing many lives just for an experiment..." Djeeta looked angrily clenching her fists.
"Not only that, it seems he was also the source of the disease that afflicted the island's population decades ago," Drang told them.
"This is a foolish experiment... Except by Astral Primal Beast can't be controlled that easily," Rosetta muttered to herself.
"Kyaaaaaa!!!" Suddenly they heard Lyria's scream from outside the house.
"Lyria!" Katalina recognized the scream and ran out followed by Djeeta and the others.
Once outside they could see a ghost wearing a doctor's attire standing before them.
[GHOST]
"What's that? Where did he come from?" Ferry exclaimed as she suddenly saw the ghost appear before her.
"This is dangerous, I can sense the Primal Beast aura from that ghost!" Lyria warned the others.
"I sense that somewhere deep within him, he's merged with a primal beast. At this rate, his mind must already be gone..."
As Lyria said this, they all could see a silhouette of an airship behind the ghost. Not long the ghost began emitting a dense black aura and its eyes started glowing black.
[GHOST AIRSHIP]
The ghost then quickly attacked them all with black mist that coming from his body. "Everyone, dodge!" Narmaya said to them, then lifted Lyria and jumped away.
They all quickly dodged the attack from the ghost and kept their distance from it. "Hey, look, the house touched by that mist immediately turned dry and crumbled," Djeeta pointed to the house that get hit by the mist.
"That mist is really dangerous! Don't touch it at all costs!" Katalina shouted, warning them all.
"How can we attack it if we can't touch the ghost!" Djeeta was puzzled because her sword technique required her to get close to the enemy.
Except for Drang, Io, and Rosetta, none of them here could use long-range attacks.
"It's okay, everyone, leave it to me," Lyria suddenly said to them.
Lyria then closed her eyes to concentrate. Shortly, a blue crystal on her chest began to emit golden light. "Luminiera, please lend me your power," Lyria muttered to her crystal.
Lyria then opened her eyes and used the energy from Luminiera to unleash Luminiera's power, "Aegis Merge."
After Lyria said that, they were all protected by a force field from Luminiera. With the force field, they didn't need to worry about the mist that would attack them.
"Thank you, Lyria! Now let us handle it," Djeeta said to Lyria, and they started preparing to attack the ghost.
They easily beating the ghost, unlike in the game's this time Djeeta and the others were much stronger here when they faced the ghost.
In the game, they struggled to fight the ghost that get absorbed by Celeste, but here they easily defeated it because Djeeta and the others trained often with Rei, who had stronger powers than them.
Also with Narmaya present, the battle became much easier.
"Take this!" Djeeta slashed at the ghost, and the ghost that was hit by Djeeta's slash began to disappear.
Seeing the ghost had disappeared, they put away their weapons and gathered again to discuss what Djeeta and the others had found inside the house.
"Why are you looking like that, Lyria?" But strangely Lyria is still staring at where the ghost disappeared.
"Wait! Something about it feels off... Something's not right!" Lyria muttered as she sensed she could still feel the aura of that primal beast.
"Look! Behind you!" Sturm shouted to Djeeta.
Djeeta who was too late to turn around she's suddenly get thrown away as Celeste used the mist to attack her.
But thanks to the force field from Luminiera, Djeeta wasn't hurt at all and only experienced some cracks in her force field.
"Djeeta!" Lyria shouted to Djeeta.
"I'm fine...." Djeeta tried to stand up while staring at the Primal Beast that suddenly appeared.
"What's going on here? I thought we totally crushed that thing!" Katalina drew her weapon again, wary of the attacks from the Primal beast in front of them.
"Celeste has the power to overrule death... Could it have used that power?" Ferry informed them all.
"It looks like it has... In that case, there's no way for us to go up against it..." Narmaya drew her Katana again, because she's a bit careless before and because of that Djeeta got hit by Celeste's attack.
If she hadn't been careless, she would have sensed the Primal beast reappearing before the others and protect Djeeta...
"So what are we going to do?" Djeeta returned to her position, and the cracks in her force field began to heal themselves because she is near Lyria.
"Well, we don't really have a choice other than to keep fighting and find a way to escape. I'm not gonna lie, but we kinda need Rei's power now," Drang said to them while looking around.
"Yeah... he's always not here when we really need him," Katalina muttered as she tightened her grip on her rapier.
<~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>
"Tempest!" I used Tiamat's wind to clear the fog around us.
"What about it Vyrn? Did you see anything?" I asked Vyrn who was still lying on my head.
"Hmm, no, I don't see anything at all." Vyrn is trying to look around but couldn't find anything.
"Ugh, I don't know where Celeste is... we've been searching for a while now and still haven't found anything," I sighed while looking around.
But I couldn't look for long as the fog started reappearing, covering both of our views.
"What about we just go back? Maybe the others have found some clues?" Vyrn suggested to me.
That's not a bad idea, and we've been gone for quite a while. Maybe Ferry has finished talking to the villagers.
"Okay, Vyrn. In that case--" Mid-sentence, I suddenly sensed Lyria using her power to use Luminiera's power.
It seemed like they were in a battle with someone, so I decided to quickly head over there. "Vyrn, hold on tight. I sense the others are fighting something!" I told Vyrn.
"Eh!? Then we should hurry, let's go, Rei!" Vyrn started holding onto my hair tightly.
After that, I quickly flew towards where I sensed Lyria using her power.
Not long after I saw that we had returned to the village. But I sensed Lyria is still in front of me, so I continued flying towards her.
"There it is Rei in front!" Vyrn pointed ahead towards the graveyard, where I could see Djeeta and the others fighting Celeste.
Huh, Celeste!? Why is she there? Wasn't she supposed to be in the Cliff?
"Hold on, Vyrn!" I summoned the Sword of Repudiation and headed towards Celeste to attack her.
Meanwhile, the others were still trying to attack Celeste and create an opening where they could escape because every time they struck Celeste she always reappeared again unscathed.
As they tried to escape, Celeste always appeared in front of them, seemingly preventing them from fleeing, so they had to keep attacking Celeste while trying to find a way to escape.
"This feeling! Rei has arrived!" Lyria suddenly shouted after sensing that Rei was near them.
Hearing that, they stepped back from Celeste to allow Rei to attack, as they believed he would attack Celeste head-on when he arrived.
"Apocalyptic Messiah!" I used a technique from my Opus sword to attack Celeste.
The attack utilized the power within the Opus sword to strike my enemy with Waves of Light damage.
*Booooom* Celeste get hit by my attack instantly thrown far from that spot.
But I continued to chase her using my wings, and as I reached where Celeste landed, I couldn't see her at all, like she had never been there in the first place...
As I couldn't find Celeste, I decided to return to the others and landed where they were.
"Hey everyone, I'm back," I said to them as Vyrn and I landed there together.
"Hmm, you always show up at moments like this." Katalina sheathed her rapier as their battle had ended.
"Sorry, I and Vyrn couldn't find Celeste at all, and I didn't expect Ghost Celeste to appear here," I told them.
"Ghost Celeste? You mean the one from earlier wasn't the real Celeste?" Io asked me, thinking that the Celeste she fought was the real one.
"Hmm? No, Io, that wasn't the real Celeste because the power I sensed from that Celeste is different from the previous primal beasts," I answered while looking at the others.
"Hey Rei, looks like your wings are multiplying, now you have four instead of just two," Drang approached me and commented.
"Yeah, the more wings I have, the stronger I become," I casually replied to Drang.
"So, you're much stronger now than when we fought Tiamat together, right?" Drang replied, feeling impressed and started to examine my wings.
I could see that Sturm was also curious and wanted to ask me something, but she seemed to restrain herself and averted her stare from me.
"Rei? Is that you!? you have wings?" Ferry suddenly approached me and observed my wings as if she wanted to touch them.
"Yes, I never told you, but yes, I have wings. If you're curious, you can touch them," I told Ferry, who is staring at my wings.
"Really? In that case, I'll touch them." Ferry slowly touched my wings, and after touching them, she looked delighted. "Wow, they're so smooth..."
I let Ferry stroke my wings until she was satisfied, then I turned to the others and asked, "So, what should we do? I've been searching for Celeste all this time, but still no luck."
"The real Celeste should be giving off a strong aura, so we can only search until I can sense them," Lyria said to me.
"Lyria... did you forget about this fog that is preventing us from sensing Celeste's aura?" I said to Lyria while shaking my head.
"Eh... sorry, I forget," Lyria looked disappointed as she remembered that.
"With our current numbers, it's impossible for us to quickly search the entire island for Celeste..." Djeeta is thinking about what she should do to efficiently find Celeste.