"Ray! Are you alright?" I heard a voice behind me.
I turned towards the source of the voice and-
"I had some trouble but I am completely fine now, Kurt. I guess you both also survived, huh?"
Apparently Kurt, Reina and Voila survived the illusion as well.
"Did you all managed to destroy the crystals?" I asked.
"Well, the illusion almost got me but I realised it that it was just an illusion." replied Voila.
"I can never trust anyone who shows wrong and fake informations about my dear friend Chloe, hmph!" said Reina with a little frustration.
"Alright, you are completely fine Reina... We need to save Chloe and Elena. They must be in a grave a trouble, especially Chloe."
"What do you mean? The illusions aren't that strong, right? Besides the crystals are also weak I think." replied Reina.
"No... actually."
Aside from my past related things, I had told them about the fact that strong or weak illusions can vary depending on the individuals. I had also told them that the Shadow Crystal is a living thing and it consumes souls or simply kill people to maintain it's power to keep immortality of the Giant Serpent.
"How did you got this information?" asked Voila.
"Shadow Crystal tried to manipulate me but I somehow got answers from it. I don't know why it told me..." I lied about this part as it was related to my past.
"Anyway, we should hurry up now. If what Ray is saying true then Chloe and Elena are in danger." said Kurt.
"Yes let us hurry up but don't be careless as there are some protectors."
"Understood!"
We had returned to the spot where were spawned before and took the path where Chloe and Elena went through.
On the way, we defeated the shadow protectors while hurrying up to help our other comrades.
"Look! That's Elena! She is in danger!"
We had reached the last spot where the final Shadow Crystal was located. Elena was badly so I took the charge of dealing with the crystal as others helped Elena to deal with the tentacles. Elena looked a little bit shocked to see us here but she had ignored it to focus on the current situation.
"Thank you guys! I was reaching my limits and please save Chloe by destroying the crystal!" said Elena.
"Take this!"
I used the flame dance while swirling the sword just like before to neglect every tentacle as I moved forward to destroy the crystal. The Shadow Crystal put all of it's strength into tentacles to nullify my attack but it was no use on my flame dance, then I slashed the crystal and it was shattered into many pieces as it's pieces had started to disappear.
"I had never thought that this trial had some dark secrets behind giving the immortality to the Giant Serpent." I muttered.
"Chloe! Wake up Chloe!"
I turned to look at what others were doing as I saw Elena was trying to wake up Chloe.
"M....mhm....wh....where am I?" asked Chloe just after she opened her eyes.
"E- Elena!"
She tightly hugged Elena as she started to shed tears while looking happy to see her.
"W-what happened!? Chloe?"
"I was so scared, I thought you were..."
Elena understood that it must be the illusion that made Chloe think like that.
"It's alright Chloe, I am right here with you!" said Elena while she was gently tapping on the Chloe's back.
I was waiting for them to calm down and then we would head back to our real world- to the Shadow Rift Cave.
Then after few minutes, everyone seemed to be completely fine, especially Chloe. Elena has explained her everything about the illusions made by Shadow Crystals.
"I see, so that's what exactly happened." Chloe realised it.
"Alright then, let's not waste our time here and go back to our real dimension where we belong." I said while I took out the magic item.
The magic item glowed as the bright brilliant light rays were scattered as we covered our eyes because we already knew about the warning.
"This isn't fair, atleast whoever created this item, they should have atleast told the villagers that it can shine brilliantly whenever it transfer the user. We are humans after all so it's obvious that our eyes can get damaged due to no prior warnings." I thought with a little frustration.
However, I was glad that it all ended without any incident.
We had returned to our original dimension and we had noticed that it was evening because we had seen the moon through the small gaps of roof of the cave.
"And here I thought that we could easily get the White Tear just in one day..." I said.
"It can't be helped though due to the unexpected encounters so far." replied Voila.
"Anyway let's head back and I am a little worried about Ryuji." she continued.
We had all started heading back to the Kraken village while we had some casual conversations along the way.
After some time, we had arrived at the village and the mayor welcomed us as he was waiting for us.
"How come you knew about arrivals?"
"It was just my guess since I heard from you guys the other day that the first trial was hellish." said Mayor.
"I don't know whether they are really trial or not but it is confirmed that it's not that easy. The last one is the Giant Serpent now."
"Hmm, it should have been so tiring. Let's eat dinner together as I had prepared them for you guys."
"That's very kind of you, we would appreciate it."
We were hungry and it was the right time to do dinner. I was feeling so tired as I had used so much magic energy to destroy the crystals.
After finishing our dinner, we all went for bed since we needed to regain our energy besides tomorrow may be another hellish day depending on the strength of Giant Serpent and I bet it would not be so easy to defeat it.
---
Part 2- Jystice and some paladins were interrogating Kratos at the Libra base- Lower Basement, interrogation room 2- for informations but Kratos was persistent.
"So you won't tell us anything after all, Kratos?" I asked him.
"Look who's asking us this time, the man who has absolute authority over arbiters hahahaha..." he said while he laughed.
"...." I went silent as I gestured the paladin to use the force to make him talk.
"Gah!...arghh....ugh....*Huff*....*Huff*....Just give up already....you won't get anything from us." responded Kratos.
"Why are you so loyal despite being abandoned by Anti-Libra? They don't show mercy on trash likes you...Just give up so that you could avoid this senseless torture over and over again." I urged him to speak.
"And for your answer, just exercise to improve your mental strength so that you can stop ignoring the fact that we don't know anything about what Anti-Libra members are planning." replied Kratos.
"Such disrespect! You insolent fool!"
I gestured the paladin to stop hitting the Kratos anymore.
"But Lord Jystice!"
"Let me talk with him..."
"U-Understood!"
The paladin stepped aside as I approached the injured Kratos.
"It's fine...as long as you can resist the pain in your everyday routine. I thought you will both change yourselves but I guess I was wrong after all. Paladins!"
"Yes sir!"
"They won't open their mouth, increase the level to 6. Execute this level for daily punishment."
"But!? It is truly dangerous, they would not survive that much pain and eventually die."
"Can't do anything about it, just do as I say."
"Understood!"
I had heard a small conversation between Kratos and Zander before, they were discussing about their plans and apparently it looked that they are not abandoned by Anti-Libra. They must be plotting something ridiculous again.
I had left the room and I saw Orion standing.
"I thought arbiters are not allowed here? Who let you come inside?"
"I just found a greedy paladin and offered him some money to let me enter. Don't worry he was loyal and he confirmed what was my intention so I just told him that it was some important message. Please don't take his job as he was just innocent."
He basically lied to enter here and eavesdrop.
"What do you need? If it's not something important, I may take actions against you for this."
"I have some idea what Anti-Libra wants to plot, though it's not about their main objective but secondary one."
"Is that so? Then tell me."
"It's just my personal thought and is not confirmed yet but I will definitely tell you when I grasp what they wanted to do."
"That's all you wanted to tell me?"
"No, I had came here to analyse the behaviour of Kratos or Zander. According to your conversations right now and every day torture they resisted. The fact about, that Anti-Libra hadn't abandoned Kratos and Zander yet and let them stay here at Libra base, I found some possibilities of their resistances against so many tortures."
"But right now I can't tell since it might disrupt your own perspectives as well as others."
I didn't understood what he meant and his poker face- expressionless look on his face.
"Alright but just don't disappoint me Orion."
The fact I trusted him was because I had somehow understood his real abilities even though I understood a little about him.
---
To be continued...