'Find Qui Lin' was the first thing to pop into Judith's head. Dashing forward, Judith made her way out of the house through the hole perpetrated by the once projectile piece of carapace.
As Judith had exited the house and had stepped foot onto the sands of the outside. She turned her sights in every direction, trying to understand how far away from the battle the captain had taken her, and toward what direction.
Turning left, Judith found the Tethereds and the frozen barely-held together carcase of the Parabeast.
Qui Lin was a bit further ahead, seemingly searching for something, or someone. Judith made to call out, but found the distance was too great, so she decided to make a run for it.
A couple of seconds into her run, the pain in her back ate deep into her, to a degree that caused her to trip on her own leg, so she fell onto the ground. But not wanting to face-plant the ground, Judith stretched out her hand, so she had fallen hunched over the sand. Her long sweat-drenched hair flung with the momentum of her fall, and slapped her in the face.
Not reacting on this, she forced herself up, still ignoring the pain in her back. As she stood on her feet, the tension rising within her had taken up the speed of a jet fighter plane, when she saw the carcase of the Parabeast also glowing.
This glow did not go unnoticed by the Tethereds who had surrounded it. Upon seeing the glow, they immediately all backed up, and had called out to Qui Lin.
Responding to this call, Qui Lin turned. However, instead of seeing the Tethereds, the first person to meet her eyes was the slave girl, who was barely standing in the distance.
By the way she looked, Qui Lin knew she had gone through some kind of struggle. It had taken a moment for her to realize what she fought against. Her first thought was that she fell prey to a crumbling pile of debris, which came loose thanks to the battle against the Parabeast.
But upon closer inspection, she found that the disheveled way Judith looked could not have been caused by surviving a mountain of murderous debris. Instead, she felt it was caused by a struggle with a person.
As soon as this thought had hit Qui Lin's neurons, she instantly knew who said person was that Judith had struggled with. At once, she clenched her fist and thought, 'He came back.'
Then she wondered and dreaded if he was dead. Qui Lin didn't want to think on this, rather, her thoughts were now fixated on Judith, who found a way to always leave Qui Lin astounded and very uneasy.
Not wanting to waste anymore time, Qui Lin diverted her gaze away from Judith and toward her Tethereds who called her. Now was not the time for questions, after all, she was going to get her answers later.
Placing her sights on the Tethereds, Qui Lin didn't have to be told why she was being called. She saw in an instant the frozen carcase of the Parabeast glow like a red light crystal and without any context, knew what this signaled.
Judith struggled to make her way forward, but a second later, didn't have to anymore when a Vortex had opened up under her feet. She fell into the dark void for a couple of seconds before another Vortex had opened up below her, so she fell into it.
Upon passing the Vortex, as opposed to falling downward, she found herself being flung upwards, as though gravity had reoriented itself in the span of a second, which it sort of did.
Judith barely landed on her feet, and barely kept her balance. She felt a tinge of annoyance when she had looked down, and found the rim of the white robe she had been wearing was dirty. Reminding her in that instant of moments when she was a very messy child.
Removing her thoughts from the unimportant, she raised her head, searching for Qui Lin. Who she knew was the one who summoned her by the purple color of her Vortex.
Before her head could fully reach eye level, Qui Lin had asked, "Will that thing explode?" very bluntly to Judith.
Like an automated and or prescripted response, Judith at once had answered "Yes" before even erecting herself.
Acting on Judith's words, she at once commanded her Tethereds to surround the Parabeast with layers upon layers of Barriers. The Tethereds all did as she had ordered and covered the Parabeast with at least twenty three layers of Barriers.
Judith stared at the spheres before her, which had made her forget everything for a moment, only to be mesmerized by a plethora of colors. Colors that seemed to meld into each other, creating a collage of colors that beamed into the night with an ethereal glow.
Before their very eyes, the Parabeast had exploded, with a might and ferocity that shook the very foundation of the earth below them. But what was worst was that in seconds, the explosion ate through the Barriers faster than acid eating through a plain sheet of paper.
With the falling of each Barrier, came the falling of several Tethereds. Who had their Mana siphoned out of them like running water. The explosion was so powerful that out of the twenty three layers of Barriers, only one had remained.
A recently added Barrier, said Barrier belonging to Qui Lin. Judith watched as Qui Lin struggled to keep the power of the explosion within the Barrier. As the seconds counted, Judith had noticed Qui Lin losing her edge.
She fell onto her knees while trying to hold onto the Barrier. The longer Judith watched, the more she feared that Qui Lin would fail and the Barrier would burst, exposing everyone present to a power that would disintegrate them in seconds.
Fortunately, as Judith had thought this, the fire quelled just moments after, so Qui Lin could fall to the ground. Supported by her hands, she began to pant heavily.
Now taken by the sudden comfort of their safety, Judith fell onto the ground, exhausted and in pain. She even went a step further and fell onto her back, so she laid, now staring at the night's sky.