Chase watched in disbelief as Reinhart singlehandedly annihilated an entire flood of monsters with an attack that should not have been possible...
Hans also wore a look of utter shock, as his arms lazily flopped back down against his sides.
"How...?" Leo asked, the edge of his axe clattering against the ground as his shoulders slumped.
"Forgive me... For I have lied..." Reinhart turned, smiling at the lot of them with his auburn hair still flowing with the wind of his attack.
"But... I watched it happen!" Leo yelled, stepping forward and staring into Reinhart's eyes with anger.
"You did in fact watch my entire chest explode... That was no lie; however, I had already lost my Catalyst at that point..."
Chase stepped next to Leo, lifting his sword towards Reinhart's neck, causing everyone to instantly flinch at the motion of aggression.
"Tell me why I shouldn't cut you down right now... Especially after what you told me earlier..." Chase growled through his gritted teeth, but much to his surprise Leo made no attempt at stepping between them.
Reinhart only smirked.
"If you knew what I knew my lord... You would not be able to prepare for the coming war..." Reinhart sighed, quickly making Chase flinch at the title he had referred to him as.
"Who's side are you on...?" Equan asked, stepping beside Leo and Chase.
"The side of light clearly... My forefathers carried the torch of humanity beyond evolution, so I side with the side that wears the best intention of protecting mankind..."
"And you speak of us, do you not?" Luke raised an eyebrow, clenching his metal arm so hard that audible grinding of steel could be heard throughout the hall.
"We shall see..." Reinhart said, turning towards the shadowy hall full of corpses before them, and stepping forward with no intention of turning back.
"We are close my friends... The trials of Olympia will soon be over..." He chuckled, making the group feel as if they followed they would be heading towards their own demise...
Which they chose to follow, as they had gone too far to head back now...
Chase stepped forward once they had reached a large empty room with a spiraled ceiling.
At the center of the room was a hole... A perfect circle that appeared from a distant to lead down into a much larger room than this one.
Equan threw his arms up in disbelief. "This it?! We made it!?"
Gabriel sighed, "About damn time..."
However Chase, Hans, and Reinhart knew to remain silent, slowly stepping towards the hole with caution...
"Something powerful lies within this abyss..." Reinhart said suddenly, dropping to a knee before it and reaching into a small bag at his waist- pulling out a rope.
"This proves that we should not have come..." He continued... Looking dreadfully at the rope in his hands and glancing back to the abyss before him.
Chase continued forward, walking past both a halted Hans and a kneeling Reinhart- chills growing down his spine as he got closer and closer to the hole...
"Abyss...?" He asked, before stepping next to the hole and gazing down into what had instantly struck him with so much dread that his knees almost gave out.
"Impossible..."
What lie below the floor... Was not a single room, or even another layer of the dungeon... But a vast expanse of void... An eternal abyss of nothingness spanning for what could have only been infinity...
"Holy shit..." Gabriel said, standing beside Chase and peering down into the abyss along with him.
"Do not stare at it Gabriel..." Reinhart quickly demanded.
Gabriel instantly looked away, stepping as far back as he could with a single motion.
"Chase... You bare the seeds of corruption... Which means you will not go insane..." Reinhart handed Chase the rope before anyone- including Chase could question what he had just said, but before he could take the rope, Chase stepped back and grit his teeth.
"How do you know?!" He yelled, in complete shock that Reinhart had asked such a question.
Then Luke raised an eyebrow, with his eyes widening only a second after.
"You...?"
"No way..." Equan said, his face showing the horror of what had just been exposed.
Everyone else also had picked up on this fact except for Michael and Gemini who showed no signs of reacting.
"It is true... Chase of House Phoenix had earned himself a new burden with his battle against The King of Corruption..."
"Why didn't you say anything?!" Leo growled, unable to comprehend what had just been revealed.
"You're dying..." Gabriel muttered, looking at Chase in disbelief.
Griffin awkwardly chuckled, backing away from the growing tension, clearly not wanting to get involved in what could only end in an outright civil war between Unity.
"Why would you not tell us?" Equan asked, his gaze lowering to the ground in confusion.
Chase was about to speak up, but Reinhart was able to intervene before the tension could rise further.
"There is a cure... Although I do not know it... Onyx- The Black Dragon had... Before his untimely demise..."
"Summer was researching cures..." Chase followed up with, raising his hands in defense.
"A cure?" Luke asked, giving his full attention to the two of them.
"Indeed... Perhaps why Chase had been called to these ruins had something to do with it... Although I do not know... But we must push this matter aside... It will help us in the current situation... We must figure out what lies below these ruins... At all costs!" Reinhart's voice started to rise, as he shoved the rope into Chase's hands.
"Hans hold the rope... I must venture forward to discover something of my own..."
There was silence for a moment, as Hans stepped beside Chase still showing no signs of distrust.
"Right..." Hans muttered, holding his hand out, which Chase handed him the other side of the rope reluctantly.
There was silence as they started forming a rig, with Hans tying the rope around his wrist, and Chase tying the other half around his waist.
Leo scowled at Chase from afar, watching in anger as Chase was about to descend into the abyss alone.
Gabriel sat down next to Kaylynn who had still been unable to make sense of what had just happened.
Then... Chase muttered a sarcastic prayer to the gods, and let his body fall backwards into the hole...
...
Gabriel blinked several times, pondering the fact that his friend had been dealing with a supposedly deadly and uncurable disease this entire time.
"Is he going to be okay?" Kaylynn asked, before shaking her head.
"No- Of course he is... He killed Rider after all, so why wouldn't he be able to survive the curse that Rider himself had been so heavily affected by..."
"Oh- By the way... What did you see in the hole?" Kaylynn perked up trying to change the subject before realizing that perhaps she was talking far too fast considering how much of an affect this could have had on Gabriel.
"Gabe?" She asked, tilting her head and looking at him with worry.
Gabriel; however, had lost all thought as well as coherence in general, his face strained by the sight of a pair of sinister green eyes...
Michael stood up, causing everyone but Gabriel and Gemini to stare at him in confusion.
Then...
Gemini stood up, causing Leo to step in-between Hans and the rest of the group.
"Why the hell are you smiling like that?" Leo growled, causing everyone to back away from each other...
"Hey! Calm down!" Neveah yelled, drawing her blade of her own accord.
Luke backed away, reaching for his crossbows and instantly aiming both of them at Equan who had already drawn his ethereal bow with energy zapping across its string like a generator.
"What the..." Hans clenched his fist, watching as Gemini's eyes shifted into a green haze...
Then... His smile turned into a laugh...
A horrible laugh that was by no means his own.
"Foolish children... To think that you could enter such ruins and expect some kind of reward!" He laughed with the voice of a woman...
Hans had heard that laugh before... Causing his eyes to widen and his spine to freeze.
"This is bad..." Leo muttered, preparing his body and weapon for a fight.
"Dear Everfrost boy..." The possessed body of Gemini chuckled...
"Kill them all..."
The room was seized with a frenzy of ice...
...
Meanwhile in one of the three rooms of the lowest layer of Olympia, Hextra chuckled to herself while sitting atop of Rakshaa's throne, her legs dangling over the side and her head swaying left and right over the arm of the stone chair.
Below her dangling head, lie a decently large machine she had purchased from the dwarven nation... It was a large speaker... Causing waves of her energy to spread throughout the ruins of Olympia... Taking control of almost every being within the ruins...
"I wish I could have gotten the boy... But it makes sense that the witch would have put a charm upon him to stop any mind attacks... Don't ya think Rock boy?" She chuckled, throwing a pebble she had been holding at the head of the troll.
It clattered off of his horn, as he spoke. "Mnhmdahmmm ammm"
She laughed again as drool and spit foamed within Rakshaa's mouth, unable to resist the urge to throw another rock at the incoherent beast.
Next to the speaker... A large battery grumbled with noise as it powered the machine that had easily let the goddess take control of such a large area full of potential servants...
"Although I hope that Michael boy can kill him..." Her second set of eyes gazed at the specific archer who had the power to foil her plan completely...
...
Chase glanced in horror at the impossible sight before him, his body dangling above nothing but the starless expanse before him...
"What the hell..." He could only manage, as the sight of an upside down kingdom tinged with a maddening-nearly visible aura stood a thousand meters in front of him. The tip of its castle scratching against the void below...
He knew he had to leave... He had to get out now...
He felt eyes gazing it at him from every direction as blood began to spill from his nose... It was a similar feeling as to when he had first met Luna... But so much more potent... So much more evil...
'Gods...' Chase thought in fear...
"PANDA! PULL ME UP! HURRY!" He screamed at the top of his lungs, hearing no response from the silence of the room thirty feet above him.
"No no no no no!" He muttered, beginning to pull himself frantically up the rope as a suffocating feeling began to overtake his body.
Something was coming...