"We need to hurry, we have to go to them before they come to us!"

Nyra was standing in front of Natsu and the rest of the awakeners that had been separated.

He had already changed his clothes and also the rest.

They were all in front of a room that is filled with blood, beast marks, and bones of the dead. It was menacing and uncomfortable, which was why they had come out of it, but were already used to the smell of it all.

The thing is, Nyra and the other ladies had passed through under the castle and arrived at the west side of the castle.

There they found a hallway that led them to an empty room, not cages, but a room. Most of them had no door, or had once upon a time, but were already destroyed.

These were the empty ones, as within these rooms there was blood everywhere as though a massacre occurred in it.

At the last of all the rooms, the one which had a door was where they had found Nastu, Sinon, and the other awakeners. Chrome, however, was not with them.

Nyra had asked, of where he was, and Natsu had responded they hadn’t seen him, or any other person since the time they were separated.

This was a mystery to them considering that Aegon had told them specifically about Chrome, meaning they had met earlier.

Although this was a problem, and they were worried, they focused on the matter at hand. Chrome was part of their party and they were not going to abandon him, assuming he wasn’t dead.

And even if he was, they were ready to kill whoever had done such to him.

After they had met and gathered together, the others were given their dresses and they wore them, but the only one that remained was for Chrome.

Nyra had an intense cold expression when she said this. The thought of Chrome being already dead, and her taste for revenge was growing in her heart.

Seeing her surge of emotions, Sinon, who was now with them and had dressed in her knight armor, with her sword at her side, walked down to Nyra.

"You should calm down, Nyra. You shouldn’t beat yourself up for what happened, we are in this together."

Sinon, who was looking less skinny than Nyra even though they were imprisoned at the same time, placed her hand on Nyra’s shoulder.

"You needn’t put all the burden on yourself. There was nothing you could have done when you were attacked." She looked deeply into Nyra’s eyes while saying this.

"We were all there, and we were all powerless. There was no way we could have known that we would be attacked."

"And also, we were already tired after coming from that spiral trial. So, you shouldn’t take things hard on yourself."

Sinon knew Nyra, and she knew exactly what she was feeling;

Nyra was blaming herself for being unable to protect them. Her party and herself. She was the party leader, the captain, the one who they had chosen to lead them.

And yet, she failed them. She couldn’t stop the monsters when they attacked, she couldn’t defend them.

If she couldn’t do this much, how could she call herself a leader? How could she look into the eyes of her colleagues and talk to them again?

And on top of all that, even after they were gathered here, there was still one person missing.

Chrome.

Even as they were gathered here, she felt the burden more on her. The need to protect everyone now as they are here.

There were many monsters and forces that would try and stop them from leaving, and they also knew what had happened to the unlucky awakeners, so she felt it was her responsibility to keep them from that fate.

Sinon thought of all these while looking Nyra in the eyes. She had tears piling up in her eyes but tried as much as possible to keep them away.

Upon seeing this, Nyra’s lips curved up into a smile and her expression felt more relaxed.

She took her hand and held Sinon’s hand, on her shoulder, saying.

"I know that. Don’t worry, but we seriously have to go now. At this rate, he would kill all the monsters and there wouldn’t be any for us to revert our anger on."

Sinon smiled hearing these words from Nyra, who also had a smile on her face. She understood what Nyra had said, as a must to actually kill.

Nyra was a lady that always kept to her conviction so even though Sinon might have said all those words to talk her out of it, she would still want to take her revenge.

Sinon took her hand away from Nyra, placing it down, and so did Nyra. Then they walked side by side to leave the area.

"Oh by the way, who did you mean by ’He’?" Sinon asked.

And Nyra, with a smile, replied. "I didn’t tell you? It is Aegon, remember him?"

Sinon had a surprise and puzzled expression on her face after hearing this. "Hold on," she stopped walking. "You mean that strong and handsome awakener?"

Nyra paused and nodded.

"What is he doing here?... How did he get here?"

"I don’t know the full story, but my guess is that he came of his own will. He was the one who saved us after all, and after that he went for the boss."

Sinon nodded in amazement, "So is that what I have been hearing from above? All the crumbling and destruction."

Natsu came close to both Nyra and Sinon. Sheila by his side, while the other awakeners were at the back.

They were now together, armed and dangerous, but with little mana in them. However, that didn’t discourage them as they were heading for the higher part of the castle.

...

After climbing a few stairs they finally reached the inner part of the castle, but not yet the higher part.

At this moment, they were at the Great Hall which was supposed to be crawling with monsters.

"Where are all the monsters?" Natsu asked.

Standing behind him was Sheila, holding her staff in fear of the unknown. The surrounding area disturbed her, the sight unpleasant to her fragile eyes.

They entered the hall fully and saw no signs of any monster, but their remains. And by remains, not their bodies, or bones, but their blood which was splashed everywhere.

"I-It’s like there was a massacre here." Cassie mumbled.

"There’s no single one alive, not even a body remains." Sinon added.

This was the same hall that held over two hundred monsters which Aegon had taken on.

He had massacred, blown and killed them with his skills leaving no remains of their once existence.

It was a sight glorious to the strong, but ugly to the weak.

At this moment, they were already at the center of the hall. It was lonely and dark, with only a couple candles that lit a part of the hall. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Suddenly, in that moment, a great sound was heard shaking the entire hall.

"What was that?" Both Sinon and Cassie asked. They were both beside Nyra, one at each side of her.

While Natsu, who had left the lower part of the castle with her, was shoved away and used as a shield by Sheila.

The sound shook the hall, all the pillars holding it threatened to break and fall, while the torches on the wall fell to the ground.

As this happened, their eyes were drawn there seeing most of the light dimming and about to go off.

"No no no no!!" Cassie was shouting this while she was running towards the torch to prevent it from turning off,

when suddenly the roof above was cracked, broken, opened, and a massive monster dropped from it, to the ground where the torches were laid, turning them off.

However, the above which had been broken casted a great amount of light down into the hall, bathing the monster.

The monster was very large, with the appearance of a bull that had a piercing on its nose and the body structure of a human. Its body was built with muscles as it laid on the ground, not moving.

It was dead.

"It’s dead, isn’t it?" Sinon asked.

Cassie was on the ground on her butt, her face consumed with fear and terror, her heart racing fast like it was threatening to burst out.

"huff huff huff." Her eyes were wide open, sweat dripping down from her face, and her arms which were on the ground.

"O... Oh my, I-I... huff"

The words couldn’t come out from her lips because she was too tense and shaking, which was as a result, that she had seen her life flash before her eyes.

One more step to where the torches were, the giant monster would have landed on her, killing her on the spot.

Sinon, seeing that her answer wasn’t answered by Cassie, even though it was very obvious that the monster was dead, suddenly walked up to where Cassie was sitting.

"Come on." Sinon held Cassie up, taking her hands and helping her back to where the others were.

At this moment, the others had their heads raised up, looking at the hole which was created above.

They were wondering how the monster had fallen from there, how it had died, and what had caused all of it to happen.

While thinking and looking up, a sudden shadow of a figure passed in the hole from one side to the other, and although most of them couldn’t make out what that was, only one person could.

Nyra looking up with a smile on a her face uttered,

"It’s Aegon."