Carefully they all walked across the uneven rocky surface heading in an upward direction. There was no clear path, so everyone was pretty much going along whatever path they felt comfortable, and at their own pace. For the most part everyone was keeping up with one another, but Curtis and Lilia had fallen a bit behind. The problem was that Lilia just didn't have the physical strength and stamina to keep up with the others, and Curtis wasn't about to leave her behind.

"Wow, you two are slow," Regis commented from a ledge off to their left.

"Hey, we're keeping up," Curtis replied defensively.

"Yeah, we'll keep keeping up like this and everyone else will be two floors ahead of you."

"It's my fault," Lilia admitted as she wiped sweat from her brow. "I don't have as much stamina as everyone else."

"Pfft! Well from what I've seen you've got more stamina than Simba there," Regis scoffed.

"Simba? Curtis?" Lilia questioned.

"It's from an Alacryan fairytale," he replied dismissively.

"Ok..so what about my stamina seems lacking? I'd say I've been faring rather well during the dive," Curtis asked.

"Yeah you were," Regis smirked lewdly. "But then I saw you two last night."

Lilia and Curtis' faces both went pale.

"I'll give you credit, you've got the size, but it's wasted on you. I mean you need to last at least a few minutes to make it worth it, but you," Regis shook his head in disappointment. "Barely a minute."

"Y-you've got a lot of nerve for someone with nothing," Curtis replied in a combination of anger and embarrassment.

Just then there was a glow between Regis' hind legs as his form was changing. When the glowing subsided both Curits and Lilia were left with wide eyes and their mouths hanging open.

"You were saying?" Regis asked proudly.

"Something about this seems so very very cursed," Curtis commented, Lila nodded in agreement.

"Hey you three, hurry up here," Arthur called out.

Curtis scooped Lilia off her feet and started jumping from ledge to ledge as quickly as he could to get away from Regis.

The team stood upon the ledge and looked out upon a sight that made them question if they were still in the relic tomb. Before them they saw vast rolling plains of green grass dotted with petruding white stones, with a tall mountain on one side and a hollowed out plateau on the other. Due to the distance it was hard to see, but plooms of smoke could be seen from what looked like a village at the base of the mountain, and from within the plateau.

"So, what do we do now?" Theo asked.

"Find the next gate obviously," Elijah replied.

"I know that!" Theo said defensively. "I mean, it looks like their are villages down there. How should we investigate?"

"Very carfully," Arthur replied. "We should do our best to conceal our presence for now as we try and see if either village has the gate."

"First objective though," Claire said as she looked over the ledge. "Getting down."

"Elijah, if you would be so kind as to form us a platform," Arthur instructed.

In seconds a stone platform was formed out from the ledge.

"Now everyone climb on. Theo, I want you to keep the gravity on us light, as Claire and Lilia use wind magic to steer and control our dissent, try and aim towards the plateau," Arthur instructed to everyone.

Once on Elijah broke the platform free, and after a bit of a sudden drop of a foot, they were stable and heading towards the plateau as they steadily lost altitude.

"Hey Arthur, I was wondering. I remember seeing Olfred creating a flying stingray out of dirt to carry you both to the floating castle after the Xyrus academy attack. Why can't we just do that?" Curtis asked.

"Because Theo can't do that without seriously draining his core," Arthur replied.

"Yeah, but you and Elijah can do it."

"True, but there won't always be a white core mage on a dive. The capabilities of a white core mage is vastly different from a light silver core mage, let alone a mage in the yellow stage. You can't depend on having someone with those kinds of abilities on a team, so I want you all to get used to relying on your own abilities."

After a few minutes they made a landing in the plains. It wasn't a smooth landing, but any landing you can walk away from is a good one. They managed to make it about halfway to the plateau, so they had to run the rest of the way. As they ran they eventually came across a dirt path, worn in from repeated heavy use.

As the neared the plateau they worked harder to conceal their presence, as they saw a group of beasts resembling Minotaurs gathered, along with several tall seige weapons Arthur had seen in history books from his old world that were used to get over castle walls. Wanting to gather more information of the situation they completely restricted their cores as they crept closer, using bushes for cover.

They watched in horror as the black Minotaurs dragged screaming humanoid like beasts and threw them in cages. The humanoid beasts had pale skin, blue eyes, and feather-like antennas coming out of their foreheads. They appeared to only be wearing the most simple of clothes, and had blue blood flowing from their backs. The blood was unusual because everyone was bleeding from the same spot, but they didn't have time to wonder about that now. They saw children being ripped away from their fathers, and if anyone resisted they were struck by the minotauros, who were easily three times their size. Several corpses were being thrown onto a cart, and the living were being thrown into caged carts, similar to what slave traders used in Dicathen. A few of the minotauros were bleeding from various points of their bodies, but they were only flesh wounds.

Everyone looked to Arthur as to what they should do, but he just watched as he analyzed the situation. More minotaurs were climbing down with either living or dead humanoid beasts, meaning there had to be more within the plateau.

"Arthur, I know you're worried about being tricked again, but are you really ok with watching this?" Regis asked.

"Of course not, but this isn't the same. It won't be easy to protect everyone this time. It was easy when I just had to worry about protecting Caera after we were betrayed."

Suddenly a series of aetheric arrows began flying towards the minotaurs around the caged wagon. Two minitors were killed, but several pulled out coffin shields which others began to hide behind.

Arthur and the others looked up, following the arrows paths to find one of the humanoid beasts wearing basic leather armor flying above them. However he wasn't flying like a white core mage does, he had wings. These wings were not those of a bird, but in fact like a butterfly with the colors being black and gold. Arthur was now struck with a sense of realization, the reason why the prisoners had blood dripping down their backs from the same location, the minotauros were ripping their wings off.

The minotaurs that weren't carrying shields began swinging a weapon over their heads. It appeared to be two sphere weights on either end of a rope, and when released they went spinning towards their flying enemy. He saw them and began dodging. One by one he avoided each and every one of them while still firing aether arrows, until one eventually tangled up with one of his wings. He grabbed at the rope and pulled to try and free himself as he quickly tumbled down through the air, eventually crashing into the ground.

The minotaurs cheered in victory, sounding like a combination between a roar and moo. Several rushed to him to make the kill, but a louder roar than any of the others caused them to stop. The source was a minotaur larger than the rest, wearing a steel chest plate and carried a battle ax as large as one Mica would have made.

The team looked to Arthur for guidance, all of them ready to charge in to the rescue. However Arthur remained silent, hesitating as he didn't want to risk choosing the wrong side and inadvertently endangering his team.

As the largest minotaur closed in there was screaming coming from inside the caged wagon, the screaming of a child. A small boy, Arthur guessed five or six years old, with jet black hair that matched the recently downed man, was pressed against the inside of the cage with arm reaching out through the bars as he screamed out with tears streaming from his eyes. His screams were blood curdling and changed as if he was screaming words, but if they were then it was a language that would no doubt take years to learn.

The down man looked to the boy and yelled in the same manner, to which the boy became silent and nodded, one of the others in the cage gently pulled the boy back and turned his face away. As the large Minotaur reached the man he raised his battle ax over his head, and the man locked eyes with Arthur.

"Please save my son," Arthur heard in his head with a pleading voice, as a surge of fear, dread, and desperation poured into his head.

In split second Arthur snapped, and appeared behind the minotaur with his body sparking with amethyst bolts electricity, and thrust his aether sword through the beast's back.

"What the fuck was that?! You just came out of nowhere and jumped in! Until just this second you were undecided, what happened?" Regis asked.

As soon as Arthur heard the plea and felt the emotions, he achieved a moment of complete clarity. This wasn't very different from what happened in Dicathen, bandits attacking who they felt were weaker than them and taking what they wanted, just like what happened to him all those years ago. And just like then, a father was desperate to save his son. Arthur was now without his own father, and the thought of witnessing a child losing his because he chose to hold back enraged him.

"If I can't bring myself to help a father save his own child, then what right do I have to have children of my own one day."

The minotaur dropped his ax behind him, it landing right beside Arthur in the ground. He then swung his sword up, cutting the beast in half. Arthur turned to face the other minotaurs, who were all silent and had their eyes locked on his aether sword.

"I don't know if you can understand me," Arthur released his killing intent, causing the beasts to shutter with wide eyes. "But this is your only chance to run away, otherwise you'll all die here."

The beasts didn't leave, not even as Arthur withdrew his intent, but instead focused on his sword. Meanwhile his team was preparing to engage, each picking their first target. They weren't sure what triggered him to leap into action so suddenly, but they knew they would support him the second an all out fight broke out. As Arthur watched the beasts he could see rage building in their eyes. He wasn't sure exactly what was enraging them, but he couldn't see this ending at all peacefully. Suddenly one of the beasts roared, followed by another, then another. Soon all of them were roaring, right before they all charged him.

Seeing this as the signal to engage, Arthur's team leapt into action. A series of ice spears formed and fired, impaling half a dozen of the beasts, as four small tornadoes formed within their ranks. The beasts were picked up off the ground and sliced up by the wind blades spinning within the twister. The ground around the bushes became flooded, and a massive sea serpent of water lunged forward and began ripping the beasts apart, turning its water red. Curtis and Claire ran into battle with their blades ignited in a blue flame. While Curtis took his opponents head on, Claire relied on her superior speed and agility to take down her targets. Like Curtis, Theo also chose the head on approach, lightening the gravity of his opponent's with a punch before sending them flying with a punch or kick.

Adding to the close range combat Tess ran in with her bladed staff, showing the daily training with Arthur had bore fruit. Her swordsmanship had improved drastically other the past two months, creating a blend of Art and Claire's swordsmanship style but leaning more towards Arthur's. In the beginning when she was seeing Cadell's memories while absorbing the mana from his horn, she thought he was a skilled swordsman, even if Arthur was better. However after training directly with Arthur she could see the gap between them was like night and day. Based on swordsmanship alone, Arthur could never lose to Cadell, even on his worst day.

The only one hesitating was Elijah. However with a slap to his own face and a look of annoyance, a sea of sharp stones erupted from the ground, tearing through the minotaurs ranks.

As Arthur swung his sword at his next targets Regis leaped out of his body and ran to the caged wagon. Two of the minotaurs were trying to flee with their prisoners, but the demonic looking wolf shot ahead and cut them off before coming at them head on as he changed into his werewolf form. One of the minotaurs swung down with a greatsword nearly as large as himself at Regis, but Regis caught it with his left claw and destroyed the sword with destruction. The two minotaurs were so shocked that they didn't even react in time to even try to stop Regis from plunging his claws into their chests.

With quick movements Tess dodged and parried attacks directed towards her from several minotauros, while also delivering her own. She was doing rather well, but as she fought her blade broke more and more, until a minotaur blocked her swipe with its battle ax, and shattered her blade. Overconfident that she was now defenseless, three of them came at her at once. Quickly she grabbed the longest section of her former blade and used gale stomp, which she learned from Claire, and closed the gap between her and the minotaur in front of her as she thrust the blade into its throat. The minotaur crashed to its knees before falling over as it bled out. She was about to switch to using plant and wind magic fight, but another option landed right in front of her.

"Tess!" Arthur shouted as he threw Dawns Ballad, and it landed in the ground in front of her.

She drew the translucent blue blade from the ground and charged forward, taking down the two Minotaurs before her.

If not for additional minotaurs climbing down the siege tower from the plateau that battle would have ended after a few minutes, but the steady flow dragged out the battle. Deciding a prolonged battle would put them at a disadvantage, Arthur formed a white fireball and fired it at the tower. The whole tower burst into flames almost immediately, burning the minotaurs that were on it alive. In less than a minute the tower was crumbling to the ground, and soon after was little more than a pile of ashes. The remaining Minotaurs didn't last long after that.

With the beasts defeated they all started making their way to Arthur as they tried to catch their breath.

"Here, thanks," Tess said as she handed Arthur back his sword.

Arthur glanced down at the sword, then back up to her. "You're still having a little trouble regulating your mana when augmenting weapons, so hold on to it for now."

"Thanks," Tess replied graciously, then became curious. "I thought only you could use this sword?"

"As long as it's unsheathed anyone can, but it won't adjust to anyone else."

Regis ripped the lock off the cage and the prisoners began to pour out. It was a bittersweet victory for them. On the one hand they were now free, but on the other all of them had lost their wings. The young boy from earlier ran to his father who embraced him tightly, as the others practically dragged themselves out of the cage with a look of defeat.

"Geez, you'd think they just lost everything," Theo commented as he saw the scene. "Why aren't they even happy to be freed?"

"How would you feel if you were a prisoner who was freed after you lost a leg to your captors. They'll be happy eventually, but for now they need to grieve," Arthur replied, then walked to the father.

As he closed in the father took notice and locked eyes with him.

"Thank you."

"So that was your voice. You can speak telepathically."

"Only when our eyes are locked. This is the most efficient way for us to communicate I'm afraid. Even though our tongues make different words, the language of the mind is the same for all."

"Will everyone be ok?" Arthur looked at the child sympathetically.

"With time hopefully. These are the first to ever escape, so not even we know what to do to help them."

"I see," Arthur said with a tinge of guilt. There was no way they could have prevented all this, but if only he acted sooner less would have suffered.

"Do not blame yourself. They are alive and free because of you." He then looked regretful. "But now I must ask more of you and your comrades."

"What is it?"

"There are more of them inside," he said as he pointed to the plateau. "Now with their tower destroyed they will become desperate. I don't know what they will do to my people, and if they reach out queen all is lost."

Arthur looked back to his team, who had quietly been waiting, now with expectant looks on their faces.

"He was talking in my head," Arthur explained. "Anyway, he's asking for our help again. There are more minotaurs inside the plateau attacking his people, he'd like us to help eliminate them." Arthur bowed his head. "I'm sorry I acted as I did. My actions dragged everyone into this, and may have made things harder for us. But if we continue and help, it could make things even worse."

"Yeah, you're probably right," Curtis commented casually, then smiled. "But then again, if one of us were in charge we would have jumped in sooner without thinking of the consequences."

"We only do this if everyone agrees." Everyone nodded in agreement. "Alright then. Let's go."

Theo started popping his knuckles. "Good, I could go for a steak dinner tonight."