Matt caught Sophie just in time and immediately laid her down on the sofa. At that moment, he definitely didn't know what to do. He looked at the clock hanging on the wall. It was almost four. The medics from Venice had announced that they would arrive no earlier than at eight. Knowing them, they could be an hour late. That would be unbearable.

A man didn't even think for a second about waking his guests. They deserved to rest after such an exhausting mission. Matt decided to keep an eye on both girls. If things got worse, he would probably have no choice.

A few minutes later, someone entered the room. Matt was just persuing some papers he should have dealt with long ago.

"How's the situation?" male voice spoke up.

"Oh, it's you, Dante. Couldn't sleep?" man looked at Huntik council member.

Dante replied that a short nap was enough for him. Vale took a seat at the table, next to seeker.

Vale noticed that something was happening to Sophie again. The purple wound had reappeared on her hand. Moreover, it was larger than before.

"It looks like Malia failed." said the man in the dirty yellow coat.

"I have a feeling she had some kind of plan. However, it doesn't change the fact that both of them need to hold on for next four hours." replied Matt.

A few minutes later, Malia slowly opened her eyes, which her colleague immediately noticed.

"And here is our sleeping beauty." greeted brunette, staring at her.

"Very funny." she said weakly, slowly massaging her head.

"I'm not very knowledgeable about healing spells, but could you tell us what you did to Sophie?" Vale directed a question to a girl.

Malia quickly blinked to awake. She looked at the councilman.

"Do you think I could harm her?" she asked more energetically.

Indeed, her suspicions made sense. Dante knew her as an ordinary librarian who usually sat and read something in Huntik Foundation International HQ's library. The fact that she possessed knowledge was indisputable for Vale. On the other hand, Malia could have used it to carry out a nefarious plan.

"I'm not accusing you of anything. It's not like that" Dante replied.

The girl closed her eyes and tilted her head back. She exhaled a thin stream of air. After a longer moment, she lifted her head and opened her eyes.

"I transferred the poison to myself, as you probably guessed. It was the first time I used this method. As you can see, something went wrong. I only made her condition worse. I put all my power into making it work, but once again, I failed." her voice started to break as she said the last sentence.

She started to cry. Matt told her it wasn't her fault and she shouldn't blame herself. These words calmed her down. Malia was not yet a fully-fledged medic. She was still in training. She wanted to help Sophie so bad. Malia felt that Casterwill girl was very close to her, even though they didn't know each other well.

Dante felt ashamed for wanting to accuse the Swedish girl of something like that, but he didn't show it.

The girl got up from the chair.

"I'll try again." she announced.

"You're still exhausted. It's visible." stated Matt.

"It doesn't matter. I'll keep trying even if it costs me my life."

"You know that by dying, you won't be able to help anyone anymore, right? That's not the goal of medical seekers, is it? Am I wrong?" Vale spoke up.

"He's right. Only a living person can help the wounded." black-haired man said.

"Even if the medics arrive at eight, we don't know what will happen to Sophie by then. I have to take the risk. That's the mission and values I adhere to." medical seeker replied, moving a stool over to Casterwill.

"The poison is strong, and additionally... it's possible they might not be able to do anything about it either. The only solution that comes to my mind is..." she was saying until someone entered the room.

The person's gaze immediately looked at uncoscious girl.

"Sophie? What... what happened?" asked Lok, paralyzed with fear in his eyes.

The brunette girl merely looked away from the boy and focused on trying to alleviate the symptoms of the poison, which had by now spread over Casterwill's entire hand.

Matt and Dante preferred to remain silent. Lambert looked at the men.

"Even you? Are you hiding something from me?" boy asked pretentiously.

He still got no response. He walked quickly over to the medic.

"Speak up!" Lok pulled her collar.

His tug was so forceful that the stool toppled over. Malia instantly covered his eyes with her hand.

"I'm sorry. I didn't want to do this, but you're not giving me a choice. Darksleep." she uttered the spell and quickly caught him to prevent him from getting hurt.

The councilman took his friend and laid him on the chair where Swedish girl had been sitting on a few minutes earlier.

"Will you finish you sentence?" Vale asked.

"I didn't want to say anything in front of him because he should be the last to know. If he heard it now, he would want to leave immediately, probably without any plan. There's a certain titan with incredible healing abilities. I read about him in the library archives. He would surely be able to handle this severe case." Malia stated.

Five hours later

The group of three medics from Venice was only seventeen minutes late. As Malia had predicted, medics couldn't completely get rid of the wound. They had to take Sophie with them to monitor her constantly. One of the paramedics only said that finding the titan was the only real hope for Casterwill girl. The second option was to forcibly get the antidote recipe out of the unfortunate Spiral member.

Lok woke up as the medical seekers were taking his beloved girl away.

"What's wrong with her? Why are you taking her?" he asked.

The response was that she would be safer under their care.

Lambert didn't have the strength for any arguments. He had to trust them. Especially since shortly after that, Dante informed him that he was temporarily taking command for the sake of the mission's success.

Lok accepted this without enthusiasm. His thoughts revolved around the scene he had seen before Malia sent him to the realm of dreams.

How did it come to this? He didn't know.

The entire scene was witnessed by the Fears brothers, Cathy, and Cherit, who had come to ask what had happened. Matt briefly explained everything to them.

"I'm sorry once again." Malia said.

"I know you tried. Don't beat yourself up anymore." replied Lambert girl.

"Cathy is right." announced Dante, who was meanwhile clicking something on his holotome.

"So what's the plan?" asked Den.

"We need to find the titan who can heal Sophie." answered Vale.

"Unfortunately, the records I read didn't have information about his exact location. There was only a mention of a sect called the Andern that worships this titan." medic girl stated.

"Then that's where we need to look." said Cathy.

Dante searched for the phrase "Andern" in his holotome. It turned out that their journey would lead them to Croatia. The sect resided in the suburbs of Zagreb and actively recruited followers.

"Everything is clear now." stated Harrison.

"Since we're all here, there's no point in waiting. Thank you, Matt, for your hospitality and lodging." Vale stood up and put his holotome into his bag.

The team, along with Malia, left the Florentine quarters.

The next day

During this time, the seekers experienced two train delays and a flight that was rescheduled for the next day.

"I guess we've never been to Croatia, have we?" asked Cherit after being let out of Lok's backpack.

"Possible. I don't really know." Lambert replied indifferently.

Lok calmed down. When he found out the mission's goal, he tried to stay calm and at least for a moment stop thinking about his girlfriend. Sophie probably wouldn't want him to worry so much about her. Now he understood why Dante had become the temporary leader. This was one of those missions where they couldn't afford the slightest mistake. Surprisingly, Lambert boy spent most of his time talking to Malia. Over time, he realized that he had judged her incorrectly at first. Their conversation began with the girl's apology. She explained the reason for her behavior towards him.

Huntik team was at the airport on the outskirts of Zagreb. They needed to get to the other side of the city. The Andern had only one meeting place.

It was seven in the evening. According to Hoontik (the search engine built into the holotome), the time Andern tried to summon their "god" (the titan of today's mission) was midnight.

"Four hours of walking. It reminds me of our mission in England." sighed Cathy.

"At least our legs will get a good workout." laughed Harrison.

"Come on. It's not going to take that long." interjected Lambert boy.

"Lok is right, which is why we'll stop at a certain place for a while." announced Vale.

"I'll go scout the area. The quicker we get this done, the better." said Malia.

"I'm going with you." said Harrison.

Dante agreed to this arrangement. The condition was that they had to behave and not start any action until the team was complete.

They split up near the Foundation's quarters. This was the place Dante had mentioned.

"Do you have any idea what we could check?" Malia began.

The two sekeers pondered between themselves what would be sensible and help in devising an almost perfect plan. Why "almost"? Because there were always unforeseen circumstances that couldn't be predicted.

A few minutes later, they entered the district where the Andern had their "headquarters."

"We need to be careful." said the Swedish girl.

"There's not a living soul here. Are we sure we're going the right way?" asked Fears.

At that moment, they saw two people in dark sunglasses and suits jumping across the rooftops of the street's tenements.

"What the...?" thought the girl.

"Could those be Andern?" he asked his companion.

"I'm afraid it was something else. We need to hurry."

Harrison called his brother, telling him to start heading their way.

The two stood in front of a building. From the outside, it looked like an ordinary church. It was entirely white, with a black roof and black frames in the small windows.

"There are at least twelve people inside." girl deduced from what she saw through the windows in the massive black doors.

"The summoning rituals start at midnight, right? Was there any mention of preparations?" asked Fears.

It seemed like he had a lightbulb moment and had an idea.

"You're right! Their preparations last about three hours or... until there's enough 'followers' power'." she emphasized the last two words with air quotes.

The girl felt a sudden pang in her chest, and she saw the outline of a figure she couldn't clearly make out. She fell to her knees and started breathing heavily.

"Hey, are you okay?" boy asked.

"Yeah, I'm okay. Just got dizzy for a moment." she replied, getting up on her own.

Harrison heard the sound of opening doors. He grabbed his companion's hand and quickly hid behind a nearby tenement. From behind the building, they observed the further course of events.

Seekers saw a man in a green outfit with a red ribbon on his wrist. He was graying, and his beard was as long as Santa Claus'.

"What is he doing?" he whispered to his companion.

"Probably he's looking for new followers" she scoffed. "Your friends will be here soon, and then everything will really start."

"I see we're just in time" said Lok, who stood behind the teenagers.

It turned out that the rest of the team came by a different route than Malia and Harrison.

"We need to take him down before he raises the alarm." Dante announced.

"You got it, Dante." replied Cherit, with a large stone in his small hands.

A titan flew up from above and dropped the object straight onto the Andern. He fell unconscious to the ground.

"I thought we'd try less radical methods." said the brunette girl.

"Do you think they would hand over their "god" to us, strangers?" Den spoke up.

Malia just rolled her eyes. She hadn't thought about it that way.

 For a moment, the team discussed the number of Andern. Malia mentioned that the titan's aura was very faintly detectable. This could be because the proper ritual took place somewhere in the underground.

In reality, there were no rituals; it was a kind of placebo for the bitterly faithful followers. Rumors told that one of the sect members had been healed from a powerful curse during one of these meetings. Another story told that when their deity descended to Earth, their god would save them from disaster.

Huntik team stood before the entrance doors. Dante said not to provoke them to fight. After all, they were just ordinary people, not seekers. Lambert summoned Springer. Titan had to find the presumed entrance to the underground.

"Good evening. May we join you?" asked Dante, who was the first to enter the building.

He didn't expect anything polite from them. Meanwhile, one of the followers asked them to politely take a sit on an empty bench.

The interior of the "church" indeed resembled one. There were old benches made of dark wood. The only thing missing were prayer books. Above the hall, there was a chandelier with lit wax candles. The walls were covered in gray. In some little windows, stained glass made of green, red, and yellow pieces depicting something related to the titan of team's mission could be seen.

In the center stood a differently dressed man. He wore a green outfit with black elements. He was probably a priest who served as a devoted Andern.

Springer quietly returned to its owner and pointed out the entrance. It was behind the covered part where the one leading the ritual occasionally disappeared. Lok thanked his little friend and sent him back to the amulet.

"Remember: no titans." Dante reminded.

At that moment, the leader of the "worship" commanded everyone to kneel and bow towards the altar. He himself did the same afterward, still praying.

It was the perfect opportunity not to arouse suspicion within the sect and silently slip into the further part.

Den and Harrison were the first to stand up (as they were sitting on the edge). The rest followed them, so they remained together. Seekers had to move slowly, making their steps barely audible. Their goal today was not to disrupt the service but to acquire the titan.

After a moment, they opened narrow, silver doors to fenced off area. Seekers noticed the spiral staircase leading downward. One by one, they began to descend.

Before their eyes, they saw a larger group of priests. In the background, they saw a medium-sized statue made of bright stone. The figure wore a cap with a crystal in the middle. In one hand, it held a staff, and in the other, a small dagger. It was dressed in a linen tunic. It had pauldrons with small patterns decorating its shoulders, and a thin belt around its waist.

Malia pointed out that she must have previously sensed the titan's energy from this statue.

"Good evening. Are we interrupting?" Lok asked.

"Yes, you are!" replied one of Anderns, then summoned Redcap.

"Is this some kind of joke? Are you from the Organization?" Dante asked, shocked.

"Answer that question for yourself! Raypulse!" another enemy seeker responded.

The spell hit the wall behind the team.

"A lot of elements of surprise today." muttered the elder Fears.

"We've got your back. Go get the titan!" Vale looked at Malia.

She just nodded and ran in the right direction. The remaining seekers positioned themselves to effectively cover her.