11 Crimson Amulet
After hearing such demands, Quinn staggered on her balance as she supports herself to stand up from the ground.
Did she just?
Do you think this is a sparring session?
You said if we screw up we lose!
"I can't believe this." Quinn had a complex expression, confused if she should laugh or cry with what Sarane just requested from her opponent. If she could bang her head in the wall, she would have done it repeatedly out of sheer second-hand embarrassment.
After sharing her friend's humiliation, she composed herself.
Rael!
She hastens towards his direction, when she tried to snag him, a compelling pressure prohibited the ingression of her hands. As she reflects on the matter and inspects her surroundings, she realizes that the Crimson Amulet hovers above Rael.
She glances at battle's momentum between the Doctor and Sarane. From its looks, the favor has now tipped on the Doctor's side. Sarane, on the other hand, was on defensive-evasive condition.
She tried to retrieve her rapier; nonetheless, the Doctor won't give her the opportunity she needs as a barrage of attacks came straight for Sarane.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
No matter how Quinn tried to grab Rael, an invisible space voided her entry. "C'mon! This is getting annoying already!"
Then a notice on the board gleamed inside her head.
'Third, the cultivators must guide Rael to the Crimson Amulet. Under all circumstances, one must not intervene what will arise afterward.'
"I just want him to finish whatever that's going on with him right now in a safe spot! That's helping him instead of intervening, correct?" Quinn asked the board for clarification.
Then another notice gleamed and resounded on her head.
'Fourth, the cultivators must protect Rael with this endeavor.'
"Seriously? In this state, does this task or whoever gave it even sees what situation we're in?" Quinn's last string of sanity snapped, then she flared back at the authority board in her mind.
The board did not respond.
A trace of annoyance painted Quinn's face, which she dispelled immediately. She knows an addled mind will not accustom the situation they are currently stuck in.
"I guess setting up some traps for countermeasures will be appropriate first, then I will just proceed to assist Sarane in combat." Not knowing what else she could do, Quinn started to set up basic traps within Rael's vicinity.
He was still unconscious and vulnerable. Leaving Rael is unwise, considering that she knew Doctor Andras was not alone as well. After a few placements of sensory mechanisms with poison darts and some mini-bombs, Quinn set off to hide in the forest sneakingly.
"Now to clean up some pest."
...
Everything is pitch black.
Rael wanders to the dimmed world he now resides. All that he could see is nothingness and darkness, no hint of life rather than himself.
He continued to walk; his anxious heart throbbed rapidly.
"Am I dead again? Did I just respawn in that world to suffer? Damn!" Rael's wail echoed through nothingness; he could not accept such an ending. Where is the promised greater destiny?
Squish!
Suddenly, when he stepped forward, he somehow felt a soft presence in his foot. Rael tilts his head downward, then he saw a fleshy ground that was familiar, yet he found it hard to discern the exact picture where he last saw it.
"I am dead. Damnit! What was the second life for exactly?" Rael stomps his foot on the ground out of anger and frustration. Then, after his hissy fits, he turns to look forward and saw a sight before him that was inconceivable.
His surroundings changed, fleshy walls emerged out of nowhere. As he felt a foreboding presence, he tilted his head upward towards the sky, a chain coated with holiness hovers. In the middle, a demon resided, tightly bound by the chains.
Airtight eyes with little movements, much the same as a creature that wants to skew out; even though its eyes were close, it resembles the stares of a demonic battalion. Its complexion is heinous! Like some earthquake aftermath, cracks formed all over it. Inside of those cracks, one could see some organs that glowed with orange light. No blood oozed out of the cracks, instead, dense smoke with a stench as rancid as excrement waltzes out of it. Its horns are as sharp as its fingernails. Its infernal wings shaded in crimson, restrained with giant chains which flickered with holy light.
However, the seal is on the verge of crumbling down.
As Rael scrutinize its face once more, he observed that despite its abhorrent anatomy, its facial feature is chisel to perfection.
"What the hell is that?" Rael was dumbstruck.
As he further examines the sealed demon in the sky, Rael felt a searing pain from an abrupt heat gushing out from his forehead. He took hold of it and made it out to be the amulet from the boulder. As he held the amulet, the fleshy walls and ground started to throb uncontrollably.
Rael found it weird why the whole 'world' shook as he held the amulet.
Am I inside it? He thought.
"Wait, I remember now! I was not sure before, but now. . . it looks like where that kid from before took me! That snitch!" Thinking back on that site, the ball of frustration keep rolling in Rael's heart.
As he shouted to the wild dark yonder, a powerful suction force materializes from the sky.
The suction force came from the demon's mouth.
"You b*stard! It's you is it? What are you trying to do now, make me your fertilizer? Was this the greater destiny you spoke of?" Rael tried to scamper away from the suction force; however, this proves his efforts were futile.
The suction force suddenly extracted him from the ground. Rael stayed afloat in front of the demon exactly as when its eyes open up.
Seconds after, the sky rumbled and the chains rattled the sky. Along with countless broken fragments of the seal's chains, cracking sounds descended from the skies. Following the volley of broken chains, the fluttering sound of wings battered the area with vehement winds.
"Silence you scum!" A deafening boom reverberated.
The next scene that Rael saw with his eyes was the Crimson Amulet. Then everything rebounded to darkness once more.
