Angel Monarch

There was no living creature here, only the eroded ground from all the rain.

\'Just where does all this rain go? If it rains here throughout the whole day, that could feed a large river, but it seems to only make a small marshland around the storm... Strange, it\'s like something doesn\'t let it spread.

They marched on further, closing in on the eye of the storm. The rain gradually decreased in frequency, and the clouds turned thinner. When they finally stepped outside of the storm wall, they were welcomed by an azure blue sky, and a bit farther away stood a lonely building.

The group hadn\'t stopped to reconfigure and just walked towards the structure. From afar it didn\'t look any special, but as they closed in, the building\'s pervious purpose became as clear as day... it was a church.

It looked old, or more like ancient. The stone that it was built out of was already crumbling at most places. The stained glass windows were mostly broken to little bits and pieces. From the two clocktowers only one stood kind of straight, the other was destroyed and turned to rubble.

The eight of them approached the rotting double doors of the temple and stepped inside.

The building\'s interior wasn\'t as dark as one would imagine. The window holes and broken roof really helped with the atmosphere of the creepy abandoned temple.

There were rows and rows of seats, or at least there were at some point, now most of the lied in splinters. The pillars that were meant to hold up the roof were in a bad state too, they could probably be toppled by a light push.

All in all this place was a health hazard, and they haven\'t even seen the most dangerous part of it. In the front, below a large tainted glass window, where an altar should\'ve been, stood a throne... and on it sat an old man.

His hair and beard were dark like a storm cloud, his bushy eyebrows brought out the eyes which seemed like electricity were coursing through them. He wore nothing, but a dark robe.

The group readied their weapons preparing for the fight and as the man slowly raised his head a mad smile spread on his face. He began laughing with the sound of thunder, then steadily rose from his throne.

"Who dares approaches my domain!" His voice was a deep rumble which shook the whole building to its core.

The group looked at each other a bit confused, beings affected by madness rarely talked if ever. It rose a spark of doubt in their minds, they didn\'t want to kill someone that wasn\'t corrupted. Luckily Notus made the decision for them.

"Whoever you are, I hope you are prepared to die!" While his voice was still shaking the foundation of the building, his body turned bright as a lightning strike.

He seemed to disappear from the elevated platform where the throne was located, and in the next moment Lucy was flying through the air.

His movement was so fast that non of them could even react. The next one to get hit was Hellfire, but he only fell to the ground. Then behind his back a pair of flaming wings appeared, but before he could rise a lightning hit him square on the chest.

Above the church the dark clouds from the sides began closing in. Through the cracks in the roof Bea saw them and quickly realized their threat.

\'We have to finish this fast!\'

.net

While Notus was still electrocuting Hellfire, the others closed in to try and deliver their own attacks. The first one was Faith, whom came out of the shadows and stabbed with her rapier. The move was perfect, impossible to dodge, but the spirit wasn\'t fully corporeal.

The rapier instead of impaling him, just grazed his arm and in the next moment a wide eyed Faith was flying backwards. Before she could hit the ground, she turned into a shadow.

James hadn\'t even tried to transform since that would only gave him a weakness against Notus\'s lightning, but every shot he made with his weapon seemed to immediately get absorbed.

"HA-HA-HA! Thanks for the energy!" In the next second a bolt went straight towards James, but as it was about to hit, a wall of vine shielded him. Notus\'s head snapped towards Bea.

"How dare you interfere with my game?" He dissolved into clouds and appeared in front of her. He was about to deliver an attack, when a piercing pain hit his stomach.

In the next moment Bea moved again, trying to deliver another blow, but the spirit was still much faster than her.

"You little WHORE! You will pay for that!" He shouted with the sound of thunder, and from his hand a beam of pure electricity tried to hit Bea.

It had so much power that she should\'ve died immediately, but a wall of water intercepted and dissipated the energy. The water wasn\'t touching the ground, so every bit of electricity was kind of contained, but it became very unstable.

Will using all his ascended strength made the large electric water ball rise towards the roof. It was about to leave through a crack when the whole thing exploded into a giant ball of lightning.

The whole roof exploded and the broken pieces rained down on the battlefield.

Vicky was hiding in the background and using her power to hurt Notus\'s soul. But as the debris fell from the sky she had to begin moving to not get crushed to death.

Unfortunately Notus seemed to notice her and what she was doing to his soul. Before Bea could deliver another attack, he smiled hatefully and dissolved into a storm cloud.

He reformed near Vicky who was in the process of dodging another rubble, but when his hand was about to catch and electrify her, Faith appeared and threw her out of danger.

Instead of Vicky, Faith was caught in his grasp. Her armor held for a second which was just enough for a few rounds from James to land on Notus\'s body. This time he didn\'t use his energy weapon, but one of his larger railguns. Instead of electricity, magnetically charged metal bullets hit him.

His grasp slackened, but in the next moment his whole arm was cut of by a very angry Lucy. The wound immediately began festering and rotting.

With a scared expression Notus tried to escape by dissolving into lightning, but as he was about to move a woman made of water caught him. Since his body was made up off only electricity, when it touched Sarah\'s transformed self it got wholly absorbed.

Above them the storm clouds began to disappear. The battle ended as quickly as it began, the fighting hadn\'t even lasted a minute, but everyone was tired.

While the others were still gathering their thoughts, lightning struck from the clear sky and hit Sarah\'s water elemental form. Slowly she changed back into a human, on her body small electric discharges were snaking through.

Her eyes focused on the exhausted group, then rolled back into her head. She began falling over unconscious, the evolution process had begun. Will quickly jumped and caught her, before she fell to the ground.

They decided to wait for Sarah to wake up, then they would immediately beeline to Flenburg and try to find Sera before it\'s too late.

With a quick mental message Bea told Alyrine, that it was safe to come here. And in the next second, through the broken roof the hippogryphs had descended.

It took Sarah a few hours to wake up. She felt a lot more powerful, especially her control over lightning and storms, but before she could check or test anything out, the group saddled back on and flew towards southeast.

They were about fifty or so kilometers away, which meant they would arrive there by nightfall.

They went as fast as they could, their worry and anxiety was constantly increasing. And they felt that something horrible was going to happen, and unfortunately they weren\'t wrong.

At first there was just a small point on the southeastern horizon, but as they got closer towards it they soon realized what or more like who he was... Kastral.

For a second everyone breathed a sigh of relief, but when they saw that there was no one on his back, their fear came back tenfold.

The group quickly landed on the ground and listened to Bea, who in turn listened to Alyrine as she translated for Kastral. He spoke of Amygdala, and how she let both Sera and him escape. Then about the goblin camp and Sera\'s massacre, then finally about Sera herself.

"As we were flying towards Flenburg with the group, suddenly she began talking to herself and asking questions like \'Who am I?\' or \'What am I doing here?\'. At that point we were already close to Flenburg, but she suddenly began to freak out!"

It seemed their worst fears came to be true and Sera truly lost her memories, and with that her whole sense of self.

"I landed to try and calm her down, but she immediately ran off. No matter what I said or done she just sprinted into Flenburg with a terrified expression. The guards saw her and were about to open fire on me, so I had to leave..."

"So she is still in Flenburg?" Asked Vicky with teary eyes. Kastral seemed to look away sadly, then shook his head and sighed.

"No... She went through the portal... I only saw her from afar, but through our bond I felt her emotions... After entering Flenburg, her whole demeanor changed, like someone else had taken control... She went straight for the Realm Gate, and when the guards tried to stop her she cut them down mercilessly..."

The group turned speechless. What happened to Sera was horrible, worse than they thought. The silence lasted for a few minutes, then Bea spoke up.

"I don\'t care..." She said in a voice barely louder than a whisper. Her head slowly turned towards the sky, and she repeated herself, this time louder.

"I don\'t care what she did! My only concern is what\'s happening to her! We were already planning to enter the Realm of Boundless Frost for the last four hunts, this just means that our schedule has been brought forward!"

Bea looked at each of the group members with a serious expression, while her right hand was absently stroking Vicky\'s hair. Everyone bobbed their heads, showing their approval.

"SO? What are we waiting for! MOVE OUT!"