[Somewhere in the depths of Grand Crater]

Roa and Satoru made their way toward a man seated on a high-rise throne, which rose out of the crater's depths. The terrain had been changed to make it resemble a palace.

The man smiled as soon as he saw them. "Good to see that you two are awake." He wore no shirt, showing off his muscular build. Though his most interesting feature was the black monkey tail wrapped around his waist.

Roa kept his head down and said, "I'm... sorry." He curled his hands into fists. "I... I failed to protect another friend..." He closed his star-like eyes. "I'm so sorry, Master Daisaru."

Daisaru frowned. "It's alright. We'll reclaim Etsuo from the enemy. Though you better prepare yourselves for the upcoming battle."

"Should we even save that weakling?" asked a blond female teen as she walked in with two others. She was dressed in a yellow gown.

"Come on, he's our big bro. Even if he is a wimp," said a black-haired boy that resembled Daisaru. He wore a vest and a fez.

"Yeah, we need to save big bro Etsuo! I am sure if it were any of us that he would save us," said the red-haired girl accompanying the other two. She had an eye patch on the center of her forehead.

Satoru snickered. "I agree with Mai. We're better off leaving him to his own devices. If not for him, we likely would've taken the palace."

Daisaru took a deep breath. "I won't abandon my son. I will be sending one of you to go save him. As for which one, I rather leave you guessing until the day comes close. Either way, the one who will save him must be ready to fight as much as the others. The rest of you are to stay here to confront the enemy. I take it that you still have your Yagro Sphere?"

Roa stared at the cyan pods situated throughout the room. They continued on in a spiral that reached the ceiling. He returned his gaze to the Monkey Pillar and nodded. "Yes, they should be at full power when awakened. Etsuo also has yet to use his. Only Satoru here has made use of it."

Daisaru narrowed his eyes at Satoru. "Are the various ruined towns throughout this region the doing of your soldiers?"

Satoru grinned. "Yes, one of them, to be specific."

The man shook his head. "You gave the enemy an excuse to reject our call for peace and a way to rally their own forces together. Didn't you listen when we said that we wished to do this through peaceful means?"

Satoru shrugged. "Come on, you know that's nothing more than a pipe dream. Besides, you and the other ancients love to fight. Plus, not everyone agrees with Queen Aster's way of doing things," he said, turning his back to him. "You are strong and ancient. If anyone knows how these things go, it's you. Our world is one where the strong survive and the weak die. To try to do things differently in another realm is foolish at best. Or is it that you wish to change that? For the sake of that inept child of yours?"

Daisaru smiled. "You are the foolish one to speak to me about the law of the jungle, considering my power. I could kill you right here and now in an instant, if I so wished. Now, listen closely, you two and the triplets are to fight the so-called 'Five Knights' and their entourage, which Roa mentioned in his briefings. I will be dealing with the Seven Hills. The rest of their forces shall be taken care of by the rest of our soldiers."

Satoru and the others grinned as they looked up at the various capsules as they opened, revealing different primate-looking beings. The stepped out and bowed before Daisaru.

Daisaru chuckled as he leaned his chin on his right hand. "Once we're done with Zionia, we'll be moving on to Xeleria."

"What about the realm between them?" Roa asked.

"No need to not waste any time with it. That realm has been collapsing for years now, it's best to not waste manpower on it," the Monkey Pillar said. His smile vanished. "If anything, it's a hint of what could happen if we fail."

Roa nodded. "But should we really be expanding the war beyond Zionia? Doesn't that go against our efforts to conquer with minimal bloodshed?"

Satoru chuckled. "I knew that you wanted to fight, Monkey King. Indeed, we shall take Xeleria. I know that my father will help us in whatever manner he can. After all, it has been his dream for centuries to be Magus Maximus. He'd rather rule a ruined universe than to continue to be a lowly teacher in some supposedly 'prestigious' academy in a declining nation."

"Right, I forget that you're part Xelerian," Daisaru said, sitting up straight. "Well, you can get in contact with him once we're done here. For now, we shouldn't count our bananas before they've ripened."

***

[Meanwhile- Outside of the black dome]

Miyuki and the others stood in awe at the giant black dome covering the mysterious crater which laid between Shirayuki and the northern coast of the Kingdom of Kuroriku. The dome was so large that it nearly touched the walls of Shirayuki.

Eiji pointed his staff at it. "Should we try to break it?"

The Grand Duchess of Kuroyuki no San raised her head toward the top of the dome. "If we do, we have no idea what might come out of it. This has to be the enemy's encampment, so there could be countless of those creatures within."

"But we can't give them the chance to grow stronger," Anis said. She tilted her head at it. "We need to figure out how to seal it as soon as we can. I'm going to go talk to Kuroshi about it, do you know where he is?"

"Yeah, he's holed up in the library of the palace," Miyuki said, glancing back at her dukedom's capital city. "He brought over a bunch of books. Considering that your kids managed to seal one of those creatures, it should be possible to seal these larger ones."

"But it would require something at a large scale which could take additional weeks of planning," Eiji said, touching the sphere with the tip of his staff. The thing rippled like water. "The best bet would be to eliminate them the old fashion way and to seal the portal during or after the fighting. If during the battle, we will prevent the enemy a retreat back to their own dimension."

"Though we'll need to maintain a guard for those who will be doing the sealing," Eiko said, putting her hands on her hips.

"Let's return to the castle and plan this out there," Miyuki said, staring at the sphere with unease.

Eiji drove his staff deeper into the sphere.

"What are you doing?" Eiko yelled.

Eiji pulled out his staff and turned around. "I'll tell you later. Let's get out of here, I'm freezing," he said, rubbing his shoulders. He spread out his golden eagle wings and took to the gray skies, rushing off toward Shirayuki's palace like a bolt of lightning.

***

[Shirayuki Castle Library]

Kuroshi flipped through book after book. Several of them discussed the various wars between Zionia and Cianio, the Realm of Demons. Others described the interaction between Xeleria and Badadon, the Realm of the Dead.

If Tetsuya managed to seal an Umbra with the same techniques used on demons and ghosts, it wasn't too far off to assume that the same methods to seal off demonic and spirit portals would work on the abyssmal ones. Though all the books he had read only described small and easy to make portals.

He sighed and put down the book in his hands. His hands ran through his jet-black hair as he pressed his forehead against the table.

I don't even know what kind of portal they're using. Could Aster be the one making it? No, her powers have declined. But, I'm sure she would've figured out how to make one by other means.

He gasped and glanced outside the window of the second floor of the library. His eyes fell upon the black dome outside. Rapidly his brain calculated where the dome's origin point would be if it were in the middle as one would expect it to be.

Wait... considering the position of the dome, it has to be the Grand Chasm. Father once took me there... but that was ages ago. If memory serves me right, the gate is at the very bottom, around 13,000 meters below sea-level. Getting there will be no easy feat, even with wings. The heat down there is intense too, with no ice forming that low. We could try to seal it from the outside, but would that really work?

I also have to find the incantation to weaken Daisaru. Else, I won't stand a chance against him, even if I had my full power.

He was snapped out of his thoughts as soon as he felt a hand on his back. Glancing back, he saw Anis standing behind him.

"I see you've been at work, though try not to push yourself like you always do. Also, is it safe to have your mask off?" the secret Seven-Hill asked.

Kuroshi chuckled as his eyes returned to the books on the table. "It's safe, Miyuki made it so that only you Seven Hills veterans are allowed in here. As for me not pushing myself, if I always do, then you probably should give up on telling me. Also, why are you talking to me like normal? Weren't you mad at me for pushing Hideo and Tetsuya's squads too far?"

Anis pulled up the chair next to him and huffed. "Yeah, I still am. However, that doesn't mean that I want to see you drive yourself to the ground, either."

The man snickered at her. "Such a nice person."

She grumbled. "You are too."

Kuroshi averted his gaze. "Nice? Me?" He scoffed as he opened up another book. "I'm not, not by a long shot." If you knew what I've done, then you would hate me.

Anis placed her left hand over his right hand. "I know that you and the others did things you regret, and while it isn't easy to forget, you can't allow those things to consume your life."

"That's easy for you to say," Eiji said as he walked over to their table with Miyuki and Eiko. He smiled upon seeing her holding Kuroshi's hand. "You two really are rather sickening. Though, to be honest, I kinda envy how close you are despite being separated all these years."

Kuroshi chuckled. "I know, right? I'm one fortunate guy."

Anis quickly let go of his hand. Her face had turned bright red. "Anyway, what did you wish to tell us?"

Eiji pulled up a seat across from them and sat down. He took out a ladybug-sized silver device from his pants pocket and placed it on the table.

"What is that?" Anis asked.

The Grand Duke of Raiyama chuckled. "It's one of the latest recording devices. It's the latest in spy tech." He snapped his fingers, causing the silver object to shoot out a light toward the ceiling. With an index finger, he pointed toward the ceiling. "Look up."

Anis' eyes bulged as she saw what looked like the interior of a nest made out of darkness. "What is that?"

"That's the inside of the dome," Eiji said. "I placed a mini-camera at the tip of my staff and covered it with mana to protect it from the dark winds forming the sphere. Much to my surprise, the sphere isn't as strong as I had expected. We can easily tear it apart when we want."

"It really must be weak if this device can transmit such clear images," Kuroshi said, amazed. He studied as the camera zoomed in on what laid in the center of the dome. A twenty-five-foot tall dark-red castle stood in the middle of the semi-sphere. An iridescent black crystal was embedded into its central tower, which touched the uppermost part of the sphere itself.

"Is that crystal the source of the dome?" Miyuki asked as she put her hands and the table.

"Possibly, assuming it works like this town's barriers," Kuroshi answered as his eyes scanned the structure. "Though I fear it's more than that."

"What else could it be?" Anis asked as she tilted her head.

"Now you are starting to concern me," Eiko said, keeping an eye on the crystal as the camera drew closer to it.

"It might be a laser, one that could unleash a powerful erebus," Kuroshi responded.

"Erebus?"

"What's that?" Eiji asked, looking back at him.

Kuroshi crossed his hands together. "It's basically a laser of deeply concentrated darkness made up of abyssmals."

The male Seven-Hill jumped. "What? They can turn themselves into energy?"

Kuroshi chuckled. "Sorta. It's kinda complicated to explain, and even I don't know all the details on how they can do it other than it's a thing that the weaker beings can do. However, simply because they are weak doesn't mean that they aren't dangerous. When a few of them gather together, they can fuse to create larger and stronger beings. This crystal looks like it'll be able to unleash a great deal of those creatures well beyond the region."

"So basically it's a kind of doomsday device," Eiji said, grinning.

"Why are you smiling," Eiko snapped.

Kuroshi chuckled. "Quite the interesting weapon, eh?"

The Lightning King nodded his head. "Yeah! I wanna see it up close and personal!"

The three women backed away from the two men. "You guys are starting to scare me," Miyuki said, sweating.

"Hahaha, sorry there, seems that my love for weapons got the better of me," Eiji said, snickering.

"Same here," Kuroshi said, rubbing the back of his head.

"If only Sebastian were here," Eiji said.

Miyuki snickered. "I bet that he would have reacted the same way if he were still around, wishing to know how it functioned."

"Hey, that gives me an idea!" Eiji yelled. "If possible, we should study this weapon and develop our own!"

"No, that seems like too much. Frankly, I do not trust Osamu with this kind of power," Anis said, giving him a stern look.

Eiji nodded his head. "True. Well, we could at least use the knowledge to dismantle them. Perhaps we could figure out a way to do so with a certain kind of frequency or something."

"That's a great idea! Perhaps we could figure something out with your drone," Kuroshi exclaimed, grinning widely.

"You nerds," Eiko said, shaking her head.

Eiji pouted.

Anis and Miyuki sighed. "It's as if you three reverted to how you were when we first met," Anis said, chuckling.

"Only ones missing are the siblings," Eiko said.

Kuroshi and Miyuki lowered their head. "Yeah, if only they were here..." Miyuki said, turning her back to them. "I am going to lay down for a bit. If you need anything, just ask the attendants, and they shall be able to give it to you."

"Rest well," Eiko said, waving. Miyuki waved back without looking back.

Eiji regretted having brought up Sebastian. Even after all these years, it still pained Miyuki deeply to have lost him. She directly contrasted with King Osamu, who showed no sign of sorrow for Sofia's death when it happened.

**Solar Note: Hope that you enjoyed the chapter :3. Some of you might've noticed that I changed 'Grand Crevice' to 'Grand Crater'. I did so as crater is more accurate for what it is than a crevice is. What do you think about Kuroshi and what he could be hiding behind that mask of his?**