As Lera and Wu dropped down towards the ground level, Lera swiftly dispelled her chariot Cast while Wu looked back with his scanning visor on to ensure that they weren’t followed.

It didn’t seem like it, at the very least.

Sensing their approach, Ver then exited the tent as the Cast morphed behind her and hit their safe house immediately. Then, she squinted her eyes as a dark looming feeling suddenly enveloped her.

“Something strange is going on.” The Kraken said as Ver approached Wu and Lera.

“How did it go?” Ver asked, “You spotted anything?”

“It’s all really really normal.” We shrugged, “Apart from a blue-haired boy with a three-headed dog that can walk on air.”

“Say what?” Ver tilted her head when suddenly, a dark dot far out in the distance flashed once before it splits into a trio of individual attacks. Sensing the concentration of the Wave, Lera and Ver turned around sharply but the Kraken's action was even faster.

In an instant, the Kraken's mountainous body extended out from Ver’s own body before covering both Wu and Lera in its warm and soft flesh as the shells roared loudly from the attacks landing square on the Kraken's body.

“Woah!” Wu exclaimed at the interior space of the Kraken as Ver sat amid a throne of flesh with her arms and legs pinned between green blobs of meat. A semi-transparent shell materialized in front of him, showing the projection of the attacker.

“So that’s the guy you were referring to.” Ver squinted her eyes, “The guy and his…dog…”

“That’s no ordinary Manifest.” The Kraken said quickly as its tone sounded more serious than before, “It’s the Cerberus...the three-headed hell hound and another surviving legendary beast...”

“What do you know about it?” Wu asked, powering up his armor as Cerberus galloped towards them through individual blue platforms in the air while the Kraken held firm in its static pose. The initial warning shots were all that were let out, and the trio watched as the Cerberus came to a halt in the air with faint lines of Wave extending out from underneath his feet.

“He interacts, and attacks directly on the Wave in the environment.” The Kraken explained as he zoomed in, “That’s why he could run on-air, or bite onto Wave lines.”

“That’s gonna be troublesome...” Wu shrugged before pulling out his rifle, “You think you could talk him down? With your shared status?”

“Um…No...” The Kraken said before straightening its body up and raising up its tentacles to the side as a demonstration of its size. Another trio of light started flashing from the three-headed beast’s mouth, and he held it in between his jaws before coming to a halt and floating over the Kraken.

“He didn’t come alone,” Ver warned as multiple smaller Wave signatures moved quickly through the woods and attempted to circle them. That’s when Lera placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Let us go out there.” Lera said, “We will keep the fighters away so you could deal with the dog person.”

“Whirlpool me right on top of him,” Wu said, putting his helmet back on and checking his pistols and melee weapons before looking at Ver and nodding.

“It’s good to have you back.” Ver smiled before snapping her right hand as a purple whirlpool formed both beside Wu and dozens of meters above Rache. Wu stepped straight through and started freefalling immediately as he quickly spotted his targets and fired off periodic blasts from the bottom of his boots to reorient himself.

The chilly spring wind was a refreshing contrast to the damp interior of the Kraken. Rache looked up as Wu dived down, and he swung his spear before thrusting it upward, clashing against Wu’s rifle as he slashed it down.

“What do you want with us?!” Wu shouted, twisting the rifle to deflect the spear before he crashed down onto the back of the Cerberus, however, he violently shook his back and nearly cause Wu to lose his balance and fall.

“It’s because you were on the Academy when it fell!” Rache growled, “If it weren’t for all of your selfish and narcissistic students messing up everything, my parents would have still been alive!”

“They died during the…incident?” Wu’s body froze up briefly as Rache stabbed his spear forward, forcing him off the back of Cerberus as the sharpened tip nearly tore through his stomach armor. He pinched his fingers around the tip of the spear, latching onto it as it cut into his gloves as the entire world seemed to spin around him.

The consequences of what happened during the summer selection were very real to Wu, but it had just cut deeper. It’s because of their failure in stopping PORA, the Infinite Academy is no more, Nolan Khan was deemed responsible and incriminated for the whole thing, and people died.

Real people died. Innocent ones that were just going about their daily basis, their only fault being too close to where the island was.

Rache reached his hand and caressed the neck of the middle head of Cerberus as a blue glow travelled up his arm, “This granted me the power to seek truth, and you will not lie to me.”

He locked eyes with Wu with tears filling his green eyes as the trio of claw marks over his right eye pulsed with light, “Are you responsible for the downfall of the island on Costa city?”

Wu thought back to the support he tried to garner from the remaining students and his attempt at reigniting and diverting the island’s core to slowing it down.

He thought back to the knowing that PORA will get involved, and the failures of the Atlas twins to stop the PORA grand commander from doing whatever he wanted.

He thought back to the heist mission at the Union, where John King baited out their little resistance without sacrificing the Revolutionary Manuscript at all.

And he thought back to the moment when the Revolutionary Manuscript became activated, and the countless country-level defensive Casts lit up the earth as the beams of light from Ethereal realm swiped through the air, destroying the majority of the floating island and sending the countless pieces slamming into the ground.

“ARE YOU RESPONSIBLE?!” Rache asked again as his voice echoed in Wu’s head. The influence of his truth-seeking Cast brushed straight past Wu without a single effect, and yet Wu looked like he was about to break down.

“Yes...I...certainly was responsible...for a lot...”

Wu said as Rache’s face became twisted into a collection of curvilinear rage incarnate, and he raised his spear, preparing to kick start his revenge with the newfound power and weapon.

“Then I wish you find peace in the afterlife,” Rache said, thrusting it forward as Lera’s voice called out from all the way back.

“WU!” Lera screamed as her Cast array lit up around her.

Wu raised his gauntlet, and he jammed the tip of Rache’s spear with a shield Cast generated upon its surface. Pressing against his attack as the strengthening Cast lit up his armor, Wu looked into Rache’s eyes with newfound determination.

“I was responsible for not being able to stop PORA when they intervened. I was responsible for not taking out the Revolutionary Manuscript when it was right then and there. I was responsible for not saving the island with all my might despite…despite my supposed fate here.” Wu emphasized as Rache’s eyes widened with confusion.

“Who…are you…?” He asked, pulling the spear back, "Who are you really?!”

“I am not just a regular student,” Wu said when a sharp beam of light ignited the sides of their face before a long-range blast was fired off from the Kraken. Wu’s shields were switched on instantly before the blast wave sent him straight off the back of the beast and into a purple whirlpool that caught onto him, "And those regular students are just as much a victim as you are!"

Rache’s eyes twitched as the angered voice of the Cerberus rumbled in his head, calling him to focus on the battle at hand.

He extended out his Wave sensing abilities out wide as yet another ranged blast came flying towards him. Cerberus didn’t bother blocking it, instead tried to fire off his own blast to break through the shells of the Kraken as Rache swung his spear, splitting the beam apart and deflecting it to both sides as the earth charred underneath them.

That’s when a Whirlpool opened up above him once again, and Rache preemptively thrust straight into it as Wu remained hidden, poking through instead with his rifle before firing a shot that nailed firmly against Rache shoulders.

As the blast wave exploded outward from making contact with Rache’s shoulder, the impact nearly folded him over when the Cerberus in between his legs also roared out loud.

“YOU!” Rache growled, gripping tightly around his spear before biting on his lips and yanking his dislocated shoulder back into place with a pained grunt as droplets of sweat rolled down his face.

“It was PORA who was responsible for taking the island down!” Wu said, re-emerging from the side before clashing his rifle against Rache’s spear and tackling him off the body of the Cerberus, "And I tried and failed to stop them! I am sorry!"

The beast roared at Rache, but he waved his hands and made it focus on the larger target of the Kraken as the two of them landed hard onto the ground and split rolled in two directions with Wu backed by the Kraken, and Rache backed by the Cerberus.

The clash of titantic Wave eventually haulted with both the Kraken and the Cerberus conserving their Wave, and at last their gaze met too.

“Squid, my old friend!” The middle head of the Cerberus said as it strolled elegantly and slowly through the air, blue platforms forming under the paws of the hound with flames still concentrating in the left and right mouths, “I am beyond surprised to see you out in the daylight like this. You must be frightened to your core.”

“No matter how frightened I become, I will never be in between some human’s legs.” The Kraken mocked as balls of water became concentrated at the tip of one of its tentacles, “You could have easily found out about the truth for the kid, yet you willingly let him walk down that path alone!”

“We owe nothing to those humans. It’s merely a symbiotic relationship for me. And just like how he gets to do what he wanted with my power, I get to do the same.” Cerberus said, “And that brings me here...You shall pay for your past failures and cowardice, squid.”

“Come and try it.” Ver’s voice mixed in with the Kraken’s very own as the shell slowly started to compress down in size until it became Ver’s armor around her body, “At the end of this, you will have one less head to worry about.”

“Oh, at least the girl had balls,” Cerberus smirked before conjuring countless blue wave lines out of his body. Then, as he further drew more Wave from the environment, the individual lines grew thicker and more darker in color as the air around his body also seemed to crackle.

Suddenly, it was as if Lera and the rest of the Fisher family fighters were teleported to a dessert as they each had to instead maintain the Wave in their own body or have their Wave removed forcibly by the Cerberus.

Ver sensed the turmoil outside, but the Kraken’s shells protected her from the initial attack with Lera taking a step back and strengthening her Cast array, "Lera! You okay?"

"I can hold my own!" Lera replied stubbornly, though she couldn't help but look towards Wu who's still facing off against Rache in their standoff.

“Be careful.” The Kraken warned, “Cerberus was one of the strongest beasts of my generation…”

“Aren’t we always careful?” Ver smiled, “Plus, it’s past time that we show Wu our new tricks.”