When the PORA leader that Wu and Lera abducted next woke up, he found himself tied to a piece of rock with his hands pinned behind him, and the Wave froze within his body. He looked around to try to figure out where he is, though there was only darkness around him.

His heart raced as his thoughts flashed between desperate possibilities, and he tried to yank his hands free when the sand underneath him moved slightly, the sudden change locking up the muscles all over his boddy as a light rustling animal pressed against his feet, causing him to squeal and try to kick it away.

“Who the fuck are you?! Let me go, or we will raise hell against you!” The man shouted, though his voice sounded dampened the moment it left his throat. He struggled even more when something suddenly latched onto his ankles, bringing him a fresh pinching pain as he yelled and struggled ever harder, “SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! Come on come on come on...”

“Now now.” Wu’s voice pierced through the veil of silence, “Before things get too carried away, let’s talk, PORA man.”

The man looked around and tried to lock down the source of Wu’s voice, but it faded in and out with varying volumes and clarity that it simply made everything more disorientating for him. What felt like a snake bite around his ankle didn't make him feel good either.

“What do you want?!”

“Everything you are planning down there.” Wu said nonchalantly, “Everything you planned to do in the underground river.”

“That’s it?” The man raised his eyebrows before tilting his head back and leaning against the rock, “Did those idiots in the West send you here to investigate? Or are you with the villagers…No…You…you don't sound like you are from around here, are you?”

Wu paused for a moment, and he swiped his hand as a sharp pain pierced into the man’s body once again.

“I was right! I was right, wasn't I?! Those that were truly born in Necrovia call it the blood of Necrovia…” The man laughed.

“What about it? I am an outsider the same way you all are.” Wu continued with his casual tone, “The difference being one of us is walking out of here alive, and another just had a couple of kisses from the vipers.”

The man’s eyes widened, and he looked down at his feet that’s been dragged into the sand. He ground his teeth together as his head started to become dizzy with the universe spinning around him, “You are bluffing!”

“There’s nothing to bluff about.” Wu said lightly, “I don’t suppose you have learned enough about the way of the desert, and how deadly the vipers are. Now…tell me if you could still feel your legs?”

The man glanced down, and his entire right lower leg where the skin was pierced had become completely stiffened up, and instead of any more of the sharp pain that he was feeling before, what was once his instead felt dissociated and distant. Nothing more than a cold and unresponsive chunk of flesh, and nothing came to be when he tried to induce a slight bit of movement.

“In a matter of minutes, as your blood continued to circulate, you will lose sensation to more and more of your body, eventually becoming nothing more than a flashy statue to be fed to the desert rats.” Wu pressed, “There are certain natural remedies, though the single most important factor is time. So long as you drink the remedy as soon as you are infected, you will be fine. So here's your out.”

A small hole opened up in the veil around the man, and Wu tossed in a small container that landed softly in the sand just out of the man’s reach. He threw his body against the chain and tried to grasp it when his right leg was rapidly yanked back, causing his fingers to miss out from inches away as his desperation left a track in the sand.

“Now that I have something you want, and you have something I want, I suppose we can come to a shared understanding?” Wu brought his deal forward once last time as the sensation of dissociation continued to spread within the body of the captured man, “What are your plans for the underground river?! What were you doing down there?!”

“It’s a plan greater than anything you could have ever imagined…” The man growled as sweats started dripping down the side of his face.

“Is that what PORA’s about? Terrorism all across the world, bring nothing but destruction?! First the Infinite Academy, then the eastern continent and the whole of Necrovia?”

“What the grand commander did at the Infinite Academy was to send a message…but here, it’s about far more than that…” The man said, his eyes losing focus slowly as he swallowed hard, “This…this will be true equality…what Mistress Nekova is planning is something that’s never been done in the history of this world…Wave for everyone, a fight back against the natural order, and a revolution against the way things are...power to the people...”

“What are you saying…” Wu stood up as the man gave up on reaching for the antidote, pouring his every being into bathing Wu in the same fear that he had induced in him.

“By detonating the blood of Necrovia, we are returning the Wave to its people. Liberation, equality, and freedom by any means necessary. That’s who we are, that’s what we do.” The man laughed, “The old paradigm was nothing substantial but what remained after the third war, and it was flawed to a fault. We intend for a new world, one fully controlled by those people who knew exactly where things should go, and who knew exactly how things should be.

“The destruction of the old world order started at the Academy, and change is happening all around the world every single day!”

Wu and Lera shared a glance, and it did seem like the news about their work in the Eastern continent remained on the Eastern continent after they have taken down Rote, but time won't exactly be on their side.

“You can no longer stop us.” The man laughed, “If anything, the detonation will happen prematurely, and power will be returned to the people before!”

“And what of the side effects? You think you can just blow something with so much power within up and not completely destroy the geography of this kingdom? Every inch of land, every ounce of earth, every town...everyone?!” Wu asked as the veil around the man started to shrink with him walking closer and closer to him.

“Oh…Mistress Nekova will protect them with her power…” The man said, closing his eyes, “She will become the hero of this kingdom.”

“Would that even work?” Lera asked, when Wu lunged through the veil and knocked the man out with a single punch. Then, he reached his hand into the sand to pull out Lera’s trapping Vines with a couple of Void Domain Scalpel attached to its end, “Blowing up the river to return the Wave?”

“So far…Wave in this world is similar to energy in our world…It can neither be created nor destroyed, but merely change in form.” Wu said, picking up the harmless water bottle with the supposed antidote of cactus juice, “So potentially, by blowing up the underground reserves, we will increase the concentration of the Wave within the atmosphere. Cause they won't be down there anymore...”

“So…her plans have some logical backing?” Lera asked.

“I…don’t know.” Wu asked, “We have to return to the mines to figure out what exactly’s going to happen, but I have a bad feeling about this…”

“Gotta deal with him first.” Lera said, “We can’t just leave him here…can we?”

“I…have an idea.” Wu rubbed his chin before before picking up the body of the man and carrying it on his shoulder.

And so they did. As the workers continued moving those individual Casts along the origins of the underground river and set it down at regular points, Wu and Lera took advantage of the timing in between rotations before sneaking into the depths of the underground river themselves after dropping the men off outside the bar with a black eye from Wu's knockout punch.

From then on, it was a simple extraction job, where they stole one of the spherical Casts and took it with them alongside one of the scrolls that creates the vehicles used by the roaming guards within the tunnels.

As they rode into the darkness and emerged somewhere in the middle of the desert between the Dune’s Eye and Land of Stones, those workers were none the wiser. They will eventually find the knocked-out leader by the garden of the village pub back at the land of stones.

After hiding away their sphere in the middle of the desert and isolating it from the rest of the environments, Wu and Lera then sat under the starlight as the evening continued on before Lera had finally injected her Wave into the Kraken’s shell, opening up the communication Cast embedded within.

“Hey! Not the best time to talk, or maybe it is!” Ver’s voice came through a grainy filter, and Wu closed in, “What did you find out?”

“That they are going to blow up all of the underground rivers with some sort of an explosive Cast?” Wu said quickly, “We are not sure what exactly’s going to happen, but we got one of the bomb-looking Casts! It's...I am pretty it's a bomb...”

"A bomb?"

"Something that explodes!"

“That’s how you planned to do it?” Tonya tilted her head, “Blowing everything up like that?! We had the infrastructure, and the mining towns where we could have figured out some way to safely transfer and redistribute this resource!”

“And what of the upper-class people that’s been living off the concentrated riches?” Mila chuckled coldly, “If they dared stand in the way, I am not opposed to a little show of force. Sometimes to get things done, if that’s what had to happen.”

“Then…so be it.” Tonya glanced straight into Mila’s eyes and bit her lips. Then, she pulled her step back and rejoined Augen and Ver, “I am sorry, Mila…but I cannot condone what you do…you’ve taken shortcuts before, and who’s to say you won’t do it again…”

“Shame.” Mila said, snapping her finger when everything around them suddenly turned into an ocean of lava as the tower itself became lit on fire. Augen immediately activated his own environmental Casts to counteract that, but Mila’s presence was surprisingly strong, "I guess...this is goodbye. Flee, and never return."

“We shall see about that.” Tonya said as Ver surrounded her with her whirlpool Purple, and the three of them warped themselves away from the tower and into the main hall.

The entire palace had already been set to high alert, and they were immediately spotted by roaming PORA agents before Ver activated her whirlpool Purple once again, blinking them quickly through the stop points until they reached the outskirts of the city.

As their presence in the Wave appeared and vanished at each junction of the city, more and more agents of PORA became aware of a new order by the Queen of Nekova, and so started the exile of Tonya Glaza, the last surviving member of the Glaza family.

Standing upon the dune’s hill, Tonya looked at the vague outlines of the palace of a Thousand Steps and made a promise to herself.

One day, I will be back.