It might have been ten in the evening when for the first time since coming to Alter, Gabriel really looked at the moon in its full splendor. Really looked at it.

It was big and full. It seemed a fruit ripe for the taking. Gabe had ignored it up to that point, a simple moon; it was just a shadow compared to the faint images of the distant planets. Nothing to talk about, really. However, Luna, so they had called it, was responsible for feeding The Core's walking dead curse, and yet, it was beautiful to look at.

Luna now shined full, it seemed so close, and her position was ideal; it almost seemed to be blessing the Yggdrasilians' party with her light.

Gabriel and Avrelyssyandra waited on a balcony overlooking the garden. They looked down at the party. Syandra filled his time with tales about the guests, and Gabriel added his bits of comments, at times nasty, to make her smile. However, he couldn't help but be concerned; Olivia's warnings would not leave his mind.

After roughly ten in the evening, they noticed something; the Seer of Carnage herself, a white dress that really needed a scarf to cover her very exposed bosom, took the King aside. They talked for quite a few long minutes, but when they spoke, Lena looked still agitated.

"I might need to check something out. Can you excuse me for a few minutes?" Gabriel asked Syandra.

"Go ahead, I'll be right here."

Gabriel reached the Seer, who was already leaving, in haste.

"What is going on?" He asked.

"Gabriel. I don't know… but I've seen death, a lot of death. I just can't see where it comes from… The origin is uncertain, but I can feel the addendums," she said, touching her temples. "One of them is entirely void, and I know that means that Priests are coming, but the other… The other is the One-That-Dance-In-The-Storm. He'll be coming here, probably with his full faction."

"Shamans, Priests, and an unknown threat on top?" Gabriel asked, "Jeez… Can we even fight that?"

"Yes, as long as the Elder and Gaia are here, there's not really any threats capable of bringing Yggdrasil's down; however… my guess is that the unknown threat comes from LargeLeaf Dungeon. It's the only possibility for such an impending threat." Lena snorted, "It, damn feels like eight years ago."

"What did really happen eight years ago?" Gabriel asked.

"Eight years ago… it was when our previous Guardian died. She was Gaia's mother, the Elder's daughter, and a Tier 7 magician. She was really powerful. But The-One-That-Dance-In-The-Storm… He has abilities that let him ignore Mana. He is real trouble."

"Ignore Mana? Like Arya."

"Better," she said. "Now excuse me, Gabriel, but I need to coordinate our defenses. The attack will happen with the release of the Spirits. It is an unavoidable process. The King knows it can't be avoided, and he has offered help in case of dire need. It's not something Yggdrasilians give very frequently. I guess we'll take what's been offered."

Gabriel nodded, and Lena hurried back but turning away, she said, "I believe you should stay here. It's safer for you."

"Everything's safer for me, with monsters like those out there!" Gabriel shouted at her.

He sighed. There's no way I'm going to stay here if war comes out. I need answers.

Gabriel returned to Syandra's side and told her of the situation. She did not expect that development. Not in the slightest.

"Did she warn father?"

Gabe nodded, "He will go on with the ritual."

"Yes. It can't be postponed. It's inevitable. And you'll stay here with me. That man, Red Tom, he was nasty. I remember him," she said viciously, "I met him before. It was Reevers's protegé. I did not like him."

Gabriel laughed. "Well, wanna hear something funny? Turns out, he's an uncle I had no idea of having."

It took a few long moments for Syandra to process what she had just heard.

"Gabriel. You will stay right here by my side. I have a bad feeling about this."

"I… I can't."

"What?" Her voice was unpleasant. She did not expect that answer.

"I'm sorry, Syandra. There are people I need to make sure they don't get hurt. And even before that, I need answers from the Priests."

"They still didn't make the one they caught to talk? What is taking them so long?"

"I don't know; what I know is that he hasn't uttered a single word."

"I could have Agronigus help us; if I asked, he would comply," she suggested.

"Well, I would never say no to any sort of help, especially yours. But I think we're much too late for that. If things become as bloody as the Seer says, that man will probably be able to escape."

At that point, Syandra didn't ask any more questions; she looked like she had taken a decision.

During the couple of hours that predated the coming of midnight and the Autumn Leaf release, Gabriel and Liz witnessed many people coming and going from the party. They were hurrying. Husbands sent their wives away in a hurry or the other way around. Or father's sending sons and daughters to do their bidding. They were all preparing for something, but at the same time, they didn't dare leave the party. Being in the presence of the Yggdrasilians was much too important.

The party was slowly dragging to a closure. Everyone expected something to happen now, while at the same time, everyone didn't know if they had to leave, stay, fight, or run.

The curtains were about to draw to a close on the party, and whispers of dread interrupted the otherwise jovial tone of the celebration unfolding.

The King had already the treasure bow with the dead Leaf, just delivered from the Royal Guard's head, a wide broaden Yggdrasilian. Ynggdra was now waiting on top of a stage in the middle of the garden.

Luna shone brighter than usual as if welcoming the light that could not be contained inside the box.

Gabriel Assimilated Liz not to waste a singly moment of that view.

Finally, when the King raised the screen up in the air and released the seal, closing it shut. The world turned silver.

***

"I can feel them!" Said Prisha.

She couldn't help herself from shouting it instead of communicating it in their code.

Everybody of the remaining prisoners could feel them. Their roots dug deep inside the ground, and their senses had expanded thanks to them. Prisha's root entwined with those of the other prisoners and reached far in the distance, outside of the Boss's body and on the Dungeon's grounds.

The Reevers were attacking.

There were dozens of military personnel. They were captained by Jackson Reever, and behind him, their best Life mages had been summoned. They were trying to make sense of the Dungeon's location. They had understood something was wrong.

Prisha sighed a thank you to N'arr. It wasn't something she really usually did.

"But… will they be enough?" Fred asked, opening his eyes after focusing on their roots' new senses.

The monsters were ranking up like crazy. There were hundreds of Paragons now. Still, they were all lower than thirty, but a Paragon of that level was enough to keep a Tier 6 busy. Even a Reevers' chosen.

"I don't know why there aren't more, but I guess they will come? No?" Prisha tried.

As the Reevers and their Yggdrasil's military personnel met the resistance, they attacked them with unrestrained power. Entire sections of the Dungeon's forest were wiped out in a matter of minutes. The vibrations could be felt even inside the Boss's sanctum.

When the Bastards started plucking them from their roots to use as shields or probably exchange material, Prisha knew that the Druids had the upper hand in the conflict. She, Fred, and some others were brought out.

The spectacle of flaming tornados eating the forests alive, burning everything in its pact was maddening. She had never seen such destruction. Yes, there had been that day of eight years prior, but she was too small back then; she had been secured in the Temple of Life, like every other kid. What paved in front of her was a hellish spectacle. Such a collection of manpower could have easily brought down the Tyrant King's back in Turtle Dungeon. She was sure about it.

However, the ever-increasing power of the Reverse Tree… she was not confident even dozens of Tier six, and five could take that on. A cluster of Tier seven might put a dent in LargeLeaf Dungeon's Boss, but the Druids did not possess that kind of power, only Yggdrasilians did, and they would… They would never intervene even in such a conflict. As long as a Guardian lives. The Guardians of the Rapids of Mana are sworn to protect Yggdrasil until their death.

As Paragon after Paragon fell to the hands of Yggdrasil's might, the exchange started. Slowly, and one by one, the prisoners were being returned to their rightful home. The only question remaining was, why?

"Why?" It was Fred asking. "Why are they giving us back? Why now of all times?"

Why? Prisha asked herself. Then something struck her.

"They are buying time!" she suddenly screamed with all her power to the Druids. "Leave! Leave! They are-" But she was silenced when the Champion holding her hit her in the head.

Her vision grew blurry as she fell to the ground, but she was still sane enough to see Fred roared at the responsible, freeing himself from the one keeping him restrained and jumping on Prisha's assailant. But that scene was not what was impressed in her mind. Something else took her breath away.

The Leyroad emerging in the sky was not visible from there; Yggdrasil was too close, but what she could see was the massive amount of Spirit descending from the sky. The burned canopy of the forest had opened a giant window in the sky for her to see the massive light burst through Mana Shield and come toward them with unparalleled power.

The last thing she ever saw was a massive silver light. Her tears for knowing that she was about to die so young were shed an instant before the light from the Leyroad washed over everything on the Dungeon's Grounds.

***

Matthieu opened his eyes the very moment he felt the immense power of the Leyroad freeing itself in the sky. Four guards were looking at him, but they would not act as fast as Clast would, he would be fine, and he wasn't there.

Even if he was, he wouldn't care; what he needed to do would not attract anybody's attention.

He was hurt, bleeding, sealed, his limbs had been bound, his hands and feet severed, he was still attached to that device, but he had not given in.

Matthieu wandered back again into his Soul.

Priests were untouchable with their ability to enclose themselves in the fortress that was their souls. The Druids could not replicate such power; their souls propelled toward the world, their Spirits were the very manifestation of that reality. However, the Priests were the exact opposite of that principle.

They closed their Souls, and thanks to that, they could access the Realm of Heaven. There, they would bind their souls with a Tether. It was literally anchored to the Heavenly Realm.

Thanks to that, they fed their Spirit energy to the two entities that swore fidelity in exchange for freedom. The creatures, whose God was dead, Angels and Demons.

They were missionless . They would gladly swear their allegiance even to someone like a human if it meant being free for a couple hundred years, most usually much less; it cost them nothing.

What Matthieu was about to do was similar to the process of reaching for the Realm of Heaven.

He traveled with his Soul to the Heavenly Realm; he found himself exactly where his Tether, which in this Realm was an actual physical thing, was anchored.

He found himself surrounded by hordes of Demons and Angels. They all made a bow to him.

They knew what he was about to do.

If Matthieu could cry in that state, he would shed one tear, but he couldn't even do that in that Spiritual form.

They gathered close to him, caressing him, kissing him, whispering to him of his bravery, of how he would be remembered. His two companions were there with him. It would be the last time he'd see them.

Matthieu closed his eyes and unleashed his Aura control; he had been chosen because of exactly that. His massive Aura enlarged over all the Angels and Demons close by. There were hundreds of them, maybe thousands. Then he inverted the process; he felt his body already die at that point. Somebody might have intercepted him. But the process was already done. He abandoned his body's place and swapped it with those of all the Angels and Demons nearby.

When they manifested in the cell. It quite literally exploded as hordes of creatures were summoned to Alter and all in the same space.

The next moment, all the Demons swapped their body location with that of their Priests.

Yggdrasil's invasion had begun in the worst possible way and at the worst possible moment.

Back in the Heavenly Realm, Matthieu's Soul's last remnants slowly vaporized in a Realm to which it was not bound.

Tethers did not Anchor him to Alter anymore; the poor Soul would cease to exist. It would not reincarnate; it would not reach salvation or anything else. Matthieu would never know what really was there after death. He would disappear forever.

But he was made of pride itself at that moment. He had done something nobody had done before; he would be hailed by all forever. Remembered as the one that made it all possible.

Matthieu recited their battle creed in his metaphorical heart before disappearing. No fear, cause Lore is with us, and Spirit for us .

***

Incredibly high in the sky and far from everybody's Enhanced Senses, a cloudless hurricane whose power seemed to threaten the very seams of reality manifested in mid-air at a moment's notice.

In its eye a man, not too ancient but not too young, stood firm, uncaring of the winds. They did not affect him; they belonged to him.

His pupils were white, his helmet was made of phoenix feathers, and his armor was made by the Fenrirs' fur. He was the One-That-Dances-In-The-Storm.

One by one, his entourage of Shamans appeared in the center of the hurricane. They were looking at the spectacle of silver light shooting from Yggdrasil's top only to descend on its feet and destroy roots, the land, the very Dungeon whose Boss's greed had been used as a scapegoat to unleash that devastation, were washed away by the power of Spirit. A power the Shamans were expert in governing.

"Fools," said one of them.

"Thousands of years old, and not even the Boss realized there is no salvation for those entrapped in the Singularity. Only destruction can be their freedom."

They could see and feel the Reversed Tree. The monstrosity half as big as a Sacred Tree, half as big as Yggdrasil kept being washed over by the immense power of the Leyroad; it was slowly chipping away at it, withering the enormous body that had sprouted from the ground to absorb the massive amount of Spirit and dispersing its molecules in the sky.

Even after doubling its level and after absorbing the compressed Spirit from the Leyroad, it failed to grow past its limits, signing its own end. What followed was something they had theorized but not expected with certainty, the collapse of the Dungeon.

The process that had formed it, meaning the Singularity explosion and the following implosion, reversed.

The Dungeon collapsed on itself, then exploded forward.

Its power was so violent that it dug through Yggdrasil's very bark, creating a deep half-sphere gap in its lower-tree. The Cradle was effectively exposed to the world to see. It would be months before that gap closed itself, maybe years.

"We dance," said the man dressing in Fenrirs's fur and Phoenix plumage. Then the hurricane plummeted toward the city.

***

The flash of silver light came unexpected to Gabriel, then it soon turned into a massive pillar. It expanded in the sky while roots of energy pervaded the Crown; they seemed to do no damage whatsoever; they were only there maybe to stabilize the pillar. What looked deadly was the vast amount of Spirit power shooting tall into the sky. The sound of air being pierced at a speed that might have been as fast as light followed the road's expansion in the sky. Then came the sound boom and the shockwave.

Gabriel closed his eyes to resist it. If there had been regular glass, they would all have shattered by now. But there was no glass in the Crown, only Mythril.

Gabriel looked with wonder at the spectacle. Until Syandra tightened her grip on his wrist. The Leyroad was curving, and it was doing so at an alarmingly fast rate. It was folding on itself. But at some point, the curvature was clearly not about to return back, but it was shooting at Yggdrasil's feet.

That's Large Leaf Dungeon's direction, Gabriel realized.

"I think it's happen-" He didn't even get to finish the phrase when they felt the earthquake.

The earthquake did not stop.

"It won't harm us, but we need to stay vigilant," said Syandra by his side.

"This has never happened before."

People escaped, some waited for the King to give them an order or the freedom to leave, and he seemed to declare the party over at that point. He called for Gaia. The Elder was there with them; Gabriel could see them from there but not hear them. Then, both Gaia and the Elder nodded and left.

The earthquake followed for a few long minutes, then it stopped abruptly.

"Hey, at least it stopped," Gabriel said.

"I don't think it's finished, look." Syandra pointed at the Leaf, still projecting its Spirit power in the sky; it didn't seem about to run out. It was still going strong.

Gabriel's eyes were drawn to it like a magnet. He was hypnotized, more so than the call from the Royal family. It felt as if he was supposed to join that source of light. Drive the Leyroad and see where it brought him… it was while thinking that then the Spirit energy gave out.

The Dead Leaf dropped slowly on the ground, and the King caught it into its box, sealing it shut.

Then it was chaos.

The following explosion coming from where the energy had been unleashed was devastating. It shook the very foundation of Yggdrasil, and all the Yggdrasilians screamed in pain and anger; Gabriel could not expect that massive amount of battle essence washing over him. It was so much that he could help but faint; it would probably be the last time he'd be able to close his eyes in a long time.