Mathew’s clone leaves the bartender’s home and heads straight to look for one member of the party.
As he moves he noticed a slim silhouette walking in the shadows of the night.
The clone pauses and follows the shadow into a dark alley.
Suddenly an unknown person pounces on him bringing a slim white dagger close to his neck “if you move I’ll kill you”.
Mathew’s clone opens his eyes to see it was a young woman with blue hair and green eyes, of course it was Altier.
Recognizing him Altier removes the dagger from his throat and helps him get up “sorry for that, I thought you were some creep following me”.
The clone dusts of the dirt on his attire “yeah no need for apologies”.
Altier organizes herself with an indifferent face “so did you find anything?” She asked.
The clone faces her with a calm expression “actually I did find something but we have to hurry”.
Altier with a surprised face asked “what did you find?”.
Mathew’s clone goes to tell her about the bartender and the portal in his basement “I think that’s how all the people in the village disappear at night and why they all act so strangely”.
Altier places her hand on her chin and thinks, eventually she continues “take me to the place where you found the portal”.
Mathew’s clone turns away “how about the others, don’t they need to know about this?”.
Altier pulls out a scroll from her side bag and scribbles a message on it “I’ve sent them a message so they’ll be there soon” Mathew’s clone moves forward “alright let’s go”.
After a while Altier and Mathew’s clone arrive at the bartender’s house and enters into the basement but the portal was no longer there.
“The portal was just right here but it disappeared when the bartender went through it”.
Hearing that Altier stands directly at the spot where the portal stood and places her hands on the wooden ground.
As she did that something strange began to happen.
The portal which was gone started to reappear again, Mathew’s clone stares at her and asks “what did you do to open the portal?”.
Altier answered without sparing him a glance “I simply reversed time on this particular spot bringing the portal back but it won’t be open for long so we should get going immediately”.
Mathew’s clone stared at the portal “and what about the others how will the find the portal ?”.
But Altier simply said “Nice will find a way, he always does”.
With that the two go through the portal and arrives at the dark cave where with crystal like objects all over the place.
At arriving Altier’s face instantly changes “I’m sensing a whole lot of soul essence in her, no it’s like it’s a sea of essence flowing into a single entity and it’s not just soul essence, I’m also sensing a whole lot of life force too”.
Mathew’s clone adjusts his posture and asks “can you track it?”.
“Yes I can”.
With that Altier steps forward leading the way.
Eventually they end up at the place where the bartender had first stopped.
Seeing the pipes hanging above them and into countless peoples mouth, Altier goes on and cuts one of the pipes holding the bartender releasing him.
The bartender falls and Altier reverses time on his body to heal him.
After a while, the bartender opens up his eyes and gets up, feeling startled he asks “where am I?” But Altier holds his hand and with a calm voice she says “calm down you’re safe now you just need to tell us everything that happened to you”.
The bartender seemed to calm down for a bit and goes on to explain “I don’t know, i was just closing my bar one night when I started hearing a strange sound in my basement, I followed the sound and saw a portal, seeing that I instantly turned back to run but I was pulled by a tentacle sort of thing and it brought me here.
I don’t know what but after that day I came here every day after work and place that pipe in my mouth”.
Hearing that Altier frowns and gets up “go to end of the cave and wait there, a group of people will get you back to your home safely”.
Immediately after saying that a huge shock wave resounded around the cave.
Altier pulls the man and jerks him away “get to the end of the cave now!”.
With that the bartender runs and Altier starts to head towards the location of the shock wave came from.
Mathew’s clone follows behind her, as they moved, they cut down every person who had a pipe in their mouth and tells them to get to the end of the cave.
Altier then spots the hole at the top and instantly moves towards it together with Mathew’s clone.
Going through the hole they finally reach the location of the shock wave and what they saw terrified them.
Altier stared in shock as she saw hundreds of people with pipes attached to one part of their bodies going around as if trying to catch someone, but what shocked her the most was the thing in which the pipes originated from.
Altier stares at the creature with great shock which later turned into anger because she finally figured out the reason she also sensed life force around the cave.
That’s because the creature in front of her wasn’t just draining the soul essence from the peoples cores it was also draining their life force too.
Altier grits her teeth in anger and pulls out two twin swords preparing to cut the long pipes and attack the creature.
She then turns to Mathew’s clone and says “go back Grey, this isn’t a fight you can handle just go back to where we came from and wait for Nice”.
Mathew’s clone stares at her and then points to a certain distance “I’m afraid that won’t be possible”.
Looking at the direction of his finger Altier widened her eyes to see a young man with blonde hair and blue eyes with injuries all over his body pushing himself to attack the creature.
“What?
how are you over there?” Altier asks.
“Well I….” Before Mathew’s clone could finish there was a crashing sound just in front of them raising up dust.
Looking closer Altier noticed it was Mathew, the original Mathew.
She then turns back to the clone but it wasn’t there anymore, that’s because Mathew didn’t have enough light essence to sustain the clone any longer.
Altier rushes to Mathew’s side and holds him up.
She then uses her ability to try and reverse time on his body.
Mathew opens his eye and sees Altier, he then asks in a strained voice “you’re finally here”.
Altier stares at him with a hint of concern which later turns to shock as she sees Mathew s body slowly healing itself.
The healing was so slow that one couldn’t notice it but Altier did cause she had healed many people.
She then asks in a little bit of shock “what are you Gray?”.