As Alice gets closer to the village, she notices a big smoke coming from the village.
"A smoke?? But it's not even night yet. Something happened but I have to get you there first," she said and tried to walk faster.
In the village, some can be heard screaming, "We're under attack!! Mirage is here!!"
"Mirage?? He used the time I used to search for Shaner as a chance for ambush!? I never thought he would resort to that," Alice commented.
She puts Shaner's unconscious body in a safe place outside the village and tells him, "Stay here, I have to go help the others".
Alice runs as fast as she can into the village and try to find Marta, Poema, and Vine.
"Martha! Vine! Where are you!?" she called for their name while looking around as she run around the village.
"Alice! Over here!" A loud shout heard from her left.
Alice turns at the source of the shouting and sees Poema running to her.
"Poema! Where's Vine and Marta!?" she asked him.
"They are facing a ghost and a demon right now. This way!" Poema pointed at their location, grabbed her arm and take her to where they are.
"Ghost and demon!? Don't tell me...!!" Alice thought at the mention of those two.
Martha seems struggling against a demon while Vine struggles against a ghost.
"There!" Poema pointed at the two entities they faced.
"It's Poltergeist and Gaour!!" Alice shouted at the entities who seem to be familiar to her and run to help Martha and Vine.
Alice creates a time bomb orb made of magic.
"Slow Burst!!" she shouted and throw it in the area where Poltergeist, Gaour, Marta, and Vine are.
Alice pulls out her knife and engulf it with light element. She runs to the two entities and slash them several times within the short effect duration of the time magic.
Gaour and Poltergeist left kneeling in pain when time around the affected area turns back to normal with Marta and Vine visibly confused at how fast everything happened.
"How did...? Was that time magic?" Vine questioned.
Marta turns to the back and sees Maro putting the knife back to the scabbard cloth.
"Alice! You have returned!" Martha's face visibly happy just from seeing her.
"Alice, you're back. How was it? Where's Shaner?" Vine asked.
"He's safe. I put him just near the village. He's unconscious," Alice answered Vine.
"What happened?" Marta asked her.
Alice puts her palm in front of them.
"I will explain everything later. We have to help the rest first and look for Mirage," she told Marta.
Martha nods and follow her while Poema binds Poltergeist and Gaour with bind magic to prevent them from moving.
On the way, Alice encounters Nagi and Argill fighting against 3 people while also noticing a familiar pair of statues near them.
"Oh, those are Belan and Martin. Seems like they lost," Martha commented.
"Then who's fighting those two humanoid fish monsters right now?" Vine questioned.
Martha releases the musician siblings from their petrified condition and Belan looks at her.
"Thanks a lot. We tried to fight them but somehow that Siren lady summoned an entity and turned us both into statues," Belan said.
"Who's fighting Nagi and Argill right now?" Marta asked her.
"Nagi and Argill? Oh you mean those two...June, Raoul, and Matias are currently fighting them," Belan answered.
"Raoul? But that young man had never faced these creatures before," Alice pointed out, her eyes widened in disbelief.
"He insist on helping out despite knowing that he never fight such creatures before," Martin told her.
"In that case, we will help them out," Alice said.
Arriving at the location where the fight took place, Alice sees June deflecting the petrifying beam and attempt to move the beam back to the attacker while Raoul summons a giant flash of lightning from the sky while Nagi is distracted.
"Aaaah!!" Nagi screamed when a lightning struck her from above.
Meanwhile...Argill tried to hit Matias only for the boy to continuously avoiding his attack much to his annoyance.
"Grrr! How could you keep avoiding my attack when you can't even see!? Stop dodging, you fickle human!" Argill roared in frustration while he tried to attack Matias faster.
"Your pattern is predictable and even if I can't see, I can't tell where you are aiming your axe from the sound it emit when you swing it," Matias pointed out Argill's behavior.
Matias avoids one last heavy swing from Argill who is visibly panting from exhaustion and used the axe to jump and land very far from him.
"You're too easy for me to handle," Matias commented and he put his palm in grabbing pose forward on Argill from the distance.
"What are you attempt to do---" before Argill can finish his question, he felt a heavy pressure inside his head and put both hands on his head.
"Mind Crush!" Matias shouts and his hand clenches into a fist.
"Urgh!!" Argill felt something breaks his mind and left him mentally incapacitated.
Nagi notices Argill in kneeling stance, his eyes blank and she gasps in horror over what happened to him.
"Argill!!!" Nagi screamed and run to Argill with a visibly worried look on her face.
Nagi waves her hand in front of Argill's eyes and sees no reaction from him.
While she was distracted, Raoul set her and Argill ablaze with spiraling fire formed by spirits who Raoul summoned.
"Aaaaagh!!!" Nagi screamed in pain from the fire, her skins partially crumbles from the intensity of the fire.
Alice jumps in and casts Bind on the two to prevent them from moving. Nagi already powerless from the fight, physically and mentally, stay by Argill's side and can no longer speak.
"That's almost all of them. Now Mirage is left. Where is he?" Alice asked Poema.
A pair of big monstrous hands with big claw seemingly break through the sky just slightly above the village.
"Here he is. As expected..." Alice said while looking up at the sky.
The big hands slowly rip open the sky as Mirage comes out from it, the dimensional tear closed instantly after he fully comes out from the Realm where he dwell.
"I am here once again, humans! Little one, I am impressed to see that the humans in this village successfully defeat my elite warriors. This time, I won't go easy on you," Mirage said, both of his hand clenches the axe holder tightly.
"Gladly. I will show you that I---(Gasp)," Alice suddenly stops and gasps when she sensed a very intimidating aura from afar.
"Um....Uh......! Mirage....!" she said with a trembling voice as she pointed her trembling finger at something behind Mirage.
Mirage raises an eyebrow and turn to where Alice pointed her finger, he instantly felt the pressuring atmosphere ahead of him.
"Shaner....," Vine whispered.
"I should have eliminated that boy earlier," Mirage stated.
"Then why didn't you? Don't tell me that his aura made everyone can't move?" Alice asked him.
"He is dangerous and I wouldn't fully trust him if I were you, human," Mirage gave her an advice.
Shaner is seen from the distance walking closer with aura going out of control and his face gone fully manic.
"I see that you attempted to invade this little village while I'm absent...Eheheheh, mind if I join in?" Shaner show off his right hand with sharp fingernails.
Mirage grits his teeth despite trembling from fear inside.
"I would stay away from this kid if I were you," he told Alice.
"He's lost control over the Forbidden Force again.....What do we do?" Alice asked him.
"Dimension. Send him to another dimension! Although...that is just temporary for him, I cannot guarantee that it will fully prevent him from coming here!" Mirage answered.
"He came here to hunt his nemesis, Obscura," Alice spilled the reason behind Shaner's presence to him.
Mirage turns his head to hear with a shocked face.
"What?? Then as long as that nemesis exist, he will keep jumping from one world to another. Follow my lead," Mirage said.
He sprints toward Shaner with both axes readied and swing both of the axes in scissor-like motion. Shaner disappears before the axe hit him and appear behind Mirage, hit the back of his neck with a straight kick midair. Alice morphs her knife into several throwing knives and throw several of them at Shaner by using her mind to control them. Vine about to steps in after seeing the fight only for Marta to stop him by blocking the boy with her left arm.
"Don't," Marta ordered him, shaking her head.
Vine looks at her with a shocked look in his face before looking at the ensuing fight with an anxious face.
As Alice distracts Shaner with the knifes, Mirage attempt to land a blow on the boy only for him to dodge it despite seemingly trapped in an unavoidable attack.
"He can dodge it! This is gonna be difficult," Alice said.
"Keep going! He will eventually tire out," Mirage told her.
Alice stops Shaner's movement with bind magic and Mirage throw both of his axes on him in boomerang-like manner. Shaner breaks the binding magic and catches the thrown axes with the aura before throwing them back to Mirage. Alice bounces the axes with barrier magic and Mirage picks them up quickly. He creates a wave of ground erupting up from all sides to Shaner only for the boy to have his aura changed shape into a pair of wings and avoid them by flying.
"High Voltage!" Alice casted and a single big lightning strike hit Shaner while he is distracted.
Shaner instantly loses concentration, causing the wing-shaped aura that helped him fly revert back to ordinary aura and he fall straight to the ground from high height.
"Gh! Very clever," Shaner commented with a slightly annoyed face.
"Now!" Mirage shouted.
Alice inserts her fingers through a different dimension by means of magic and fully rips open a dimensional hole that will take anyone entering it to another realm. Shaner, realizing their intention, casts a magic that creates black vacuum vortexes. Alice couldn't avoid it in time and gets sent into the Realm of Darkness
"Alice!!" Marta, Vine, and June screamed her name.
Mirage successfully avoid the vortex and throws Shaner into the dimensional tear that send the boy into another realm before quickly closing the dimension hole to prevent the boy from returning.
Mirage wipes his sweat with a long exhale.
"Phew...," he lets out a long exhale of relief before he turn to everyone,
"Alice....she's gone," Vine said, his voice trembling in horror.
"Where did he send her to?" Matias asked Mirage.
"Hrm....looking at the color of vortex he created, I will say...it is Realm of Darkness," Mirage scratched his head with his eyes closed.
"Realm of Darkness?" Raoul asked.
"Realm of Darkness!?" Vine asked with a horrified look on his face.
"Indeed. A world where there is nothing but darkness. It used to be a world full of life like this one but one day, a bizarre phenomenon happened and turned the world into nothing but darkness. That realm is full of the spirits of the very people who used to live there and got turned into such horror by the phenomenon. Those who were sent to such realm very rarely comes back intact, both mentally and physically. The emptiness of the realm, lack of light, and haunting voice would make anyone especially those who are mentally weak, gone insane or hopeless which these two causes become the main cause of their death," Mirage explained.
"Is there any way to save her?" Vine asked.
"You can't! Those who got sent to the Realm of Darkness are on their own and it's up to them if they can exit the realm alive," Mirage said.
He then turn around and gathers all his personal elite guards who had been defeated by everyone in the village to his side.
"We won't be coming back for a long time. The damage of this battle we started apparently had gone beyond our expectation. Godspeed, Magicians!!" Mirage said and rip open a dimension that lead to his realm, taking Nagi, Argill, Poltergeist, and Gaour with him into the realm where he dwelled.222Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1jfD53ag9Z
222Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxAGAta7jGc
and then Add to home screen.