The King's Beloved

[Music Recommendation: "The Ancient City" by Masayoshi Soken (Final Fantasy XIV OST) - available in Spotify or Youtube]

Crackle… Crackle…

"Wait," Ducis signaled everyone to stop before they stepped into the teleportation circle he created.

"What's wrong?" they asked, one after another.

Suddenly…

CRACCCCKKKK!

Like a mirror, the teleportation circle shattered into pieces. Everyone's eyes widened in surprise. Then, a dark spirit came out from the broken pieces and screamed at them.

"WRAAAAAAA!!!"

It was a spirit of a woman, furious and scary-looking. Good thing it vanished as soon as it screamed at them. Luna and Selena trembled and shrieked when the dark spirit tried to approach them before it disappeared.

"W-What in the world was that?" Selena stuttered from her freight.

"It seems like we can't travel by teleportation anymore," Ducis said. "She felt our presence—probably from what Rania did in the fissures at my shrine. She's wary of us."

"You mean Vindicta? Does she know our plan?" Luna asked.

"Possible. Good thing she can't get out of the holy crystal that's locking her up yet."

"Ugh. This will be a problem. If we can't teleport, obviously, we can't use black holes as well. That leaves us with only flying as an option to travel towards the next shrines," Clavis grumbled.

"There's not much we can do," Elliot sighed. "Flying will take hours to go from one shrine to another, considering the distance. But at least, she won't know where we're coming from. All of you hide your aura so she can't detect us easily and send hordes of monsters to us."

"Yes," everyone agreed and did as told.

"Come now, let's not waste time and go."

Ducis then transformed into a dragon and carried everyone on his back—after all, a dragon flying would be way faster than a human or Magi doing it on their own.

The Shrine of Fauna was located next to Ducis' continent towards the east. Even if it was the nearest shrine, it still took them three hours just to get there by flying. Gaia's size seemed to be around two to three times bigger than Earth. Aside from that, there were flying monsters they passed along the way they couldn't avoid, so they had to fight them while traveling. The monsters were weak compared to them but many in numbers, which was annoying.

It was late in the evening when they arrived—though you could barely tell apart morning from night due to the endless dark sky and thunders throughout the planet. The shrine was in the middle of a forest, or what used to be a forest. Now, it was just a wilderness filled with dead trees and dry land. No animals or friendly creatures could be seen anywhere—just fiends and monsters—the complete opposite of how they knew Fauna's realm to be.

Like Ducis' Shrine, a thick, dark miasma covered the entire Shrine of Fauna. Battling their way inside, they opened its door only to be welcomed again by another horde of monsters. Everyone fought them with all their might, though careful not to destroy the shrine itself.

"Urgh. There's no end to these monsters," Luna complained. 

"But we need to defeat all of them if Rania is going to leave another clone here," Clavis said as he slashed through another monster with his ice sword.

"Do you think they have a place where they're coming from?" Selena asked Clavis.

"That's possible. Maybe we should split up," he answered. Turning to Elliot, he continued, "Your majesty, go on ahead of us. We'll take care of the monsters here."

"Will you be alright?"

"Yes, we can handle this much. Go."

And so, Elliot went ahead with Rania, Luna, and Ducis, leaving Selena, Illuminaire, and Clavis behind. They went straight towards the innermost place where Fauna's orange crystal obelisk stood, but they couldn't get near it when they reached the place.

A thick, dark fog floated adrift before the crystal obelisk. Like a wall, it prevented them from proceeding any further. What's more, a terrible presence could be felt from the fog—a terrible and very dangerous presence.

"I can feel her," Ducis said as he stared into the fog. "Inside the fog? No. The fog itself! Be careful, master."

Elliot cautiously approached the fog. Wanting to know what it was, he focused spiritual energy on his eyes, making them glow. He saw a huge amount of concentrated spiritual energy swirling inside the fog, combining themselves and forming even more concentrated energy. Then, it started taking shape.

"Everyone, get back!" Elliot shouted at them.

BOOOOOOOOM!

A huge blast came from the fog, filling the area with smoke and dust.

Cough! Cough! Cough!

Startled and barely able to shield themselves from the smoke and dust, everyone coughed as they tried to observe what suddenly came out of the fog.

Whoosh!

Elliot stretched out his hand and cleared the view for everyone using wind magic. When the smoke faded, a giant monster appeared before them! It was so big that it covered half the height of the obelisk!

"CAAAW! CAAAW!" the monster screeched.

It had a head and wings of an eagle and a body and tail of a lion. Its feathers and skin were darkened, same with its dark golden eyes. A thick, dark aura emanated from its whole body.

But that wasn't all…

The amount of spiritual energy it carried… was way beyond what even the highest tier monster could contain. It was twenty times more powerful!

"That's… a griffin?" Elliot said as he stared at the monster, perplexed. "Just like Fauna. Actually, it looks exactly like Fauna except for the darkness."

Suddenly, from his sword, Fauna came out.

"Ughhh, master," Fauna groaned and fell to the ground, embracing herself.

Elliot noticed her immediately and went to her.

"Fauna, are you alright? What's happening?"

"I'm not exactly sure, but I felt a strong force trying to pull me in."

It was only then that she looked up and saw the huge griffin in front of her—a griffin that looked exactly like her Sacred Beast form.

"W-what's the meaning of this?"

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