Without consequence had we smashed through the scattered ranks of lumbering, chitinous titan, and staggering undead, and now it was toward the Crystal Sage we sprinted, blades shining like radiant scythes as with relentless abandon they hammered against our robed foes; flinging their ruined forms against the stone walls or farther along the brief ascent at whose peak, the gate of fog loomed.

Or'do grimaced as he slogged through the mist, its many hands clawing him in desperation, clinging to his slender frame. No sooner had he passed through, than his cry of agony was pealing through the air, and boring into my heart like an auger of frost. He screamed again as I clawed and slashed a path into the unnaturally solid mist.

My comrade staggered back, his lean stomach still glittering with the shining remains of a crystal soul spear that had cracked his spine in two, and sprayed his organs across the flagstones. He was straining to rise upon legs that were limb and useless as bands of cloth, and over him loomed the Crystal Sage; somehow, it had not only predicted when he would enter, but had readied its most potent spell to sunder him the moment he appeared. This baffled me, yet my mind was swiftly devoured by the flames of hate and fury. I roared in furious challenge, and as its focus shifted to me, Or'do smashed its robed form with the molten edge of a blade cloaked in flame, instantly staggering the monster, forcing it to genuflect before him. My blade crunched through its jaw, and jutted from the back of its bowed head; and in that swift moment, the ancient Sage knew no more.

I knelt at Or'do's side, yet regenerating already, he had risen without my aid. He coughed, splinters of bone rolling over his parched lips.

"My thanks," He gasped.

"They seem far stronger than usual." Taking his arm, I half dragged him to the restorative warmth of the newly revealed bonfire, and as his features relaxed, pain instantly burned away by its soothing flame.

"Aye. Yet it seems they take far keener interest in destroying me than you."

"Perhaps they know that when you fall, I as a phantom, shall be wrenched back to my rightful place."

"Perhaps," he murmured, rising slowly as if fearing that the pain would suddenly return. "I bid thee take shelter in the Shrine a moment."

"Do you trust me no longer?"

"No, yet I feel that whatever the source of their animosity toward me, shall not be in your presence revealed."

Hesitant, I shook my head in dissent, yet he had already withdrawn a separation crystal, and with the dark light of its bleak, hopeless promise, sent me back to the bitter world I called home.