With an eerie creaking sound, the doors opened. A loud bang indicated they had reached their fully open state. Once the echo faded, only silence took its place.

"No ambush? No enemy flooding? Nothing happens?" said Izzy in astonishment. "I think he's not home, haha! Fury, you liar, there's noone here." She stepped inside and had a look around.

The hall was just as Fury remembered it. Walls covered in blue and gold carpets, each with Ergoth's family weapon. The candles in the cavities in the walls between the carpets were already lit and so was the chandelier on the ceiling. The entire floor had a long red carpet going from the entrance all the way to the other end of the room, ending at the throne. The stone statues of the lions and the knights had reformed themselves.

The place where Ergoth once stood was now empty, and the only thing laying on the throne was a big red crystal.

"Strange things happened here." said Lokima as she explained to the others what had occurred during their last meeting. "Ergoth stood here" and she moved towards the throne, "and he had brought these four statues to life when the battle started." and pointed at the two knights and the two lions.

"We defeated those things.. they were destroyed and now they're back in one piece!" continued Lokima.

"Also, this ruby or crystal of some sort was not present on the throne." said Fury. "It was mounted on the staff he wields."

"Could it be the source of his power?" pondered Iucounu. "In that case, I hope he doesn't mind us taking it away. He'll be powerless and we'll have one problem less! Not to forget that the true goal of this mission is to remove the threat Ergoth. If he has no power source, he will be no threat."

Richard gave Iucounu an approving pat on the shoulder.

"I like you! Rather than heading into confrontation, we'd peacefully resolve the issue." he said. "Grendell would approve of such a plan."

Izzy agreed, as this whole ordeal is too weird to be worth of any fight.

"I mean, come on! The traps and these strange games he's placed all over this castle.. it's like he's toying with us." she said, convincing more people to want to get out as soon as possible.

"Okay, then it's settled then. We'll take the crystal and high-tail outta here." said Sweds. He walked to the throne and put his hands around the crystal, but didn't lift it.

"Uhh.." he said as he let go of it. "Guys, it's weighting quite a bit more than expected."

Izzy dashed towards Sweds while naming him a weak excuse for a man and put her hands around the crystal. But she too could not lift it up.

"Sweds.. please say things more accurately. Don't say it weights more than expected, but say it weight a TON! This thing feels as if it is held onto its place by more means than simple gravity. This crystal is magically bound to this throne." she said and gave Sweds a weak punch on the shoulder.

"Oh heck. So there's no way of moving it away from here?" asked another paladin with a strong tone. He had his Golden Lion hammer readied.

"What are you up to, Josh?" said Richard with a raised eyebrow. He looked concerned at the hammer, as if he was afraid of that what was going to happen. "Are you implying to destroy the crystal?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying, Richard. It's the next best thing to removal." Josh said as he raised his hammer. It started to glow brightly and light came from below Josh as well.

"Any objections should be made now." said Josh as he moved around slowly with a hammer that was glowing with brilliance. Nobody objected.

"Here goes!" and Josh smashed the hammer straight on top of the crystal.

Upon impact, the crystal cracked, broke in several pieces and shattered by the sheer force of the hammer's attack. It exploded with such force, that the hammer was sent back along with its wielder and started to expel large amounts of smoke. Josh did not expect such an event and was not able to coordinate his landing, resulting in a minor injury to the rear.

The smoke was engulfing the throne as the group took a fair distance to observe the consequences of their decision. In the core of the smoke, a shadow formed, growing in size with time. Then, as if regulated by something, the smoke retreated itself. It flowed upwards, about seven feet high and into somewhere, because it vanished into nothing. When the smoke had cleared enough and the steps to the throne became visible again, three people in the room saw something very, very familiar. Nearly flawless in timing, Lokima, Fury and Iucounu shouted it's name.

"ERGOTH!"

The Smoke cleared completely, revealing that the crystal was absorbing it. The same crystal that had been laying on the throne and had been shattered by Josh's hammer was now once again mounted onto the staff of Ergoth.

"Hmm.." he said while faced with his back to the three teams. "That was quite unexpected magic she used. How could I have not noticed her potential?"

For several seconds he pondered on, giving several key pieces of information away about his whereabouts during the past weeks.

"She must not have been trying to destroy me, but rather imprison me. I can still feel the ties she made, so these must be severed before I continue my work." he said to himself while observing the staff in his right hand. "But.. what released me from that prison?"

He looked around in front of him. Seeing nobody there, he turned around and finally noticed he had visitors.

"Ahh, familiar faces amongst new flesh." he said as he looked at the trio that recognized him earlier. "How nice of you to visit me after our previous encounter. I will not let you escape this conflict once again!"

Ergoth shouted strange words, sounding hollow and echoing through the throne-room. The lion statues once again took on defensive positions, while the knights took on the offensive.

Battle ensued shortly after, but it was completely different from the time when Fury fought.

It seemed as if the statues were different in their attacks, Ergoth himself was different too, as he was no longer capable of dodging all the arrows fired at him. Within minutes, one of the knight's small leg cracked. The following crushing blow from Josh's hammer broke the entire stone section, making the knight collapse and crumble.

Not long after the knight had fallen, Ergoth had activated a trap as the red carpet started glowing and expelling a serious electric charge. The unfortunate people who could not have evaded the discharge were struck and cried out in pain. After the energy flow stopped, they fell to the ground and stayed were temporarily unable to move. For the time being, their fellow teammates dragged them away from Ergoth, towards the door end of the room.

Others took the liberty of weakening Ergoth by means of putting fire to his clothes and putting bomb arrows through his chest. At first, it didn't seem to work very well, as the fires were out before they could really do serious damage and the broken bones reattached themselves without much of a delay. Fury started thinking it may end the same way as last time, with them running away from Ergoth's immortality.

One thing bugged Iucounu as he was firing holy magic after holy magic, is that he was able to use holy magic. He knew that, back in the dungeon, Phil had also noticed that holy magic severely failed. Enomis told him that she was also incapable of using holy magic when they were advancing through last time.

Something has changed here. Why was Ergoth imprisoned in the first place? he thought. Just WHO was that Tsuki girl, it has got to have been her.. but how did she get Ergoth imprisoned in that crystal?