"We simply must stop meeting like this," a deep voice hissed from the shadows of the corridor.

"Sekhmet," Ryo growled. He reached his arm out to push Mia behind him. A cold cackle erupted in reply.

"Tell me, what purpose could this place serve now? Other than rubbing salt in old wounds." The voice seemed to change directions as it spoke, at first drawling through the doorway, then crawling through the ceiling tiles, and finally permeating the very center of the room. Rowen turned to face the office windows as Sage faced the bookcases.

"We're not your enemies," Rowen declared, "we all have the same place in this."

"You are delusional," the voice growled. "My place is at the side of Emperor Talpa, where glory awaits. You rodents will be crushed in the melee!"

"Talpa plans to kill us, all of us," Sage stated. "He's only using you as a host for the armor. Your fate will be the same as ours!"

"Lies." There was a glint of silver in the darkness of the hallway. A brilliant orange flash sliced through the air and struck the desk, splintering it and tearing the abandoned computer monitor in two. Mia yelped as Ryo curled his arm around her waist and pulled her out of the slurry of debris.

The men made move to suit up, but the Warlord was steps ahead. He cut through the room like lightning, his blades slicing through the air with venomous accuracy. Ryo let out an agonized cry amid the chaos and the warrior dropped to his knees, one hand clamped over his eyes. He slumped over to plant his free elbow against the ground, groaning painfully.

"Ryo!" Sage instinctively reached out to his comrade, but as he did so, a blinding bolt of brilliant orange cut across his sight. He stumbled back, struggling to keep his footing as he grasped his face. Backing into the bookcases, a few manuscripts tumbled down on him and he grabbed at a shelf with one hand to try to stabilize his stance.

Rowen dodged a strike from the Warlord, darting first to his side and then ahead to pass by him. Staggering through the splinted remnants of the desk, he found steady footing.

"Armor of Strata—"

The words strangled to a halt as a suffocating pressure closed around his throat. Rowen reached out and desperately grabbed at Sekhmet's arm as he coiled his fingers around his neck and slowly lifted his feet from the ground.

"Not so powerful without all of your little friends, are you?" he hissed. "You have never been a match for the Dynasty."

"Sekhmet," Rowen gasped, "listen to me. Your life is at stake here. Talpa wants to rule the world, not share it."

"Master Talpa bestowed the armor on me," Sekhmet declared, "so that I could serve him once this world became his."

"So then what about his other Warlords? What about Anubis?"

"Anubis is a traitor," the Warlord snarled. "He betrayed our emperor for a mortal woman. His disloyalty sealed his fate."

"And Dais? Talpa left him here to die, he didn't even have the decency to bring him back to the Nether World." The statement brought Sekhmet pause.

"Dais was weak," he said finally, though his words seemed less confident than before. "Undeserving of the glory and power that awaits us."

"I think you know better." Rowen's fingers tightened around the man's wrist. "I think you know he's been using you. But it's so much worse than that." His blue eyes flicked downward to the floor. "You can see it for yourself. The legend is right there, every last word of it. Staves of spirits nine forge the bridge. Talpa needs human souls, our souls, to build the passageway between the Nether Realm and the mortal world. He's just keeping you satiated until it's time to turn you into a human sacrifice with the rest of us."

Beady eyes watched Strata with fierce intensity. His gaze shifted slowly, his head unmoving as his sight dropped to the floor where the warrior was looking. The book lay open amid the blistered wood debris. Nine symbols glared back at him, symbols he recognized instantly as those of the armors. He silently skimmed the words trailing the page, his face betraying nothing.

Is it not disconcerting to you that Master Talpa's greatest concern is the armor Cale is wearing, and not the fate of Cale himself? His breath hung in his chest as the words tumbled through his mind. Were they telling the truth? Had Dais already figured it out?

"Thunderbolt Cut!"

Blinding white light flooded the Warlord's sight and thoughts. His fingers recoiled from Rowen's throat and instinctively he shielded his eyes from the ethereal glow of Halo's sword. Sekhmet took several clumsy steps away, backing up to one of the office's shattered windows. A single, groaning grunt escaped him as he vanished in the brilliance.

Rowen clasped his hand to his throat, gasping for breath as he dropped to his knees. Black bubbles flickered across his vision as he struggled to replenish lost oxygen.

"You alright?" Looking up, Rowen found Sage's cool violet eyes looking back. They appeared completely unharmed now, the result of the man's innate healing abilities, and his sight had returned with keen sharpness.

"I'll be alright," Rowen confirmed, planting a hand on his own thigh for support. Sage nodded to himself, turning quietly to walk to Ryo.

Mia uncovered herself from the protection of one of the office tables carefully. She hurried across the floor to Rowen's side, kneeling to rest her hand on his shoulder. He offered a paltry smile and set his hand on hers reassuringly.

"I think you might have got through to him," Mia breathed, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Maybe," Rowen agreed, his tone cautious. "He saw that page. He knows what it says now. But whether that's enough, who knows?"

Sage knelt to Ryo, still in his subarmor and slumped over in suffering. He reached forward and gently eased the man up into a seated position, revealing swollen, red eyes that had puckered painfully shut.

"Sekhmet's getting stronger," Sage noted uneasily. "And I'm afraid we might not be keeping up." He drew his blade and passed it across Ryo's vision, bringing the edge to rest only hairs away from the man's nose. Stabilizing it with his free hand, he turned the blade carefully until the ambient light in the office struck it, flashing brilliant silver across Wildfire's wounded eyes.

Within moments, the angry, flaming red surrounding the man's eyes faded, and the swelling swiftly deflated. Tears quickly welled and streamed out from beneath black lashes as they fluttered and struggled to open.

"So what do we do now?" Rowen managed. He shifted to sit firmly on the floor now, one leg bent at the knee and an arm propped up across it.

"We go back to Muhimura," Sage replied coolly.

"They're gonna want to know what happened out here," Strata pressed, "what we found out."

"And we'll have to tell them."

"Maybe we should bring this." Mia gingerly plucked the aged tome from the splintered fragments of the desk, flicking bits of wood out of its pages. "There are some things it just might be easier to show than tell." She frowned a bit as she looked down to the open page, emblazoned with the armor insignia and scrawled with ominous words. She gently folded a small triangle of the leaf's corner to mark the page before closing the book and drawing it tight against her.

"What do we tell them about Sekhmet?" Ryo managed to find his voice, his fingers tenderly rubbing at his aching eyes and wiping the tears away from his cheeks.

"Exactly what they need to know," Sage replied. "The Warlords are getting stronger. And we're in for a lot trouble if we don't level up to meet them."