A/N: Insert usual disclaimer stuff here. This is the sequel to Penance and Pursuit of Merit.

Again, I went back and chopped this fic up into chapters. If you want to read the thing straight through, with no chapter divisions, just head on over to my site, Because I chopped it up, some of the chapter transitions may be strange. Sorry about that.

Reviews are always welcome and encouraged!


It had been several months since he had left Wolfpack Island on Xellas' orders, travelling the world and locating the ruins of temples. In exchange for Lina's life, he had been given the task of destroying all places she could possibly get further knowledge from. He had been told to destroy temples and shrines first, for the possibility of those places having knowledge that would be detrimental to his race was much higher. Sometimes, however, humans swarmed to defend their heritage, and he was forced to kill them. This was once such occasion, and he pointed at a few of the attacking mortals, ending their lives swiftly. Suddenly he felt a burning against the skin of his chest and was nearly knicked by a amateurish spell thrown by one of the humans. He shook his head and blasted the earth beneath him, sending bodies flying in every direction, some little more than charred skeletons. He threw up a hasty barrier spell and hovered in the sky, reaching a gloved hand into his shirt and pulling out the chain with the amurium ring on it. Taking a finger of the glove in his teeth, he put his staff under his armpit and tugged a glove off. He was certain that if he had been a human, not even the orihalcon chain would have contained the ring's magic, for it was glowing and warm. Lina must be calling him! He cursed his Monster's senses, knowing that if he still had the intensity of human emotion, he would have known exactly what she was feeling and where she was just from the ring resting against the bare skin of his chest. A few spells bounced off of his barrier and he glanced about, seeing the humans regrouping for another attack. He had no time for such nonsense. He hadn't seen Lina in a little over seven months, and the thought of being in her presence again filled him with a strange sense of urgency. Taking the ring in his bare hand, he closed his eyes and made a fist, light attempting to leak from in between his fingers. Ah, there she was, he could feel her. She was in pain, so much pain! It was as if her body was being split apart. He gasped with the intensity of her agony and nearly dropped his barrier, staring down at the humans benath him without actually seeing them. Xellas had ordered him never to go near Lina again, but how could he not, when she was suffering so? The decision was not difficult to make. Firing one last blast down into the crowd beneath him, he disappeared.