Once all the arms and Pokémon had been summoned for the journey, the company waited for two days, for they were watched with increasing scrutiny. Once Marcus was outside the passage after his longest stay yet, and the guards were not attentive to that area, all seven spirited themselves away to the wall that concealed the even longer tunnel into darkness.

Rei and Laventon had Typhlosion and Gurdurr attempt to shatter it with brute force, but to no avail. Not even a single inch of the wall gave but for a few eddies of falling dust for it had been crafted with a power unknown, and was stronger than cast iron. Once they realized the futility of breaking it by force, the company turned to other methods.

Since Akari was the only one who had heard the word of command that could reveal the door's secrets, she tried to replicate the shrill, warbling sound that Marcus had made. After several tries, the wall cracked open with a great boom, revealing a vast tunnel that reached into consuming darkness. The sliver that opened was not large enough for anyone to fit through, so Rei put Sneasler's Capture Ball inside, and Adaman opened it with the point of the Mormakil.

Sneasler combed the other side of the wall, and it was discovered that the barrier could be pushed outward with little struggle, for the enchantments and webs of standing spells and strength like towers did not protect against assault from the place that it guarded. Once a few bricks had been displaced, Akari and Rei slipped through to speed up the work, digging like moles.

After the hole was wide enough for the other members of the company to enter, they sealed the wall once more by piling the bricks back to the original order that they were in. "We must seal up this rat-hole," Laventon said as he worked, "Or the hosts of the Mountain Lord will be sorely pleased to discover our absence."

As for the journey through never-ending passageway, Sneasler took the front watch, while all other members of the company went behind, with Akari and her Parasect at the rearguard. The end of the hallway was not visible, even to Iscan's night-eyes. The passage was growing narrower as time passed, so much that Rei had to send Typhlosion back to its Poke Ball, and Iscan had to carry his war-axe in front of him in a straight grip, as it scraped the dark sides of the passage when slung across his back.

Many hours passed. The walls were damp, and the darkness was total, except for a wavering light cast by the flickering torches carried by Adaman and Laventon. Cyllene noted that the way back was growing far smaller, and the way forward seemed to have some sort of end, as the graven lines in the stone wall had actually curved up for the most part of the first half of the journey, and now the crevices were curving down.

"The length of this hallway is impossible great!" Lian cried. "All the other times Marcus went down it, he emerged but within an hour! But we have been going on for over five, and that does not account for the rest of the way or the return journey! Is there some spell at work that we have missed? What would we perceive if our eyes were not cheated?"

His question went unanswered. With the gloom gathering upon the hearts of the Company, Akari sang aloud an old poem of Hisui that banished dread and doubt.

In eastern lands beneath the sun

The flowers may rise in Spring,

The trees may bud, the waters run,

The merry Pokemon sing.

Or there maybe 'tis cloudless night,

and swaying beeches bear

The heaven-stars as jewels white

Amid their branching hair.

Though here at journey's end we lie

In darkness buried deep,

beyond all towers strong and high,

Beyond all mountains steep,

Above the shadows rides the Sun

and Stars forever dwell.

I will not say the day is done,

Nor bid the Skies farewell,

In Hisui, in Easternesse.

She stopped and did not speak again. After yet another hour of silent walking, the company could see a faint red glimmer through Lian's spyglass far ahead in the dark. "We are reaching the end, if I am not mistaken," Laventon said. "If the time that we have traveled holds true, then we are nearing Mount Coronet, and possibly may go deep into it. And the path is now going uphill! What fresh devilry is this?"

Laventon's words bore true. A steady incline had started under the Compan's feet and was going up to heights unguessed. As they walked higher and higher, the red glimmer lengthened in height and power. "Why, that may be a massive open doorway!" Akari said. "Since we are going up it, it is becoming clearer and clearer...but what an arch to behold! I am surprised that it does not pierce the sky and mountain peaks!"

A short while later, Sneasler halted everyone with a gesture of its violet claws. Adaman also noticed why, drawing his sword. "It is getting hot!" he gasped. "I believe that the glow that we see is caused by either flame or some other dark art. Go onward, but keep watch. There are older and fouler things than wrathful Pokémon in these deep places of the world."

A few fluttering Zubat flew past the Company, the first happenstance nearly making Rei fall over in shock. The total absence of Pokémon had settled on him, and the reappearances of any of them was quite a strange thing to behold, especially in this dark tunnel where evil enclosed upon them and their hearts were heavy and full of dread.

The Company came upon a great plateau before another door. A great arch, higher than even the gates to the stronghold, loomed before them, massive and forged of twisted black steel, with tormented faces leering out of the craft-work, demons of Elder Days, and the polished likenesses of Men of wickedness. Langon, the Clamoring Terror. Giratina, the Prince and Power of Antimatter. Fankil, the Herald of the Mbelekoro, and many other terrible Umaia, fallen elohim. The wide expanse of scorched stone before the gateway exuded a noxious feoter, so much that Rei felt nauseous and full of bile.

Beyond the arch-way was a path amid a sea of boiling stone, rivulets of heat exuding from the sides of the suffering singular bridge of black rock. Roaring sparks and fickle bursts of flame quested through the burning air, threatening any who touched them with an agonizing wound. Even further beyond the path was a great temple, carved of great white marble pillars and a sloped roof sticking out like a bleached sore amid a brown and black sea.

The temple was truly immense, built in the fashion of the stoneworkers of Old Kalos, before the wrath between the Lord of Life and the Lord of Destruction ravaged the Old Empire at the end of the Elder Days. Ordered and sloping steps ran all across it, coming to a flat, very wide, and level floor covered by an angled roof of pale rock. Above the temple, and above the entire cavern, was a sky of stone, but a few rays of scarce sunlight wafted down through gaps in the rock cover.

Iscan looked through Lian's spyglass, seeing who and what was present at the temple. It was so vast that it was hard to brood on one region for too long in the Company's hurry, but Marcus was seen, raising his arms like a somber Mephistopheles over a man who lay upon a white-rock alter, without chain or fetter, dressed in a flowing toga from ancient Kalos.

Since there was no way that the company could reach the altar without being perceived, they decided to watch and wait for anything that might warrant their action. For a while, (how long Rei could not remember) Marcus led the assembly of cloaked guards in faint chants and blasphemous prayers, the man on the altar still lying still. Rei thought that he was dead until he saw, through the spyglass, the white-robed man stood without hamper, brandishing a short, barely visible blade, which he gave to Marcus. The Mountain Lord accepted the dagger as an offering and then continued to chant ever louder.

The man lay upon the white altar again, but Marcus did not move to strike him or continue his ceremony. It seemed that he felt some presence, and briskly walked toward the entrance of the temple over the wide moat-bridge, still holding the gleaming blade in his hands. Adaman guessed that they had been found by scent or slot, and motioned for the others to hide on the sides of the great arch that they had not yet crossed. Sooner than Rei thought possible, however, Marcus had already walked through the towering doors and saw the Company as he turned about in the anteroom.

Rather than being taken unwittingly or wrathful, he simply chuckled a fey laugh. "Beloved guests, behold the seat of my power in this land, and a place where the Original One is to be laid low in only a short time! I was lax in my watchfulness, as I have determined that you pose no great peril to me or my designs. For I am the Iron King, the Dark Power of the South who has kept you here unwitting!"

Iscan read his axe, and Adaman pointed his sword at the revealed Dark Lord, who no longer held his fair guise. 'What is your plot?" Adaman demanded. "If you are the Iron King as you claim, speak wisely and with prudence!"

Inside of giving an answer, Marcus vanished in a gust of air that had come from the temple far away. All the members of the Company and their Pokémon felt some sort of iron vice about their waists, and were moved as fast as the wind wails in a valley through the massive arch, along the burning, pillared path, and to the temple altar.

Marcus had appeared above the man on the altar, no longer concealing his true nature from the eyes of the Company. His eyes glowed like hot coals stoked well, and his teeth became sharp like a wild animal's. Worse still, the linen wrappings around his arms were gone, revealing a pair of burned forearms and hands with a beast's claws, still grasping the blade.

The other members of the gathering had all the guards within their ranks, and even Malacus and his Bisharp. Rei said at a later date that he never quite figured out how all of the garrison-men had been brought to the temple, although he assumed it had been by the dark power of the Enemy. Marcus clearly did not travel inasmuch the same way as men did, so why should his servants also be limited to such transportation, if they had his aid?

But more shocking and dreadful was who was willingly upon the altar awaiting his doom. From this close length away from the man, Rei remembered the last ruinous encounter with this slave of evil, and how he had attempted to delay the journey. Volo was smiling at all seven without care, and it was unknown if he was under some kind of spell, or willing to be slain of his own volition in devotion to the Dark Lord.

"Well met, Men or Hisui!" Volo cackled. "I see that my Lord hath brought thee here from far away, and thou shall witness my burning, and the great falling of your own God in this sacred house. At last, you shall be given knowledge of the timeless revelation that the ways of the Evil One are greater than that of the False One. For how many times has a starving mother given her Children the gift of Death, so that they may be fed with what remains of her faint corpse, and pour out Death to each other, so that the youngest may experience Death last? And now I will give myself unto Death, as my Lord hath willed it!"

"Correct, thou dotard," Marcus spoke, changing his timbre from a stern king to a talented actor in a tragedy. "And every eye that hath not willed for me to be the Lord and God of all will be taken far away from the houses of mourning, where they shall be devoured in Eternity, and what comes beyond the expanse of Time. Tis' greater to be God-King upon the Earth and Sheol, than have the works of the Original One supersede mine in Heaven. I am the Bright Evening Star who fell at the Dawn of All Things, and I hath the will and power to strike the Original One low, and I to ascend to the heights of the clouds with the power that I shall beget to!"

And then the Company learned that Marcus was himself the Evil Djinn, taken to the form of a lord, a form that he most well changed into, for it was the desire to Rule that he espoused. "And will thou joineth into me," Marcus said. "And bind your troth to my kingdom now that all other Powers fail? Will you have peace?"

"Yes, we shall," Adaman began in a low voice, his sword drawn and glittering with a deadly light. "We shall have peace, when you and all your works have perished and that of those who serve you to sought to deliver us bond to your chattels! When you hang from your own battlements by a gibbet for the feast of your own wolves, Hisui will have peace with you, Mbelekoro! So says the Clan of Adamant. A lesser son of great sires am I, but I need not lick your fingers. Your words are plain, Evil One. In the language of the Fallen Djinn help means ruin, and saving means slaying, that is known. But we do not come here to beg!"

He swung his sword at length with a cry, and two of the assembly members fell dead, their heads hewn off. Chaos embroiled through the dark assembly. Typhlosion and Bisharp dueled, an even match with Malacus and Rei commanding their own Pokemon. Akari launched an arrow at Marcus, and it found its way into the Enemy's heart. To be doubly sure, Iscan threw his war-axe in the air, and it stuck itself in the chest of the Mbelekoro with a great noise.

Marcus recoiled, violet smoke pouring out of his wounds as his Fana failed him. The Dark Lord reared in madness, plucked the arrow out, and threw it far away where it broke asunder. The side of the war-axe that had pierced Marcus crumbled away, and Iscan was left with half of his weapon that he retrieved from the ground to make war on Marcus's thralls.

"Hast one attempted to hinder me?" Marcus hissed. "Thou fool! No Man nor Woman may put me to Death, for I cannot Die. I am of a greater order than the Children of Arceus, and I hath been taken from the mercy of Death! But I have mastery over it...ah, Death! The staunch that none can bear, the hemorrhage that all befall too! Let it claim my thrall so that the earth will be watered with his blood, and the Original One should take heed to it, in the place that He hath blessed in Easternesse, within the Barazinbar."

Another arrow struck Marcus, but he gave it no heed. The Dark Lord readied blade readied over Volo's chest.

In the many days that had come before, when Volo had learned of his duty, he had readied for his ritual and eventual passing. The Dark Lord would return him to life once victory had been complete. He knew what he must think to regulate his emotions, what changes would probably occur to the thickness of his blood, how likely he was to flinch or roll out of position, and even how the terror would affect his willingness. His last, curious thought was that he had underestimated the terror.

The blade pierced Volo's chest. Such a wound should not have slain him so suddenly, but there was a dreadful crackling noise, like ice being broken by a strong Pokemon's fist, and Volo was dead, the ghost of a maddened smile on his face. His blood stained the glittering knife, and drops of it splashed upon the altar and surrounding marble. All seemed to stop fighting to see the death of Volo, and what was to come next.

Marcus dropped the knife without care and looked at the massive expanse further beyond the altar that, when Rei looked at it with newly awakened eyes, appeared to be a stage. It was triangular, with three carved circular symbols at the corners, all joining a central circle in the center of the black marble. Forged by who none could say. Perhaps the One With The Mission had come upon it during his travels of yore, or it might have been crafted by the elohim when Hisui was first fashioned. But now it was present, and Marcus was to use it for his own ends.

The Enemy lifted his blackened arms, and a rumbling tumult began, pealing from the deeps of the Earth. The guards were knocked off their footing with the Golden Company, some falling into the molten rock over the side of the temple bier, vanishing in fireballs of smoke and sinew. Rei tried to flee from the battle with Malacus and his Pokemon so that he could would Marcus, but he was too hasty...

Malacus saw his opening and struck.

"Night Slash."

Typhlosion fainted, crashing like a dead hulk into the marble, and Sneasler was put into deadly peril defending Rei. Furious at the delay when the quest was on the edge of failure, Rei turned and fought back with all the skill and might he had. By now, Marcus was yelling over the noise, dark energy spilling out of every pore of his human form. It was getting even hotter, and the darkness grew.

"Now, since this is a place that is sacred to the Original One," cried Marcus, "I profane it with the blood of a Man in my service who has cast aside his bonds to Nature and Arceus! Is it not written not to test the Original One, lest his wrath spillith upon thou? But the date and the hour draw near! The very second and minute...that All Things were crafted by the Original One's Thousand Arms, for I remember it burned in my memory that spans the eons unerring. Let Him appear...upon the Mystri Stage!"

The stone sky was splitting at the seams, and Marcus turned to the Company, fell with triumph at the last. "I did indeed wish to slay thee when I first saw you in my place of fastness that I hath crafted, but I could not touch thee! One of my own servants had given you leave to enter my land, and the Power of the Original one safeguarded His chosen. But that hath come to naught, for I am the great judge, jury, and executioner of This Present Darkness. And now it shall end, and I will set my throne above all others!"

In the air, like an iridescent portal, was a great golden path that seemed to stretch up and up into the third heaven. It formed like an arrangement of individual corpuscles of shimmering light that then coalesced into a whole, creating a gateway into another land beyond the reckoning of mortals. Rei looked upward, feeling alone and forgotten upon the hard horn of the world as he heard the rumor of all lands cry out in a voice united, a voice of worship. He comes to save His children =! Glory to the Most High!

The great road rippled like falling snow moving into rain, and something emerged from it.