Open the Gate

Begin praying—to your Lord.

The brain within the bone crown suddenly convulsed. The "Saint" abruptly sensed immense danger and terror in those words—it did not know the nature of that fear, yet the warning from its dark fate bore down upon its subconscious like a mountain!

It instantly began struggling violently. Its powerful will even broke through the witch's layers of restraints for a brief moment. The bone spikes along the edge of the skeletal cage began to crackle, and as the restraints loosened for that instant, its senses finally recovered further. It finally noticed its surroundings—noticed the familiar aura of Holy Land Island.

It realized where it had been brought. In that instant, overwhelming despair shrouded its already crazed and mutated mind like nightfall!

"Holy Land!" The horrific brain swelled, shrank, and writhed violently. The air around it trembled as it let out layered, frantic roars. "Holy Land! You have defiled the Holy Land! You heretics... the Lord will punish you! None of you will escape!"

Yet Duncan and Lucretia merely watched the enraged "Saint" expressionlessly. After a moment, Duncan raised his right hand. A ball of flame rested in his palm, its edges flickering as wisps of fire streamed down to the ground. Some spread toward the gloomy stone Gate, while the rest silently burned its way beneath the Saint's feet.

Only after the flames began to spread did Duncan break the silence. "Two things. First, your 'Holy Land' needs no one else to defile it—your foolish compatriots dug through the surface and awakened the flesh and blood of God. They have now gotten their wish and 'returned their souls to the Abyssal Lord,' in every sense of the phrase.

"Second, I do not care what your Lord thinks about this. But I do have some matters to