They hid inside the tomb, breaths stilled as they listened to the loud approach of over a dozen footsteps.
Ran did his best to ignore the call of the strange aura that had suddenly begun to permeate the crypt.
He knew there was something to be found should he go looking, but he wasn't exactly in the sort of position to afford the luxury of such an adventure.
Still, it bothered him, this call. It felt like there was something in this crypt, something ancient, that had awaited his coming for almost all of eternity and was overjoyed at his presence.
That was what it felt like. He tried to ignore it as the footsteps began to move away from each. The Dragon Knights, he suspected, were spreading out to search for them.
What bothered him the most about this situation was the silence. The Dragon Knight he'd met at the broken seals of the gate had been quite mouthy, but these ones all seem to have taken a vow of silence.
They were all violent and focused, not concerned about exchanging words. But then again there had been little to no opportunity for either of their group to stand and exchange words.
He stiffened alongside the others when they heard a pair of footsteps approaching their position.
He could have closed his eyes and prayed to any god who could hear him. But considering his luck, his father might just be the one to pick up on that prayer.
How would he even know that all of this was not just some twisted game of his father's? He found it hard to believe that they had escaped the angel of dawn so quickly.
But until it was proven otherwise, he'd rather accept the assumption that they had been favoured by luck than worry over the unrealistic fortune of their escape.
Thus, he did not close his eyes in prayer or fall into despair that none of this mattered and instead searched around, frantically, for an escape.
Kigana clutched to him tightly and he could feel her cold hands trembling. Even then, he cast his eyes in search of salvation.
There was something jutting out of the shadows upon the floor of the very tomb they were in.
He immediately focused his Fey senses on it.
Ran, focusing, paid closer attention to it and noticed that it had the markings of a secret doorway. One that was sealed.
Not knowing how sharp the hearing of the dragon knights were, he decided to try getting it open first before telling his friends. He'd rather open it and be heard by the dragon knights then have a route in hand to escape through, than whisper to his friends and get heard then be subsequently caught before he could open it.
He ignored the part of his mind that wondered what if he was unable to open it and only made a ruckus that caught the dragon knights' collective attention.
As a Fey being, even if he was yet to fully overcome the glamour that hid his true nature, he was quite strong. Strong enough to wrestle bear, and that was with his hair of his Fey nature still glamoured.
He was not the weak Ran that had been given to Kaito Kenija after the death of his brother. He wasn't Reficulus either, the half-blood Fey.
He possessed just half of Reficulus' natural potential. But that was enough.
So it didn't surprise him that when he placed his hand around the edges of the trapdoor and pulled with all his might, it came right off its hinges with a sharp crack that filled the silence around them.
His friends turned to give him startled and betrayed looks even as hurried footsteps outside rushed towards them.
He paid them no mind and knelt down to inspect what had been revealed now that there was no trapdoor to hide it anymore.
Looking down all he could see was spiraling stairs of sulfur-stone. The light they exuded made it impossible to tell just how far down they went.
It was like staring down an unknown number of flights of stairs that went down into a deep hole, or an oceanic trench, shrouded in fog.
As the footsteps got even more closer, he waved his friends, who had been watching him, over.
Kigana was the first to come to him. He gestured down the stairs. She hesitated for only a moment, then climbed down.
Erisa followed. Haru made to go next but Ran gestured for him to wait.
Leaning forward, he whispered as quietly as he could to his friend. "Follow after me. You know more kin arts than me, so you must reseal the trapdoor," he said, passing him the trapdoor.
Haru immediately understood and nodded before gesturing hurriedly for him to get the move on.
The footsteps were getting closer even now. Ran wondered why they didn't just fly.
He chalked it up to arrogance and climbed down, out of the tomb and down the flight of stairs.
Haru followed, trapdoor in hand. Once he was safely out of the tomb, the Acolyte, his hand glowing white, gently fitted the trapdoor back into position.
With a whispered word from him it appeared to Ran as though he'd never broken the door.
And that was when they heard the Dragon Knights start searching the tombs around them from the other side.
Looking at each other, they carefully turned around and began to make their way down the endless spirals of staircases.
Hurrying before the servants of Satan could catch up to them.
The stairs were truly endless and almost dizzying. One could not see the next spiral flight with the heavy, illuminating, fog of the sulfur-stones.
It made for a dangerous trek, one they had no other option but to brave through.
And that was how the next seven hundred heartbeats went, with them climbing down the endless stairs.
It might have been more as Ran had only started counting when he felt his legs beginning to tire.
They did not expect the final landing because with the fog there was no way to see farther than a few paces ahead of yourself.
When they finally reached down it was a huge surprise to exit the stairway and find themselves up.
The way up is down was a fact when it came to places like Dragonhearth. Just behind them was a huge balcony, the largest Ran had ever seen, that had an adjacent passageway connected to the broken bridge they had escaped from a while ago.
Exchanging looks, they head back to the bridge, and Ran closed his eyes. With a grim resolve, he finalized the plan he'd been putting together in his head.
Stepping out into the balcony Ran breathed in the sulfur heavy air outside of the tower and stopped all of a sudden.
How had he not noticed it the last time they were outside and crossed the bridge?
He could feel it, feel them, his cores. All of them.
Stretching out his hand, he willed his powers to be and around his hand a halo red energy appeared and began to rotate. Next it changed, became yellow and poisonous, sizzling on the very air.
It changed again, this time spreading all over him like a skin-tight suit of silver. It was warm, it was familiar, and it made him smile knowing that his sister still cared for him.
When it changed for the third time, it became black tendrils that wrapped around him like a thousand serpents.
It disgusted him, it enveloped the area with an eldritch feeling of primal fear. And when he looked up to see his friends backing away from him he did not blame them.
Such was the expected reaction of anyone faced with the sight and presence of the raw eldritch essence of a Lagarakei.
He willed it away and the blue fire of his sister's domain surrounded him, making him clench his fist and make them burn brighter.
Now he was ready. It mattered not if this was all just a trick of the great betrayer, it mattered little.
Regardless of what his father had schemed, or was scheming, Ran had his powers back now.
He had a means to protect himself. He had a means to fight fire with fire.
Lucifer wanted him to be the son of the devil.
Well, today he had his eyes on being the devil himself.