"Umm… Why did you stop?" The Luminard asked, worried about the hero's health. After all, she had suddenly grown silent and unmoving. If need be, Karen was already ready to leave so Yassi could rest more from her injuries.

"No, it's just that I find it hard how to continue from here," Yassi muttered, while massaging her temple. She looked up at her companion with a reassuring smile. "The story starts getting quite different from this point on."

The Luminard came forward to aid her hero as she struggled to get up from the floor. Once she had straightened into a stand, the superhero had taken her hand away from the Luminard's. Karen could see her slightly wobbling, but her hero still managed to keep her posture while breathing shallow breaths.

"Anyway, I warrant we would still have to take a break from the storytelling," Yassi said, facing the closed door. "… We have a guest."

Karen has grown a tiny bit more used to her hero's sharp senses, so she wasn't too surprised when the door opened in the next moment, revealing a humongous Maliferon, probably one of the clan's warrior guards.

"Hero YAP," the Maliferon announced with a deep voice, his mouth appearing into a mini black hole. "Our leader, the Mal Roka, requests your presence. Come with haste."

Karen stepped a foot forward. "But she is still in the middle of her given rest! She can hardly mov-"

She felt a hand on her shoulder, and looked back to find her hero looking at her angrily. "Karen, I shan't make our host wait. This is my third day of rest. I reckon that I, the great hero, should have already recovered quite well enough to thank the clan leader."

Karen froze at her hero's cold countenance, yet she quickly acknowledged her point. She nodded meekly and allowed her passage. The Luminard can only stare worriedly as her hero limped away to follow the guard, matching his own wide gait. She clearly knew that Yassi was not even well enough to stand on her own, yet there she was, recklessly moving around as she pleased. She wasn't happy about it, but she couldn't do anything to help or stop her. For all she knew, the two of them were simply the Maliferons' pretty prisoners only disguised as their honorary guests.

"Please be safe," she muttered at her hero's back, watching as the girl walked on with pride amidst the pain. "The gods know I do not want you to return all bloodied up again."

Yassi, however, was too preoccupied with staying conscious to heed any attention to the Luminard's woes. Her whole body screamed in agony, and her recently closed wounds started opening up again. She tried her best to look as heroic as she could, especially as passersby started pointing at her in excitement and other unfriendly expressions, but she found it hard to look the part when she was pitifully bleeding out from every possible extremity of her body.

'Oh, you have gone through much worse pains than this, Yassi Anne. You could take another beating or three. Now stand up straighter!' she thought to herself, blinking the irritating tears that started to gather in her eyes.

Thankfully, the Maliferon guard was stoic and walked on without a care. It would only make her feel worse if the guard had actually started showing worry for her failing human body.

Yassi did not know how she had possibly done it, but she had arrived at the destination without actually passing out. The room was quite large. She had been offered a hard, metal chair to sit on and she had to do her very best to hide her relief as she slumped down on it.

The Maliferon guard had taken her to one of the deepest round buildings inside the dome territory before wordlessly leaving her alone. She could only imagine how deep they really were, underneath the ground. However, even if she tried to remember how much time the travel took while going down here, she couldn't recall it for her life. She had been too preoccupied in acting tough that her awareness of time had simply flown away.

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Blinking the dark spots in her eyes, she forced herself to look around the room.

Just like everywhere else, it was brought to light by desecrated pixie corpses. In turn, there was a blue tinge to everything. The room had an array of meticulously shaped dark metal structures, probably intended to be like statues, but stretched out around the room in strange, curled out forms. It held a definite beauty in them, but Yassi couldn't bring herself to admire them. Maybe it was because of the horrid blue reflections on the smooth, black metal, or maybe it was because she was being stared at by a particularly silent Maliferon, sitting calmly on a simple chair right in front of her.

"Hi?" she muttered stupidly, her high-pitched voice echoing in the large room. Cursing her addled mind, she hurriedly brought herself into a more focused state, and started again. She bowed, even though it made her wounds twist in pain. "Greetings. I am Yassi Anne Sorento, otherwise known as the Superhero YAP. I have come by the summons of the benevolent Mal Roka."

Yassi looked up with anxiety, searching the dark gaze of the quiet Maliferon. It was smaller compared to the others in the clan. In fact, it might have been the smallest one she had seen in her entire time at the Maliferon territory.

'Could this be a child or a young relative of the Mal Roka?' she wondered.

The creature, probably shorter than herself if they both stood up, blinked its black, beady eyes, and its mouth appeared as it spoke. "Ferric blessings unto you, Hero YAP. Indeed, this old one has summoned you here, albeit it still being your period of rest. For that, I must apologize. But, you see, the council grows angrier by the passing hour, and I fear we may not be able to converse by the time the Earth sun sets this day."

Yassi listened hard, but questions started forming inside her mouth. 'This smaller Maliferon is the Mal Roka? What council and why are they growing angrier? Did he call me here to have us leave right now?'

Yassi worried, for she perfectly knew of her own unfortunate condition, and if she had to leave this moment, she doubted she could survive the harsh, winter temperatures. Yet, she could do nothing. She had failed the Trials, so she has no place to request for anything from these people. In truth, she should have already died right after her failure.

Her train of thoughts made her remember the helplessness that she had felt while she had faced the Ferric Instrument. It had moved with such quickness and deadliness that her own body could not follow. She had persevered on the hours of daylight, slept during the night, and woke up at the break of dawn to fight once again. But, days had passed, and she still hadn't beaten the metal monster. In fact, far from it. Every day, she had continually challenged it, but her own drive to come victorious grew weaker by the day… If only…

"Hero YAP." The Mal Roka interrupted her depressing thoughts. "Won't you speak with me? I guarantee that you will have time to rest more until the coming morn. And I would not be keeping you here for too long. I only have my curiosities as an old creature, so I do selfishly want them satisfied."

She wondered what the leader of the clan could possibly be curious about, but she agreed to his request. "Ask away, esteemed one. I will do my best to answer your questions."

"Then, I would like to ask…" the Mal Roka tilted its dark head. "Are you really the Hero YAP?"

'Does he doubt me?' she thought, feeling anxious. 'If he wants me to prove it, then it would be difficult...'

"Forgive me for appearing to doubt you, young one," the Maliferon said. "But it strikes me how desperate you have been to keep your powers hidden. If all the stories are true, and considering all that we had seen in the Great Divide, then I could not fathom the reason as to why you seem so utterly human now. As Mal Roka, I pride in the strength of the Ferric Goddess and her holy instrument, but I must believe an immense being such as YAP could easily turn it into nothing but space dust. So, tell me now, for I swear upon the Goddess that I will keep your words a secret, are you really the Great Hero YAP as you say you are?"

Her heart quickened its beating, and her skin glistened with cold sweat. Yassi found it hard to speak, and her mind was too chaotic to produce any excuses. So instead, she had chosen to speak the truth.

"I am the Hero YAP," Yassi spoke. "I was a simple human girl when I chanced upon a pill that gave me my powers. As time passed on, I had grown strong, and only continued to become stronger. I was so powerful that I had solely started and ended entire galactic wars. I had annihilated entire races. I had loved, lost, and healed. I have gone through so much in my short life as a hero that it felt like I had always been in the field for billions of years. I have saved so many lives and entire cultures that I have long lost count of them, yet I know these good deeds can never balance out the amount of blood and destruction I have left in my wake.

"But, yes, Mal Roka. I understand your doubt, for this same hero is without her powers now."