PART III: AFTER THE UNSEALING OF THE BLACK MAGE

Chapter 41: Esfera, the Origin Sea

• Soon after Tana’s disappearance, the Adversary encountered Ollie, Shubert, and Melange - a Thunder Breaker, Blaster, and a mage from Pantheon, respectively - who had been tasked by the Alliance to assist the Adversary. The group discovered a mysterious door in the memory of Kritias, which sucked them into Esfera, the Origin Sea.

• In the distance, a masked figure shot down their airship, causing them all to regroup at a base camp, where they found a large Black Moon in the sky. Realizing that the Black Mage awaited them there, the Adversary began stabilizing Erda anomalies in the area, allowing them to witness a memory of Will fighting Tana in order to turn her into the “sun of the new world”. However, the masked figure had interrupted the ritual, causing Tana’s glass coffin to sink into the Origin Sea.

• While chasing after Tana, the Adversary and Ollie encountered Will, who told them that they could only face him after learning the meaning behind the phrase, “the ultimate light can only be found in the ultimate darkness", which had originally been said by the White Mage. Will then unleashed a devastating attack on Ollie, who was branded with a poisonous spider mark.

• As they continued the operation to rescue Tana, the group realized that Tana’s powers had seeped into the Origin Sea, causing them to conflict against Will and his Mirror World powers. As a result, Will’s spider creatures began fighting against strange priest-like creatures which Tana had inadvertently created with her memories.

• With the Executors of Light and Darkness leading them to Tana, the Adversary and Ollie began exploring Tana’s memories and witnessed a scene in which she and her sister had been forced to fight each other in a selection for the Transcendent of Light. Having defeated her sister, Tana had been given the title of Aeona, Grandis’ Transcendent of Light. However, upon hearing the Overseers’ voice compelling her to obey their commands, Tana had refused to be shackled to their fate and rejected her title of ‘Aeona’, taking on the title of ‘Tana’ - the title for the candidate who had not been chosen by the Overseers.

• Soon after, the Executors discovered Ollie’s spider mark and began attacking her. The Adversary barely managed to protect Ollie, who was extracted back to base camp. Suddenly, the masked figure appeared and confronted Will, who gave them a choice between saving Tana or the Adversary, whom they pushed into the Origin Sea. The masked figure immediately moved to save the Adversary, allowing Will to escape with Tana. The Adversary was then sent back to base camp, where they learned that Ollie’s mark was poisonous, and that only Will could cure it.

• The Adversary and Melange then traveled to the White Sun, which Will had created as part of his ritual. Along the way, Melange explained that the Executors had been a minor race of Grandis who served the Transcendent of Light. Together, the pair entered Tana’s memories and witnessed her attempts to escape the will of the world, eventually meeting the Black Mage in her dreams, who had asked her to come to Kritias so that he could combine their powers together to create a new world without Transcendents.

• This helped the Adversary realize that Will’s words - “the ultimate light can only be found in the ultimate darkness” - meant that the Black Mage intended to create a new world through the destruction of their old one, which Melange explained would be done through Will’s ritual for the Black Mage to take Tana’s power of creation.

• The Adversary then confronted Will and manage to defeat him, for which Will agreed to cure Ollie of her poison. However, he revealed that the only way to stop the ritual was by killing Tana. Though the Adversary was conflicted, they recalled Kao’s warning about not making choices that they would regret, for which they chose to spare her life instead, believing that they could still save everyone, including Tana.

• As the ritual commenced, the Alliance sent reinforcements to help the Adversary escape from Will. Meanwhile, the masked figure confronted Will, who had escaped to the deepest part of Mirror World, and began fighting him. After the battle between the two ended, Melange entered Mirror World and picked up a mysterious book that Will had left behind, which he secretly kept for himself.

• In the sky, the Black Moon fused together with the White Sun, transforming it into the Black Sun, Tenebris, and creating a massive storm that slowly began to grow throughout the area. Having gained the power of both creation and destruction, the Black Mage sent massive chains into the waters, pulling Maple World closer into the Arcane River and absorbing the Erdas within the Origin Sea in order to begin the Genesis Ritual.

• Soon after the mission to Esfera, the Adversary encountered several Dimensional Cracks that allowed them to peer into Kao’s memories. In those memories, the Adversary discovered that Kao had been unable to protect Ollie from the Executors, resulting in her being fatally wounded from her injuries and Will’s poison.

• After Ollie’s passing, Kao grew emotionally volatile as a result of their guilt and inner turmoil. During the moment when Kao had been presented with the choice to kill or spare Tana, Kao’s experiences had led them to believe that they couldn’t give into hesitation, for which they had made the choice to kill her.

• However, without being able to awaken the power of the Seal Stone, Kao was unable to kill Tana - a Transcendent - resulting in the ritual continuing as planned. The Adversary then realized that Kao, whose Arcane Power had been stolen by Arma, had been too weak to save Ollie in time, which had catalyzed the events which had led to their defeat. However, the Adversary was left with more questions, such as why Kao had been unable to kill Tana, as well as what their own fate would be.