'The third stage'

After the stone fall there was a terrible whirlwind. He was whistling so loudly, that it must have been heard on the other side of the Kingdom. From that terrible noise, Margo and Angelica had ear bleeding. The hurricane easily picked up parts of the huge boulders and rocks, twisted into a funnel and dragged them into the abyss. Suddenly the ground around the pentagram began to crumble. Lica screamed but the witch was absolutely calm.

"Everything is going right," she whispered. "The last element is fire! It must come from the volcano."

"The volcano?!" cried the girl. "We will die! What did Arthur, Edward and Swein fight for?! What did the soldiers give their lives for?!"

At this moment, the ceiling above them opened up and they could see the starry sky illuminated with red flares. The rocks were falling down about their ears and suddenly an earth cone began to rise out of the abyss.

"The volcano!" pointed Margo.

Meanwhile, the stone arches surrounding the witch and the girl finally collapsed and the valley spread with bodies of people and monsters appeared in front of them.

"Gosh!" Angelica muttered. "How terrible!"

She tried to see the army of fighting vampires, but alas, nothing could be seen!

"Look!" Margo exclaimed.

The girl turned around and saw that the earth cone was growing right in front of them. It was getting higher and higher and soon almost reached the night sky. Suddenly, they heard terrible screams and growls in the valley again and as if from nowhere new hordes of monsters appeared.

"Why don't the elements work on them?" Lica asked, pointing to the monsters.

"The elements work but the gates between this and other world are open. Apparently, the evil decided to intensify its strength," said the witch.

Wild creatures ran up to the wounded but still alive soldiers and tore them into pieces. Heart-rending cries were everywhere.

"I can't stand that!" exclaimed Angelica. "I cannot sit here and watch those people die! I have to do something!"

"We cannot do anything. Only Huron will help!"

"Then I'll go and find him!"

"You are crazy! Swein and Edward left and never returned. Do you think that you are stronger than they are?"

"You are right. I am... crazy!"

With these words, the girl went out of the pentagram and ran up the rising earth cone.

"Come back, stupid girl!" Margo cried in the direction of her. "This volcano is going to erupt!"

But Lica did not hear her. She was going on climbing; however, she didn't understand what for. She was obsessed. The girl was not looking around. Her still small voice told her to go ahead to the top of the volcano!

Lica did not notice how much time passed before the moment when the mountain beneath her feet stopped growing. The soil wasn't quaking anymore and it was much easier to climb. However, her nose caught some nasty smell.

"It smells as sulfur!" she figured out. "The volcano must be ready to erupt..."

But this terrible guess didn't stop her. As if some unknown force made her continue going up. The temperature was rising. Soon Angelica started sweating from the unbearable heat and choking on the smell of sulfur.

The girl pulled herself together and finally climbed to the top. It was no more than ten meters up to the crater. A huge cloud of poison gas was hanging above it. Lica realized that she was going to choke on smoke.

"What a stupid death!" she cried. "Heaven, can you hear me?! I do not know why I came here, apparently for a stupid death!"

Angelica flopped to the ground and burst into tears...

"First - Huron, then - Edward and Swein, then - Arthur! Now it is my turn then – Margo!" wailed Lica. "What for? To fail miserably our mission..."

Then she heard a buzzing sound. The girl looked around and saw 'black blots' against the red glow were approaching her.

"I guess I won't have time to choke," she grinned. "They will kill me before that!"

However, she stood up, pulled out her sword and prepared to repel the vile creatures.

At this moment, the dark sky of the Night Kingdom suddenly brightened, as if a long-awaited dawn came. 'Blots' slightly slowed down...

"We've been watching your battle for a long time," suddenly Angelica heard a thundering voice in her head, "and came to the conclusion that the balance of powers, in fact, is unequal."

Not expecting that Lica false stepped and nearly fell down. She looked up and saw a few pale pink huge clouds in the sky that were gradually taking the human bodies shape.

"The Viatores!" exclaimed the girl not believing her eyes. "Oh God, what a blessing! You have come!"

"Do not remember the name of the Lord thy God in vain!" the voice boomed. "We saw from the beginning the odds were on the evil side. Now, when the gates are open, the situation is getting worse and worse every minute. In addition, the elements are raging everywhere. We cannot allow the Apocalypse happens and so we made a decision..."

"What decision?!" Angelica cried.

"We need the sorcerer..."

"Yes, but a monster took him somewhere!"

"It is not so important..."

"But only Huron can control the elements and seal the gates with his soul!"

The Viatores were silent.

"Hey!" - screamed Lica. "Tell me, what I will do!"

However, they didn't tell anything and turned into clouds again. The sky gradually became dark... The 'blots' continued approaching to Angelica.

"Bastards!" the girl exclaimed in the hearts, shaking her fist at the sky. "Traitors! Damn you all!"

She put her hand with the sword forward, and then... something strange happened. Her hand holding the sword, suddenly thickened and now looked like more male than female. Some strange processes were happening in all her body. For a few seconds Lica fell out of reality and when she came to senses, she realized that now she was not Angelica - a student of the Linguistic course but Huron - the great magician, capable to control the elements with one his finger.

"Ha, ha, ha!" the girl laughed with a hoarse male voice. "Well, now I am ready to fight!"

For some reason, now she knew exactly what to do...

The 'black blots' were very close now and one of them swooped down - to Lica. The girl took her hand with a sword to the side and put forward her left hand. Then she said aloud some strange word, the meaning of which she didn't know, and the fiery rays went out of her left hand. They literally incinerated the 'blob', and it was scattered with ghoulish heartrending shriek. The second was about to fly away, but it was caught up with deadly lightning either.

Finished with monsters, Angelica came even closer to the crater of the volcano and began to draw a huge pentagram with the sword on the ground. As if her hands knew exactly what to do. They were drawing magical symbols and ritual signs, writing the ritual words. When the pentagram was ready, Lica threw a sword, stood in its center, spread her arms and lifted her head to the sky. Very loudly and clearly, she began saying a spell on unknown to her language...

At this moment, swirls appeared in the valley, they were growing bigger turning into terrible tornadoes. They were engulfing everything on their way and gradually moving to the volcano.

"Amen!" cried the girl, and the wind disappeared in a fiery crater.

Angelica continued reading the spell...

After the tornadoes, as if out of nowhere the streams of water flooded the valley. They picked up and carried everything that left after the tornadoes: the dead and wounded; the rotting remains of bodies; monsters, which were powerless against the violence of water.

"Amen!" she finished the second part of the spell and water flows rushed to the crater.

They began to disappear in it one after another. A loud hissing was heard from the crater and glowing water vapor billowed into the sky. The air was filled with the pungent smell of sulfur. With every second, it was more and more difficult to breath. Lica gathered all her will in a fist and proceeded saying the spell.

The ground under her quaked and an unpleasant hum came from the volcano. The cloud over the muzzle started to grow rapidly and thick ash fell down on the ground. Red-hot pieces of the rock were falling everywhere.

"Amen!" cried the girl.

Volcano quaked and erupted with the flows of lava, down the slopes - into the valley. They reached the opposite side of it and began to flow into the gorge, from which the 'black blots' had come. Nightmarish screams filled all the space.

With a wild grin, Angelica was watching the horror happening around. She was not scared at all; on the contrary, she was enjoying her strength and power. The Pentagram protected her from the hot vapor, magma and ash and Lica was able to continue the ritual...

She waited until the lava flows reached the valley. Then she drew another magical symbol in the center of the pentagram and kneeled down. She started to read a new spell. With every word, volcano and the mountains quaked more and more. The fire flows rushed back to the crater. When the last lava flow disappeared, Lica closed her eyes and said slowly:

"Amen..."

At the same minute, a lightning from the sky struck Angelica. The girl did not even have time to scream. She fell off the edge of the earth. Then a light substance separated from Lica's body, flew to the crater of the volcano and came into it.