It was midnight a few days after the encounter with Gades when Hiro was awakened by Ghaleon. "Come up on deck," Ghaleon said. "We've got company." They ran up to the deck. There was a black cloud hovering above the ship, and it was slowly taking form. Lucia was paralyzed with fear, and Leo wasn't much better off.
"It's almost like fear flows from it," he breathed. The cloud shaped itself into a human form and then solidified as such. "Ah," the man said. "So here are the ones Gades was talking about."
"Amon," Lucia breathed. "Master of Terror."
"You know me well, Lucia of the Blue Star. I'd like to stay and thrash the lot of you but I've other business." He vanished.
"So that's the Master of Terror," Ghaleon said. "No wonder I couldn't move. I felt like all I had in me was fear."
"Two more," Lemina said. "I bet they're even more powerful."
Daos felt his strength returning. He had lain in a kind of stupor ever since his catastrophic defeat a thousand years ago, but now he was reviving. His energy was nearly restored. He moved. Amon appeared beside him. "Master," he said. "It pleases me to see that you're again among the living."
"What of Erim?" Daos asked.
"I am here," came a cold voice. A girl in black armor approached. "The time is at hand to raise the Island and begin the attack."
"The heroes will be arriving soon," Amon said. "Gades moved too soon I think."
"They lack the Dual Blade," Daos said. "They can't win."
"That's not entirely true," Amon said. "One of their number positively glowed with Dual Blade's energy."
"Only one person I know matches that description and it isn't Maxim," Erim said. "He was strong but Ghaleon of Lunar might just be the human form of Dual Blade. Dual Blade is a spirit, not a physical being. It could assume any form it wished."
"So they're all ready," Daos growled. "Well so shall it be with us!"
After Amon vanished the companions did not go back to their rooms. Leo sensed a serious instability in the atmosphere and voiced his guess that it could be attributed to the Sinistrals. He was right. Soon after the disturbance had begun an island suddenly ripped itself free of the ocean floor and hung in the night sky. "Let's get up there," Leo said. "That's where they'll be if I know anything!"