The sun was just preparing to go down behind the massive mountain wall behind the narrow valley. The four riders stood at the summit of the mountain they just climbed and looked down into the valley. It was quite opposite to the beautiful scenery Juran and his companions had seen about twenty four hours ago.

The small stream still babbled and ran through the valley, but the grassy meadow on its banks had been destroyed by stones of all sizes strewn all over the place. At places they were heaped into small mounds, but mostly they just lay scattered all over the place.

Ahir gathered their horses which were grazing and relaxing in the small flat piece of grass bed on which they were standing. As they were about to get on them, a small black animal came running out of a bush and jumped upon Shura.

It was Kite, Shura's tracker dog. But he looked shabby and exhausted. His silken fur was covered in dust and his sunken belly showed that he didn't have anything to eat for a long time. He was not the kind of domestic dogs to depend on humans for food and comfort, so he must have been really busy otherwise, or he wouldn't become so tired and famished. 'I wonder what he had been doing!' Ethan thought.

Shura picked Kite up and brushed his fur with her fingers. Ahir opened a can of meat and fed him with his own hands. For a few minutes he savoured his food, chewing contentedly with his eyes closed. Then he jumped down from Shura's lap and began to run down the mountain. The four riders followed in his steps immediately.

As they reached the valley below, Kite ran to a place where a huge pile of jagged, broken stones were scattered. Kite scurried around the place and whined. Then he bit the leg of Shura's clothes and tried to drag her toward the West in the direction of the mountain beyond the valley. They understood at once what Kite wanted to tell them. He was telling them to follow him.

'What could have happened here?' This was the uppermost question in the mind of everyone. Anxiously, they looked at each other's faces. Liz's face was ashen. When she talked, her voice trembled.

"W-What happened? Is Juran alright?"

"He should be." Shura said. She picked up Kite who was rearing to go running in the direction of the mountain and held him firmly in her arms.

"How can you say that?"

"Well, as we can see, something must have happened here, because all these rocks are here for not more than two days. Look at the grass here!" As she said this, she turned the rocks here and there with the toe of her boots and pointed at the grass buried under them.

"See, they haven't started to yellow yet! Most probably these have fallen here from above not a long ago," she said.

"Can it be that they had been attacked here by someone?" Ethan asked.

"Very likely." Ahir said. "In that case, the attackers must have come from the direction of that mountain wall there, for we didn't see any sign of an ambush on the way we came here."

Ethan nodded. Ahir was probably right there.

"Are you people trying to say that they were buried under the stones here?" Liz asked, her voice still worried. "How can they even be alive after that?"

"Liz, most of these stones are not bigger than small pebbles! And more than that, there is no corpse here and no significant blood trail. I can see blood splattered here and there but that is not enough to say that a massacre took place. So, don't be worried! I'm sure they are still alive."

"Let's follow Kite then!" Ethan said. "He must have seen something which he now wants to show us."

Shura put Kite down and he started to run immediately. Without wasting a single a moment they started to follow him.

The darkness of night seemed to have been lurking in a corner all this time. Now all on a sudden, it came out of hiding and pounced on them. Everything plunged into it. The horses were confused and started whining. The riders had to rein them immediately and comfort them. A few feet away Kite started to bark suddenly, as if trying to warn them that a ruthless predator was on the sprawl nearby.

It was Liz who reacted first as she had the ability to see in darkness. From inside her backpack she brought out a few small flattened disc shaped objects. As she pressed one of them to her chest, it attached itself to the front of her cloth and started to glow. In a second an area with a four feet radius around her was illuminated in a soft yellow glow. She gave a disc to each one of them. Now they could see themselves as well as the area around them.

The ground below there feet started to shake as a deep rambling sound rolled down the mountain in front of them, bringing with it a flood of gigantic boulders. For a brief second, everyone froze in their places. Ahir was the first to recover himself. Jumping down from his horse he ran a few feet forward and stood with his hands outstretched towards the tumbling harbingers of death. "Ethan! Do it now!" Liz shouted.

Ethan also ran towards Ahir and stood by his side. He drew his sword from its sheath and pointed its tip towards the moving boulders. A strange white ball of fire started to form at the tip of the sword. In the blink of an eye it took a gigantic shape and with a thunderous 'WHOOSH! it flew towards the mountain. As soon as it came in contact with the boulders, it spread over them like a sheet of semi-transparent milky white light and froze them in the place. In a few seconds, everything calmed down. Only the boulders remained still, looking like part of some giant staircase, rising to the mountain top step by step.

Ethan put down the sword and took a heavy breath.

'I've done it!' He thought ecstatically and said, "Thank you Liz, for showing me what I could do!"

Liz smiled. "Nana and me talked about it. Your Demon instincts are so strong that it's not impossible for you to enhance our abilities and use them as weapons, too. See, you just enhanced Ahir's ability to control rocks and used it as your sword's power!"

Ethan nodded and looked for Shura. She was holding Kite all this time. Now as soon as the danger was over, Kite wiggled out of her arms and jumping down, started running in the direction of the mountain. With incredible agility he climbed the stairs of the frozen boulders and was halfway up the mountain before his companions could even start to climb the boulders. Shura whistled repeatedly and called his name. At last he paused and tilting his head, waited for them to catch up with him.

"He seems to be very eager to continue our journey!" Liz said.

"He is taking us to the place where Juran is, or at least where he has seen him last," Shura said with conviction.

Soon they caught up with Kite and continued to climb the mountain.