The meadows were boundless, their grasslands stretching far beyond the horizon. Dusk had long passed, the peering sun of the dawn breaking through the scattering clouds of dark. The skies had a faint hue of blue on them as I could see flocks of morning birds whirring through the canvas of the skies.

By now, I've forgotten how long I've been walking through this place. The terrain was beautiful, but I've grown tired of seeing just endless plains of emerald grass.

The whirls of morning wind were cold, swaying the grass back and forth and whispering dull cries in my ear. It was frigid; I would be shivering right now had it not been for my robes.

'How much I want the scenery to change...'

I collapsed on the ground, the numbness in my legs anchoring me to the ground. On my knees, I brushed off the vining drops of sweat from my visage.

Vesper seemed to have noticed my inability to continue. Groaning, as if without any fatigue laced behind his physique, he reared on me with a exasperated glower on his face. "Why not use that book of yours and give us a whole army? Perhaps they could carry you."

"And what?" I stared at him, taking a few gasps of much needed breath. "Blow the element of surprise out of the water?"

"We won't be needing that element if we have a whole army to reinforce us." He climbed over towards a nearby hill, narrowing down his vision to scout the fields. "Besides," he yelled out to me as his head scanned the stretch of grassland before him, "I'm pretty sure that those stragglers have made our presence here known by now."

"Fine then," I spat out, motioning my Grimoire to head's height. "But you must know that this will just make this place even more ruined."

He stared at me, approaching me as he did. Stopping himself just a few steps away from me.

His eyes had a stoic feeling embedded into them, but a faint sense of sorrow. His demeanor seemed relaxed, but it was transparent that it was nothing more than a facade; even I could feel the aura of grimness permeating around him.

"If it's for the sake of bringing back peace to this place, then I truly think that it is the right choice." He instilled desperation into my soul with his piercing gaze, causing me to droop my head slightly.

"I understand..." I spoke out as I undid the bindings of the book, flipping it open.

But as I began to search for an blank page, something awry caught me; it was Vesper. He was apparently blankly staring at something in the far distance.

"Vesper?" I asked, my words failing to reach him as he didn't even so much as blink.

There was no reply.

He kept silent, his body not even budging an inch. He simply continued on staring through the shroud of darkness, an unforeseen object draining away his spirit as I swear I saw him becoming more pale as second passed.

I shrugged, opting to look for what he was fixated upon. Curiosity got the better of me.

The mist of morning obscured much of my vision, causing me to narrow down my vision on the direction his eyes were set upon to get a much more clarified view.

There, in the distance enshrouded by the mists of darkness, came a beacon of spectral light. The pillar of light seemed to extend itself into the skies, piercing into the heavens.

It was faint, but its dimness waned as its brightness intensified. I couldn't make heads or tails of it. It was both entrancing and mortifying at the same time.

I could feel something the Grimoire tucked in my robes responding to its spectral existence. It was exerting warmth, absorbing the condensed magic from the pillar.

"If the Grimoire can osmose the potency of that magic all the way from here..." I gulped down the nervousness as my heartbeat resounded in my throat, 'It must be beyond the levels of magic that this world normally permits.'

I paused abruptly, a cold bead of sweat trickling down my head falling into the ground.

"Am I hallucinating?" I asked.

"Nope," Vesper swiftly replied, his eyes still widened at the beacon. "Unless you're seeing something else other than a big light extending into the skies."

"That's," I paused, unable to comprehend such a phenomenon, "exactly what I see."

Silence settled in as the both of us stared at it in awe, paralyzed by unfathomable awe.

"The hell?" I let out softly, my thoughts still a bit derailed by its suddenness.

"It's..." Vesper gazed upon the ray of light, his jaw agape. "It's coming from Canterlot!"

My mind instantly snapped out of its trance as those words hit me.

"You think it's Celestia?"

"Definitely," Vesper bit his lip as he said that, tension becoming apparent on his face as his legs subtly trembled. "It's no doubt that this is Celestia's doing. Only she could be capable of doing such a thing."

"Then what do we do now-" As if to spite me further, an earthquake resonated throughout the ground, cutting me off.

The magnitude of the earthquake was incomprehensibly high. Its wayward nature and its synchronization with the beam of light was signalling me that this was no coincidence.

Whatever Celestia was doing, it was breaking the earth even more.

The ground itself seemed to chip away as the upheaval of soil brought the grass and dirt raining down upon us. The tremor did not relent, causing me to be pinned down to the ground.

"All of this seems familiar," I heard Vesper say as the quake finally dissipated.

Vesper staggeringly stood up, his movements a bit uncoordinated as a result from the sudden tremor. He stood on shattered land, as did I.

I glanced around a bit more finely, seeing that there's no earthquake impeding me from taking a good look. The terrain was in shambles. Cracks formed upon the dry land while the much more softer dirt was flayed upwards, now strewn in endless mounds. The roots of grass, trees, and foliage alike were tossed upright, their stems poking out of the dirt.

While I did ask for a change of scenery, I slowly spun around, processing the shift of surroundings. 'This was a bit too drastic.'

"How..." I paused, noting the change of scenery, "...so?"

Vesper shook his head, but answered nonetheless, "I've heard something like this when I was a mere lad. There was this story about Heaven's Gate."

"Heaven's Gate?"

"It's the so-called door that leads into Heaven itself-"

"I get it." I buried my palm into my face. "It's quite obvious for me."

"The ritual to opening it would be to make severe sacrifices."

"Such as?" I questioned, my eyebrows furrowed.

"The mentality and soul of the caster, though, it has to be of great fortitude and wisdom."

"If I asked, I'd probably get the expected answer." I shook my head, trying to dispel the mesmerized feeling lingering in my mind. "But I'll still ask it: I take it that Celestia has those qualities?"

"Indeed she does," Vesper clenched his teeth hard against each other as he just realized what he had just spoken. "Or, to be more honest, she did. She doesn't anymore."

"Of course." I nodded. "So, go on about this ritual?"

"Ah. After sacrificing both mind and soul, the user has to amplify the magic using something as fuel in order to cast it."

"You're not implying that Celestia actually relinquished the Elements of Harmony as sacrifice, did she?" I ask, the chilling sensation clinging to my body only intensifying.

"There's no other explanation," Vesper steeled his gaze in order to apply emphasis to his proceeding words, "Celestia did exactly that."

"And I'd wager that after all of that ritual sacrifice the user, which would be Celestia in this case, causes the abnormal phenomenons we've just experienced?"

Vesper hung his head low, as if in a pondering state. "Yes. The tower of cascading light and the earthquake are part of the sequences. There's one thing missing, however."

"Oh?" I simply uttered out.

"After both of those, there's supposedly a tsunami that would break..." Vesper's words fell into a silent tone as he just realized that, "...apart the entirety of Equestria."

Our stares went from pensive to concerned.

And from concerned to frightened.

A sudden instinct took a hold over me as I swiftly flipped the Grimoire open, flipping to a white, empty page in the span of split-second. Chanting out some inaudible word a few times, I withdrew the book into my robes.

As expected, a portal of abysmal red formed itself just above me. Reality itself seemed to distort as it warped itself into reality.

"I never thought it would be that..." Vesper failed to finish his comment. "That flashy."

"Is now really the time for unnecessary remarks?!" I lashed out at him. "The best thing to do right now would be to hope that whatever comes from that portal has wings!"

Vesper took a faltering step back, wincing as he did. "You do know that we're far from any shore, right? Even a tsunami depicted in that aged tale wouldn't be able to reach us."

I sighed in relief, clutching at my chest as I did. "Oh. Hell. Why didn't you tell me that sooner?"

"Did it look like I had time to-"

Suddenly, the land was thrown off-balance once more as another tremor quaked the ground. I nearly stumbled over, almost submerging myself in a pool of dirt.

The quake swiftly ended; it didn't even last for more than three seconds. Regaining my footing, I looked towards Vesper who appeared to be just as shaky about what just happened.

"Was that the tsunami or whatever?" I questioned.

"I'm pretty sure that it was!" Vesper pointed at the swiftly moving clouds.

Then a very apparent fact made itself clear as realization viced my mind. The clouds weren't moving rapidly. The land that I was standing on was! This entire piece of land is about to become an independent continent!

"Oh. Isn't that just perfect..." I muttered in one cursing, bitter tone. "We're drifting away!" I yelled out, flaring my hands above my head. "How the hell can we get to Canterlot now-"

Before I could finish that question, it seemed that the answer to it already presented itself.

The portal of red just above us spat out what seemed to be wyverns consisting of decaying flesh and rusted bone. The environment suddenly became stricken with necromancy-based magic as the wyverns emerged from the portal.

With one last dragon slipping out of the portal, the rift promptly shut itself, disappearing from view.

The fallen wyrms' spines were visible, protruding out of their rotten flesh. Their eyeless skulls complimented their terrifying mien as their wings of barely-attached flesh flourished in the skies. Their tails, despite being withered and of splintered bone, looked as if they could crush through concrete.

The undead dragons circled around the skies, the beats of their wings reverberating the winds around them.

One of them dove for the ground beside me, causing me to dash to the left. As I strafed, the zombified dragon roosted on the ground, its chilling, lifeless breaths filling the atmosphere around it.

I turned to Vesper. "I suppose that answer that conundrum."

Vesper frantically shook his head in defiance. "I am not getting on that thing."

"I doubt that your wings can handle flight longer than..." I turned my head to the direction of the fell dragon, "this masterpiece of darkness."

The dragon let out a bellowing roar, as if acknowledging my compliment. The surrounding grass became pallid and dead as its breath circled the soil below, effectively reaving it of its health as the dirt became dry and barren. It reared its head towards me, craning its corrupted neck.

I recoiled a bit backwards at the gesture, but I slowly approached it again. Placing my hand on its snout, I began to pet it. "They're not that bad, actually."

"I don't think I can trust a monster that can rend life with just its breath..."