“I’m sure you are wondering where we are headed… well… you ants at least… as I’m sure the hercules beetle knows this tunnel – oh so very well…

Well… we are headed towards the BeetleField Graveyard… I need to show you something there…”

“N-No…”, Antonio let out a quiet, sorrowful voice…

The other two looked at each other in disappointment… and sadness...

The four bugs approached the Graveyard closer and closer…

“The one thing that the current generation of Great Knights lacked is… unity... Yes, they may have fought and killed Ozara one time by working together… but they were never truly united, like their predecessors were before them…”

The four have entered the Graveyard.

“And this lack of unity is precisely what led to… well… the situation Castanea has itself in right now…”

Staggeron led the other through the old Graveyard, down to a lonely tomb near the very end of it…

“I will ask the hercules beetle to carefully open this tomb…”

Hercules listened to his king and did what he was asked to do…

In the tomb laid none other than the hollow shell of Diablo, the heavy; one of the Five Great Knights…

“N-NOOOO!!!!”, Antonio let out a terrified cry as soon as he saw the dead ironclad beetle…

He fell on his back and crawled backwards, shivering.

All of his hopes were crumbling down before his eyes, yet he did not want to believe it… He did not want to accept the horrifying truth… he did not want to accept that his hopes that all of the Knights are alive and well are nothing but mere vacant, futile dreams of a childish ant, who was not ready for the cruel reality that was being presented to him in this dark, desolated tomb…

“N-No…”, Antonio’s traumatised could not let out the tears he desperately wanted to feel…

He just sat there, on the cold, dusty ground, shaking uncontrollably…

Nanthan grabbed Antonio by his top legs and yelled: “CALM DOWN, ANTONIO, FOR ANTLANTIA’S SAKE!!!!”

Hercules quickly pulled his friend away from Antonio and said: “Leave him. Yer just makin’ it worse.”

Nanthan, who realised he had acted too harshly, listened to Hercules and moved away from Antonio. He was once again reminded that Antonio was a completely different ant from him… Antonio was never trained how to handle this type of situations, while Nanthan was…

“Damn it…”, he whispered to himself making a painful expression, despite trying to sustain the disappointment and despair he felt.

“N… No… N-Noo… This isn’t real… This is-isn’t r-real… This i-isn’t… isn’t…”, Antonio kept mumbling and shaking.

Hercules, not knowing how to act or handle the situation in front of him, just closed his eye… closed his eyes and waited…

And Staggeron was just standing there, watching… observing…

After, what seemed like, an eternity, Staggeron’s deep, shivering voice could once again be heard: “This… is exactly why I was… hesitant to show you… the truth…

And the truth – the harsh reality – is that Diablo, the heavy is dead.

The truth is that…

Motheas, the shiny is dead.

The truth is that…

The Great Knights

have fallen.

They have been falling apart ever since they killed Ozara…

And it all culminated about 9 or 10 seasons ago…

That’s when Diablo and Motheas were murdered…

That’s when the final hope Castanea has ever had… faded away… disappeared… vanished…

That is when I…

The King of BeetleField…

Gave up on my own Kingdom…

My own kind…”

“N-Nooo… M-Motheas, too?”, Antonio’s soul was in anguish as the realisation hit him…

“W-What about… the rest?”, Nanthan’s pale, emotionless face questioned the eternal King, “What about… Dan… Caesar… Lucana?”

Hercules kept his eye shut, and a tear dropped from it as the tiny hope Nanthan and Antonio had given him was slowly banished by Staggeron’s cruel words…

“…”, Staggeron did not answer immediately. He wanted to see… wanted to see if, even after finding out that half of the Knights were gone, the three visitors would still have some hope left…

He wanted to see if they, like many others who knew this truth, would give up all hope…

Give up on living…

“T-The rest? W-What ab-about the res-rest?!”, Nanthan was becoming impatient. He – no – they desperately wanted to hear that at least one… at least a single Knight was still out there… alive…

They desperately wanted to hear that at least some hope is left…

“The rest…”, Staggeron spoke after a few more moments of sorrowful silence…

“After you’ve calmed down… I need you to once again follow this old, selfish king…”, Staggeron turned around and slowly started walking away from the tomb.

“A-Answer me!!”, Nanthan screamed in vain.

“… All answers will come soon, child… But for that to be you need to meet someone…

Someone who will tell you everything…”, the old, tired King said.

Hearing this, Hercules finally opened his eye and looked at the King.

Nanthan, whose patience had ran out, furiously asked: “Who?”

The King stopped, and slowly said: “He goes these days by many names… most famous of which is…

The Crippled Knight…

But you may know him by a name he used many seasons ago…

I want you to meet with

Dan, the Mighty…”

Antonio, whose soul was shattered into a thousand pieces just a few painful minutes ago, lifted his eyes up towards the Eternal Beetle, and a tiny spark of hope started burning again in his broken heart...