And so the sixth day begins...
This time, I planned on going to Etro's shrine at the Wildlands. To get to the shrine, I had to enter a town near it, where the people who worship Etro live. These worshippers are different from the Children of Etro. They are peaceful and do not accept violence. Many of them used to live in the great cities like Luxerion and Yusnaan, but were driven away due to religious differences and persecution by the Order, the worshippers of the god Bhunivelze.
I already knew what awaited me inside the shrine, and I also knew that it would not be an easy fight. Nevertheless, I pressed on, and together with the help of Cloud, I was able to arrive at the entrance of the shrine.
When I entered it, he was there waiting for Lightning. It was Caius Ballad, the antagonist from XIII-2 and the one that destroyed the world. Somehow he was still alive, and predictably, Yeul was alive as well. I wonder if Noel knows about this? Those Yeuls are probably technically not "alive" because they are born from the Chaos, so I'm not sure it would help.
During the cutscene, Caius overpowers Lightning and manages to cast a spell that curses her. This curse functions like a poison status effect, draining you HP as long as you are inside the shrine, so you need to be quick. The shrine is completely destroyed and there are some platforming segments that you will need to perform to reach the top of the shrine, where Caius is.
Hope tries to communicate with Lightning through his god-internet, but there is a lot of interference due to the unseen Chaos. I didn't really understand if there is a difference between the unseen Chaos and the normal Chaos, but apparently the unseen Chaos is a special type of Chaos that was responsible for bringing Lightning to Valhalla in XIII-2, and this type of Chaos is present inside the shrine.
As we go up, we meet the different versions of Yeul that lived throughout the ages. They help us by creating platforms for us to traverse, and explains some things. She explains that it was her fault that all of this happened in the first place. The unseen Chaos that dragged Lightning to Valhalla was the agglomeration of the souls of the many Yeuls that wished to be with Caius again. The unseen Chaos became so strong the it broke through between the worlds and reached Lightning. The wishes of the Yeuls are contradictory, some of them wish to be with Caius forever, while others wish for his death, as he doesn't want to live anymore.
After all those revelations, I arrive at the top of the shrine (equipped with Lightning's garb from XIII-2, no less) and meet Caius again. Lightning says that she has come to save his soul, and he then replies something like: "Bish, why are you wasting time trying to save I destroyed the world are you jelly that I defeated you". I must admit, the guy has a pretty good point. There is no reason for me to be saving his soul, since he pretty much fucked the entire world by himself and put everyone in this situation in the first place. Really, the only reason why I went there was because I knew that you could fight him and I wanted to kick his ass, not save his soul.
However, Lightning says that she needs to tame the Chaos in the shrine, and the only way to do that is by doing what Yeul wishes: to save Caius. Well, at least I get to kick his ass first, right?
Or not. He kicks mine first. Hard.
I knew that the fight was hard, but I still wanted to check it. You know, for the challenge and all that, but I bit more than I could chew. Guy kept blasting me with fucking Mega Flares all over the place. It was only a matter of time until I lost, especially considering that I had wasted most of my recovery items on the fights to reach the top of the shrine, even though I tried to avoid most of them and used the Escape ability during battle. Thanks to that, I wasted a lot of time at the shrine and it was all in vain, since I lost the fight.
What did I do? Well, load another save file, of course! I know I said to myself that I wouldn't do that, or at least I wouldn't save scum, but there was no way I was going to continue in that state. I had lost so much time there that I could have fucked out the entire playthrough. I felt really bad about doing that, because it felt like I was breaking the whole point of the game, but I needed to do it.
After reloading another save file, I explored another part of the Wildlands that I hadn't gone to yet, and did a couple of sidequests. I managed to find an item that Chocolina wanted me to get, and I returned it to her and in exchange she gave me a part of Dahj's soul in return. Lightning then grew suspicious of Chocolina and wanted to know who she really was, since she knows so much about Sazh and his son. I guess Lightning didn't get the memo that she was the chocobo chick that lived in Sazh's hair in the first game. Not that Chocolina told her that, mind you. She said it was something for Lightning to find out. I now had the two pieces of Dahj's soul, and only two remained.
I decided to go to Yusnaan to complete some side and main quests over there, but the train station at the Wildlands could only take me back to Luxerion or The Dead Dunes, and I couldn't use the Teleport ability to go to Yusnaan, since I had never been there before (the intro of the game doesn't count).
I could have taken the train back to Luxerion and then walked to the North Station to Luxerion, but that would have wasted time and until then I had never thought about using the Chronostasis ability, an ability that stops time for a while and consumes 1 EP. So instead, I went to The Dead Dunes to check the place out.
And yep, the place is just as dead and filled with sand as I suspected. As I arrived there, the only thing in sight was the train station that I arrived and the endless desert expanse in front of me. I started by exploring the area around and found some lizards walking around the dunes. They were harmless, but I still attacked them. To my surprise, they died and dropped items.
I explored and found some areas that I couldn't access, and I also found red cactuar statues across the desert. These are similar to the cactuar statues that were present in XIII-2, and they can be used to teleport around the area. Pretty handy.
I defeated some foes and when night arrived I decided to go back to the Wildlands to visit the moogle village that I hadn't gone to yet. I had seen the moogles flying around the woods at night, but I didn't go to their village because I was busy with other sidequests.
This time I went there with Cloud and entered the village. I even found Sazh at the woods while going to the moogle village. He was impressed that I had already found two of the fragments of Dahj's soul.
As soon as we entered the village and talked to some moogles, some monsters appeared and tried to attack the village, and I had to kill them all. After that, Mog appeared, who was now the chief of the moogle village. Lightning recognized him somehow, because I confused some of the moogles there with Mog. C'mon, they all look a like. I'm not even being racist. But Mog wasn't very happy to see Lightning. He ran away and hid at a corner and he then said that he was very sad that he couldn't protect Serah. Lightning encouraged Mog and he became happy again. He even tried to hug Lightning but she blocked him by flicking her finger.
Also, did I mention that there is a sidequest where Lightning throws moogles to the fucking sky?
If you talk to Mog later, he will just talk about the shrine of Etro and that it's dangerous, but Lightning wants to go there anyway. Technically, we have already been there, but in another timeline if you know what I mean.
After finishing that, I returned to the Dead Dunes to explore some more. When I returned here, I learned to use the Chronostasis ability. I mean, I already had the ability since the beginning of the game, but I avoided using it since I recall Hope saying something to the effect of "DON'T USE IT TOO MUCH" and I thought that something bad would happen if I used the ability too much, so I avoided using it.
I read some things on the internet and apparently there is no consequence to spamming the ability to hell and back. I read that some manage to spam it and extend the day so much that you can complete most, if not all of the main quests early in the game. However, I read that it wouldn't be a good idea to spam it too much in the beginning of the game, because later on you might not have anything to do, or something like that. FUCK THAT I'M GOING TO SPAM THAT SHIT (I think).
While exploring The Dead Dunes, the day finally ended and I returned to the Ark.
I talked to Hope and we talked a little about Mog and Hope teased Lightning that she liked Mog hugging her. She got mad, bish.
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