Qing is summoned away from Rephidim, ostensibly to make sure that he is not caught on the sky island should the Temple impose another restriction on Nagai or Jingai entering or leaving the island, as happened back when Bambridge made his heist of Nimiss' files. Qing rides an Imperial airship to Fetiss Sky Island, where it is revealed that he is actually needed to perform a ritual on the captured "boomer", in hopes of conjuring the ghosts of some Exiles who were believed to have died while bringing the weapon to Sinai … so that they might be questioned as to how this device functions. While Qing performs his probing rituals, he sets off a strange reaction in the device, and it seems as if the boomer explodes, flooding Qing's consciousness with images of strange, distant places, before the spirit disintegrates, and Qing is returned to the "real world". Qing is quite unsettled by this turn of events, having for a moment there thought that he was dead.