An abrupt blast caught Luke and Atlan off guard.

Luke coughed, his head pounding.

"An explosion? What the hell?" He swiped his forehead with his hand, then peered at it.

"Am I bleeding?" he wondered, sensing something trickling down his face. But there was nothing.

He touched his arms and legs, reassuring himself that he was in one piece. The explosion had left him dazed.

Darkness loomed all around.

Atlan was gone, and so was the light.

The lamp hooked to Luke's chest was dead.

He jabbed at the switch several times to no avail.

All that echoed in the hallway was the futile clicking.

Soon, the echo found a companion — a chattering sound. More like teeth chattering.

Luke squinted into the black void, trying to unravel the mysteries of the enveloping darkness.

"What the..." His breath quickened, gripping the hilt of his sword, his feet anchoring him.

"Something's approaching," he thought.

He drew his sword slowly, careful to minimize the noise it made when it slid out of its sheath.

His mouth slightly open, his head slightly lowered, and his eyes upturned — a menacing look on his face, his sword at the ready.

Luke was primed to confront whatever lurked in front of him.

Then, out of the darkness, something launched itself at him.

He raised his guard, then was thrown back and down to the floor. The floor vanished, and he was tumbling into the abyss.

.

It was either an instant or an eternity, Luke couldn't tell. His senses failed to make sense of the chaos.

.

A static-filled voice drifted from afar. He latched onto it, being drawn back to something familiar.

.

"It's fascinating, this power! How does it work?" the voice queried as if speaking through a telephone. Luke was sitting at a table in a small house. The familiar sensation of the wooden table under his fingers grounded him.

"It's pretty simple, actually. It's an energy we all possess — psychic energy.

Once you learn to control its flow, you can use it for almost anything," Luke explained.

"Anything is a broad term, isn't it? 'Anything' like what? Be more specific!" The voice was pushing for details.

"Like… um…" Luke fumbled for words. "Like running super fast by using the energy to bolster muscles, bones, tendons. Or levitating an object by attaching this energy to it and controlling it remotely. And…” A loud noise cut Luke off.

A storm in the distance.

"Oh, is it time to leave?" said the voice, tinged with sadness.

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The voice was unclear at first, but Luke could now hear it more clearly. It was a child's voice, a young boy.

But it was too late. Luke was once again hurled somewhere else.

Luke found himself back in the dark abyss, the sinister chattering resumed.

A gaping mouth filled his vision.

Teeth.

A wide-open mouth.

"Something's trying to bite me!" Luke realized.

His eyes were wide open, his sword raised defensively across his body.

Clinging onto his sword with two clawed hands and gnashing its teeth was a pale-skinned creature trying to bite him.

The creature was humanoid, a bit smaller than Luke. Its teeth were small, thin, but plentiful at the front of its large mouth, and thick, square towards the back.

Above this unnaturally large mouth were two tiny black eyes so small and close together that Luke initially mistook them for nostrils. Its skull was particularly large and swollen.

This creature was straight out of a nightmare. Nothing this hideous could possibly exist.

The creature was no stronger than a human, no threat.

But Luke heard more teeth chattering behind it.

"Damn, there's more…" he muttered.

He boosted his body strength by 25% and shoved the creature away, then broke into a run in the opposite direction.

He ran with all his might.

.

Suddenly, he found himself in a dark room.

A stone room, with columns supporting the ceiling.

Coffins were arranged on either side of this small room.

"The Wise One's vault..." Luke thought.

There on the floor, as he turned his head, he saw himself, bloodied and on the ground.

A childlike ghost was speaking to him.

"You finally show your true face, deep down, you're nothing but violence," said the child in a calm, almost jovial tone.

It was the Wise One, his master, the ghost who taught him everything.

At that moment, Luke realized he was hallucinating.

He didn't know what was real and what wasn't, but he knew that if he didn't regain control quickly, he would die in the bunker.

So, he started focusing his energy on his head.

Like cerebral enhancement, he used his psychic energy to boost certain parts of his brain's capabilities. As with a mine diving into twisty paths, this enhancement demanded precision, or it could prove deadly. He let his energy permeate his cortex, and thanks to it, forced sensory information to override the hallucinations he was experiencing.

"I'm there!" he thought.

He came back to his senses. Everything was black around him.

He searched for the creatures that attacked him but found none.

He didn't hear them anymore.

Actually, he heard nothing. Yet his hearing was fine; he confirmed this by snapping his fingers.

"Am I still hallucinating?" he wondered.

As he turned his head, he realized everything was pitch black, yet he could still see.

He saw expanses around him.

He was in the middle of a plain.

A few trees in the distance, a river. And there, in the sky, a black sun.

He recognized this place; he had seen it months ago when he first learned to harness psychic energy.

He shuddered, as if remembering a dreadful nightmare.

"You're finally back? Welcome, I've been waiting," he heard a man's voice, gloomy and deep, behind him.

When he turned around, there was nothing.

Everything was once again engulfed in darkness.

This time he could feel it, it was reality.

He was panting, muscles burning. As he held up his right hand, he realized he was still clutching his sword.

His skin was moist, and he felt a liquid trickling down from his hand, onto his sword's hilt, and along its blade.

His arm was extended, and his blade was heavy, so heavy.

Something was attached to it.

It was a head.

His sword was stuck in the head of one of the creatures he had glimpsed earlier.

He withdrew his sword and backed up a few steps.

His heart was racing, he was in a state of panic.

He had lost control, and he had no idea what horrors he had committed in his unconscious state.

Then it hit him, like a chilling wind cutting through his very core.

His voice dropped to a whisper, yet the words echoed loudly in the stillness.

"The Black Sun Territory," he murmured.

A shiver ran down his spine at the mere utterance of the words.

This was not just any place, but a domain of dread and chaos, a realm that scared him more than the nightmarish creatures he had faced.

The name itself was cursed, a chilling reminder of the darkness lurking within.

The enemy this time was not from the outside, but from within, a battle against his own self, his own fears.

And he was standing on its very doorstep.