Luke ran through the dark, labyrinthine corridors of the bunker.

His pupils shimmered, moving rapidly from left to right as he scanned for any traps in the vicinity. Without a metal detector, he relied on his vision to detect the aura of hidden traps.

"Using my psychic sight, cerebral and muscular enhancement, and splitting consciousness before this... I'm exhausting all my energy. I hope it's the right decision," he thought.

He was trying to find the room where he had seen a man observing him, but his psychic body had passed through walls to locate him, something his physical body couldn't do.

The corridors led to new intersections, and with each step, doubt grew within him.

He stopped, catching his breath. "I think I'm lost," he murmured at a new junction.

He aimed to head north, where the target was located, but the corridor offered paths to the west or east.

His energy was too low to use splitting consciousness again.

He was tempted to decide the direction by flipping a coin, but he didn't have one on him.

As he observed his two options, he spotted a faint light at the end of the corridor leading east—a blue light, a sign that Atlan had passed that way.

Luke didn't hesitate and started running in the direction of the glowing tube.

He covered a distance of dozens of yards in mere seconds.

The strain on his muscles from the constant reinforcement grew with each passing moment.

When he stopped, his body trembled, and the pain intensified. So he tried to avoid stopping as much as possible.

"As long as I don't stop, I won't have to face the consequences of my excessive use... at least not for now," Luke thought.

It wasn't the first time he had used this method.

Like an ever-boiling pot to avoid the need for cleaning, Luke offered his body no rest.

Energy continuously flowed through his psychic channels, giving the impression that his reserves were limitless.

Luke did have deep reserves, but they were far from infinite.

It was a bluff, an attempt to deceive himself. Because he knew, it's the mind that breaks before the body. If denial could help him survive, he was willing to deny all discomfort, pain, and symptoms.

His tightly clenched hand gripped the hilt of his sword so firmly that he no longer felt his fingers.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

His ill-fitting boots caused his feet to bleed.

His teeth lightly chattered, as if he were cold.

But the greatest discomfort came from his eyes.

The edges of his vision blurred, and his pupils burned as if he had poured shampoo into them.

He prevented himself from thinking about the possibility of his death. But the idea of disappearing had something appealing to Luke.

He didn't want to die, but he wasn't particularly attached to life either. Perhaps this vitality and his efforts to escape the bunker were linked to his desire to see Hannah again.

"Hannah... What would you do if you were in my place?" Luke thought, continuing to follow the path left by his teammate.

At a new junction, he turned into the corridor leading north.

Suddenly, he stopped abruptly.

A pile of red glowing tubes lay on the floor.

Luke went from confusion to stupor. An imposing gray mass was about twenty yards away from him, farther down the corridor.

The mass moved, and two large red eyes appeared, fixed on Luke. He felt his body tremble, reminding him of his limits.

He didn't have time to hesitate.

He sliced through the wall to his right with his sword, quickly removing the heavy layer of cement to reveal the thick iron mesh that supported the wall.

Luke cut out an iron bar from the mesh, grabbed it with his left hand, and hurled it like a javelin toward the creature.

The bar whistled, a testament to the force with which Luke had thrown it, and stuck into the ground. The beast narrowly dodged it, then started zigzagging toward Luke in the corridor.

Luke continued to cut out the mesh and throw iron bars at the creature.

None hit the target.

When it was only a few yards away, Luke finally saw what it looked like.

The beast resembled a wolf, immense, with a head too small for such an imposing body. Nevertheless, its head was several times larger than that of a normal wolf. Its teeth were long and thick, and its snout was long, leading to a thick nose.

The most menacing part of this disproportionate body was the creature's paws—long, thick, and adorned with sharp claws.

"A swipe of its paw, and I'm dead, even with reinforcement," Luke thought.

Before the beast could reach him, he pushed off the ground and leaped toward the wall, running along it to avoid the creature's attack.

Even as he dodged the enormous paw of the wolf, Luke was thrown off balance by the air displacement it produced.

He nearly fell from the wall but managed to catch himself and land on one leg.

It was his left ankle that absorbed the impact. A wave of pain shot through him. Instinctively, he gritted his teeth and used his psychic energy to strengthen the muscles around his ankle—an act of desperation to maintain his fighting capacity.

He was now behind the creature, but rather than going for a direct attack, Luke made the decision to retreat and re-evaluate his situation.

With a speed surpassing the lumbering beast's, he quickly put some distance between them.

"Okay, I have a chance of getting out of this," he thought, starting to develop an attack plan. "I've placed iron bars everywhere in the corridor, making its movements more difficult and giving me access to projectiles if needed," he continued to analyze.

But as he backed away, he felt his boot sticking to the floor. He lowered his head and raised his boot. Blood, lots of blood.

He turned his head and there, a little further away, he saw a corpse—or rather, the disfigured remains of a human being.

Luke recognized him easily.

"This outfit, this haircut... Hugh..." he held back the urge to vomit, but he still felt bile rising in his mouth. Near the corpse, a partially open satchel revealed extinguished blue tubes.

"Atlan... I... I'm sorry," Luke said, his voice trembling.