I scarcely avoided the larger collapse, falling backwards to avoid being crushed. A thick dust cloud seemed to hover in the moist air and unsteady coughs barraged with an unbearable itching at my throat. Spit hurled from my mouth as I slowly levered myself up off the floor, and began dusting my clothes.

“What the hell was that? An earthquake? A beast? Or maybe…a person?” I mumbled out loud, licking my drying lips. My thoughts scavenged to the hazy image of a hand covered in leather pouncing on the unexpecting Rokas.

“I need to get to them fast.” I began eyeing up the tumbled entrance and tried to look for any gaps I could slip through. Unfortunately there wasn’t. “I don’t think I should break this with magic. If I do, it might collapse even further and possibly affect the cave as well. Also there’s a possibility of me not making it through the small interval I would have after re-opening the entrance. What should I do, what should I do?” I repetitively echoed the phrase.

My initiative jumped to the thought of using mana sight to see the structure of this cave and any possible openings. “Ah hah…so that’s where you were hiding.”

I eyed a spot slightly edging at the wall and digging beneath it. I braced my arm like a drill and began channelling wind magic in a hyper-speed vortex vibrating around my hand and proceeding to start drilling. No opposition directed any damage at my hand and I crawled alongside my drilling arm. A man’s body has to be capable of becoming a weapon or tool. As a kid, you can get away with initiating it though.

After scrambling through the top, I was met with a sight I had imagined. My hazy vision wasn’t just my mind playing tricks on me, but instead a man. Two of them to be exact. One of them now hoists up a dropping figure, littered with sinuous blood gushing out and a hushed scream practically imperceptible. A protracted steel instrument lancing an unguarded long area of flesh. Through the neck, or the adam's apple to be precise. The figure’s hand desperately clung to hope and its fading life, its fingers sticking from the viscous texture drying up.

Two similar figures…no, corpses, laid behind them slumped and cuddling. Their dark skin was painted in a second coat that was a blemish to their beautiful and exotic colour. The bodies are only small and frail. Helpless and stripped of all belongings already. The second man, heavier with his belly hanging out his armour, sat on them rustling through their belongings.

The man in the shadow, hiding behind the visage, finally dropped the third corpse.

“Rokas…”

“Oh, would you look at that? Oi, look over there Bin. There was another kid. I think we trapped him behind the wall. I don’t know how he got here, but things aren’t looking great for him…are they?” His last words slithered like a hissing snake, but his partner didn’t reply. He sat there not minding a word.

“Poor kid is terrified, kahkahkah kahkahkah!!! Are you sad your friends ended up this way? Don’t worry you’ll see them soon. I’ll make sure of it. Oh, and just so you know, this isn’t a personal agenda. We just need all the things you gathered to be ours.” A devilish grin lit up on his mocking face. His serpent eyes lingered a horrible, sickly green and his long, greasy black hair ravaging around in his animated movements.

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“Are you going to cry, kid? It’s okay, just go ahead and cry!”

I clenched my hand into a tight fist and began speaking. “Cry? Why would I cry? I barely know these kids. They mean nothing to me. However…” My tone darkened and my intent bled from every inch in my body that was ready to spazz out in a decisive moment. A crippling consolidated aura poured out from me, embodying the domain present in only my crux. The man’s pleased expression slowly turned to one of dread, confusion and fear. Even the nonchalant man, resting atop the bodies of Gringe and Millen, snapped in my direction, his pupils dilating from the surge of emotions he must have felt.

I commandingly placed one foot before the over and paced towards the dead snake.

“However, you ruined my research subject. You took away the thing I tried to cultivate and understand. You went against me. This will be the day you will remember even in the afterlife, as the day you went against God.” I reached for my sword resting in my scabbard and activated the lightning attributed mana into my body and along my sword.

The ground rippled behind me, as in a flash, I stood next to a headless body, standing upright and its head descending and tumbling like one of the rocks in the ruined formation. The ground in his direction parted in a shockwave and forced the other man to leave his place of rest.

Blood stained my fair white skin and I wiped it with the back of my hand, only for it to smudge. “I guess a pig’s blood is hard to get rid of. Hey…perhaps you have something similar to what they were showing me, do you? No, you wouldn’t. Not if you stick with a guy like that.” I questioned the chubby man. His ginger hair in a ponytail and it nicely met his scruffy beard. His blue eyes remained calm after the original surge and he began speaking.

“I did not choose to be with that man of my own accord. Times are tough, and I’m willing to do what I need to feed my starving family.” His gruff voice spread out in the cavern and I tapped my head with the hilt of my blade. “Family? You too? Perhaps you could enlighten me just a bit…why is family so important for you?” I interrogated him and immediately pursued his image in blitzing fashion, but only for him to meet me halfway, with his battle-axe facing flat and blocking my blow, before hurling me backwards, tumbling onto the ground.

“Hmmm. Young lad, do you not have a family?” He asked.

“I do.”

“Then you should very well understand such an easy concept. Providing and helping your family out of love, is natural.”

“But I don’t! I don’t get it! Why does everyone else say it’s literally instilled in them?”

“I can’t offer you more of an explanation. It is simply a feeling. In your case, there’s no helping it lad. You’re a monster aware, yet incapable of reciprocating feelings.” His words cut through my like no blade ever had. A monster? Incapable of reciprocating feelings?

I am those things. But I’m trying to change…so why can’t I understand it?

“Fuck this! I’ve decided, you are not worth my time.” I roared and burst ahead, swiping a mana reinforced leg at him to knock him off balance. Yet, he stood there unmoved. I quickly retreated, but only for him to comfortably follow me.

“I am definitely scum, boy. But you, you are worse than that.” The axe now turned to its sharpened edge and its weight blew at my torso, but the influx of wind I gathered allowed me to manoeuvre away marginally.

I may have the advantage in terms of mana, but his body was much more capable than mine, clearly enduring at least three stages of body tempering.

A radiant flame kindled along my blade as I swung low at his legs, but even with his unconventional body, his agility prevailed, dodging and slipping behind me, already slamming the axe at my back. I tried to fall forward, but the edge of his axe still grazed me.

I winced in pain but continued the fight, restarting by creating space. I gathered my fingers in a gun and began condensing wind mana in a bullet shape before letting it sling at him. He narrowly moved his head and tried to keep moving as it slammed into the walls behind him, but he noticed the permeating grimace slip onto my face.

“This isn’t an ordinary wind bullet. It’s my speciality. Wind bullet: vortex.” I casually explained as the bullet imploded and began sucking him in.

“You were a great insight to myself, but not to my topic. So for now, goodbye.” I dashed in that exact moment and severed his head whilst he was occupied with the commotion he was sucked into.

His eyes threw back as his head rolled to me. I placed my foot over it and grinded his face into dirt. “Was your family worth your death, I wonder? Well this is what you get for praying on innocent and unsuspecting victims.” I then launched his head away from my feet, smashing it on impact with the crumbling walls.

I breathed a heavy sigh and started rolling my shoulder then glanced at the burning feeling I got on my chest. The tattoo still burned, physically and mentally. “I can’t even be bothered with the boss raid anymore. But can I…learn to love?”

It was only for a few moments, but I acted like the old me would have. Only bothered about himself and his gains and losses. The personality I tried to groom with my parents' love, care and attention, seems to slip away. Only a visage I hide behind.