Creak...creak...

Glenn grimaced, his head ringing painfully. Something was wrong with his position but he couldn't say what. The pain was too strong.

'...What—where am I?' he grunted, trying to move, but he was completely restrained. He opened his eyes, but his long hair blocked his view. He could only discern some sort of reddish, crimson hue through his hair.

"...Shit, I knew I should have cut them..." Glenn cursed under his breath, chains wrapped around his wrists and ankles to stop him from moving. His body was swerving left and right, a musty scent of blood tickling his nose. Glenn blinked as he realized that he was hanging upside down like a slab of meat on a hook.

"The fuck...? Diamanes?" He muttered silently while summoning his Mana to cast a spell and free himself. He created a small Blackhole, only to grunt in surprise and disbelief as the Mana dissipated effortlessly.

"No...Nelg, where is Diamanes?" Glenn asked with a slightly louder voice and a tinge of worry. His heart froze over, still waiting for a reply from one of the two entities. But no.

He was alone. Completely alone. He clenched his hands and gasped in pain. A thick nail was buried into his left palm, which he probably had to thank for forcing Diamanes to shut up. Nelg...what about Nelg?

Glenn tried to call on the link that connected him to the weapon, and he did feel a response, but it was as if Nelg couldn't move or reply. Glenn calmed down his racing heart by drawing long, deep breaths, and concentrated back on his surroundings. He tried to tug on the chains hanging him, but he only managed to make them rattle. He paused as he realized there was another sound of chains nearby. He listened carefully.

"...clank...Malum!" A rough voice cursed as the sound of rattling chains intensified. Glenn paused and almost chuckled out of disbelief.

"...Orc?" He demanded hesitantly. The chains stopped rattling and a confused groan echoed in their dark surroundings.

"...Humane?" The orc's voice replied to him. Glenn wanted to laugh at the irony of the situation, but the pain in his left hand and head stopped him. He threw his head back, barely managing to get rid of the long hair in front of his eyes.

"Shit, uh...Decimius, right?" Glenn confirmed as he spun in place, the chains holding him tightly. The orc laughed heartily, before coughing his lungs out. Glenn remembered the hole he pierced into the green guy's belly and grimaced.

"Bellator Glenn!" The orc replied after his fit of coughing was over. Glenn grinned.

"Yeah, you remembered my name too, then. Great."

Decimius, the orc, grunted and wriggled angrily to try and get out of the chains. Glenn clenched his teeth and pulled himself up by the bare strength of his abs. He bit on the chains to give himself a support point and contorted his body to pass his chained hands under his feet and in front of him. He grunted and grabbed the chains with his hands, before letting go with his teeth. In one final effort, he pulled the nail out of his left hand with his mouth, groaning painfully in the process. His left arm was still completely smashed to bits, making each movement with it atrociously painful.

'Pain is just an information, an information...' Glenn kept on repeating to himself as he gritted his teeth through the pain.

The nail made a clanking sound as it fell on the ground below, while Glenn sighed in relief. The orc gave up on wriggling himself out of the restraints and simply watched Glenn's escape attempt silently. He gasped in realization and began to mimic Glenn's actions, bending over to try and get out of the restraints.

Glenn took a moment to breathe and looked at how the chains were tied around his wrists and ankles. They were wrapped tightly, and hanging from the ceiling a few meters above. At least, the ground wasn't very far, they wouldn't risk breaking their necks if they managed to free themselves. Glenn still couldn't tell exactly where they were held, but it certainly didn't look good for them. Now, remained to see how to get rid of those chains—

Clap. Clap. Clap.

Glenn froze, his eyes snapping in the direction of the claps. A man with a slender build came out of the darkness, clapping slowly with an angry smile on his face. He was wearing a very dark, purple armor, a black cape fluttering on his back.

"Already awake?" The man exclaimed with faked disbelief. He shook his head and flicked a finger. The chains suddenly tensed up and threw Glenn and the orc back in their hanging positions. The man approached them, his features revealed thanks to the slight crimson light illuminating their surroundings. The skin of his face was entirely purple, and he had three, purple eyes. Even his hair, in a slicked-back haircut, had a purple hue to it.

"Glenn...the Devil's Hand...hah!" The man laughed crazily, his face hidden behind his hand. He walked up to Glenn and pulled him in front of him, his laughter stopping abruptly. Glenn gritted his teeth as he stared into the man's purple eyes, his heart freezing over as he compared the man's skin color to the one his left arm bore. The man grinned with wide evil, opening his arms in an embracing manner.

"Did you understand just now, Glenn, the Devil's Hand? Hahaha!" He laughed hysterically as the third eye set in the middle of his forehead blinked multiple times.

"...Who are you?" Glenn hissed as he pulled on his chains. The situation was bad. If that guy also...no, this couldn't be possible. The man stopped and rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

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"Ah, but of course, my apologies. Since you're the Devil's Hand..." He scoffed, "...You may call me the Devil's Eye, then. Or Jack. As you'd like."

Glenn's eyelids twitched as his breaths shortened. Shit, this was the real thing. That guy...also had a part of Diamanes. Glenn clenched his left hand despite the pain.

"Is that why you pierced my left hand, bastard?!?" Glenn spat. Jack took a step back with disgust.

"Of course!" Jack hissed through his clenched teeth, "...I looked through the whole world trying to find another part of m—Him, searching for clues desperately, and guess what?"

Jack grabbed Glenn's hair and pulled on them violently, his eyes bloodshot with insanity, "When I arrive at the Still Peak, in the remnants of the old cult, what do I find?"

Glenn froze. Jack nodded slowly as he grinned predatorily, "Yes, the broken seal. With the soul's piece gone. Imagine my happiness..." He grabbed Glenn's neck and clenched tightly, "...When I realized that twenty years of searching went down the damn drain because of a useless bastard!" He reeled back and gargled strangely until his head snapped back into place, "...You stole what was mine. Now, I need to take it back. I just need a little more from the Heart, and I'll be able to hit two—no, three birds with one stone!" Jack exclaimed fanatically as he pushed Glenn back and let go of him.

"Now, please stay here nicely, hanging like the good slabs of fresh meat that you are, and don't even bother escaping. I can see all of it, so it does not matter," Jack muttered as he walked back, his hands clasped behind his back. He stopped, and with a wide grin, reached for something in the darkness. Something flew past Glenn and into Jack's hand. Glenn's eyes widened and he cursed through his teeth, recognizing Nelg in his hand-axe form.

"Shit, let go of my weapon!" Glenn yelled while pulling on his chains. Blood oozed out of the wound in his left hand and dropped on the floor with a soft sound. Jack played with the short axe and turned back to Glenn with a wide, evil smile.

"A Soul Weapon is rare. It really shouldn't belong to some trashy, lucky bastard like you. I'll make good use of it after I break the soul link, you can trust me on that."

Glenn bit on his lower lip and suddenly activated Mana Sight, hoping that whatever restrained his Mana wouldn't block that as well. Thankfully, it did not, and Glenn managed to find out the exact strength of Jack. The Mana in this place was dark and thick, with the texture of old blood, and Jack was like a lighthouse in this ocean of filth. Only, instead of casting light to guide lost boats, he was absorbing everything, a hole in the fabric of reality that kept on sucking in all the Mana in his surroundings. Glenn couldn't see what was beyond that hole, but he shivered just from looking at it. There were no Circles, no indication of Jack's rank, nothing. Just this bottomless hole.

“I hope you like what you see,” Jack snickered, ”...because it's going to be your reality from today on.”

Glenn blinked and stopped using Mana Sight, instead staring holes into Jack's back as he left him and the orc there to hang. The orc groaned in pulled on his chains once again, undeterred. Glenn, instead, had given up on struggling, instead trying to think about this whole thing. Jack called himself the Devil's Eye, which meant that the power he obtained with Diamanes' other part was related to seeing. He even mentioned something about that.

"...What can I use to free myself, then...?" Glenn muttered. He couldn't use spells nor Mana, thanks to those strange restraints—wait the restraints. If they blocked Mana, weren't they...? Glenn contorted and looked at the chains, cursing as his suspicions were confirmed.

"Fucking Blumar. Of course. That's why the Orc couldn't escape either. Shit!"

The orc paused, listening to the human hanging with him, before focusing back on escaping. Glenn gritted his teeth. Nelg was also stuck in that Jack bastard's hands, and the soul connection was unresponsive for some reason. He only had his abnormal body and his damned clothes to count on.

"Fuck..." Glenn groaned and sighed deeply. He suddenly paused and looked at the clothes he was wearing. He was still donning the black Black Imoogi suit, alongside his Mimic cape. Toran Dias back then had explained that it was supposed to be strengthened if in the dark or deep underground. Wasn't he fulfilling both of these conditions? Glenn huffed and tried to send Mana into the suit. At first, he couldn't feel any response, but the more Mana he sent into the suit, the more he felt like something was changing. The touch of the leather changed, becoming similar to scales and much tougher. Before Glenn could say a word or stop sending Mana, the Imoogi suit tightened and stuck to him like a second skin. His left arm crunched and broke as the leather suit somehow fixed it up. Glenn bit on his lips tightly to contain the pain, the taste of blood filling his mouth.

Eventually, the suit was done doing whatever it was doing, and Glenn could move once again. He tried sending more Mana into the suit, but it didn't do anything. The suit had absorbed all the Mana it needed. Glenn gritted his teeth and concentrated, trying to understand the suit's abilities. He suddenly felt the chains coming off loosely as he slipped through them. His wrists and ankles escaped effortlessly from the restraints, his control over his Mana returning in an instant. Glenn grinned widely as he fell on the floor, free from the chains. The orc gasped and moved frantically, trying to garner Glenn's attention.

"Bellator! Bellator! Libera me! Adiuvabo!" He said in a hushed, yet pressing tone. The orc was still bleeding profusely from his wound in the waist, but it didn't seem to bother him much. Glenn glanced at the chains and hesitated. It wasn't hard to guess that the orc wanted to be freed. But was it a really good idea? Decimius, that orc, was a powerful enemy from the Celestial Gods' side. Freeing him was dangerous and...nonsensical.

And yet... Glenn hovered to the ceiling with the help of Gravity Manipulation, careful not to get too close to the Blumar chains so the spell wouldn't get dispelled, and studied the chains. A big nail was holding them in the ceiling, a big, Blumar nail. Glenn grunted.

"...Of course." He sighed and readied himself. He sent a push to Gravity Manipulation and grabbed onto the nail with both hands, his spell disappearing like a mirage. Glenn drew a deep breath and turned upside down, pushing down with his legs against the ceiling to pull the nail out. He eventually managed to pull it down and the chains fell with the orc on the floor in a loud messy noise. Glenn winced, before remembering that his powers were back.

The orc pushed himself up and got rid of the chains under Glenn's watchful gaze. Once he was done, he walked up to Glenn and towered over him with a menacing expression. Glenn hadn't realized this before, but the orc was easily twice his size, be it in height or width. The two stared at each other for a moment, until the orc extended his hand. Glenn shook it wordlessly and pointed at the wound in the orc's waist. The orc nodded and allowed Glenn to get closer.

The latter gritted his teeth and used C.P.R. to fix the hole he created in the green guy's belly. It was temporary, only enough to make it so that Decimius wouldn't bleed to death. But it was more than enough. Glenn stretched and used C.P.R. on his left arm as well, fixing whatever the Imoogi suit couldn't, and sighed deeply.

Both he and the orc grinned widely, their fists tightly clenched.

It was time to cave some bastard's head in.