Now.

Too early.

The darkness was not a problem, but the orange light that momentarily flooded his senses. His mind had to work overtime to keep his own count in focus as he plummeted down, waiting with his arms tucked close to his chest, for his brain to flip the switch.

Don’t cut it close, I want this body in pristine condition for myself.

Such a bleeding heart you have, oh Empress of the Void.

NOW.

Unfortunately, her command coincided with his mind telling him the same, and his arms shot towards the sides of the hole in order to drag him to a stop. However, as soon as the threads of his shirt neared the rocks, a rogue strand struck a jagged edge of the granite surrounding him from all sides. The miscalculation had immediate effects, his velocity ground to a halt in what felt like a blink of an eye. His shirt, even with steel threads intertwined through the cloth, couldn’t handle the sudden burst of pressure. The white fabric stood no chance against the roughness of the rock, and the rip would’ve followed the length of his arm if the steel didn’t snag it early, setting off alarms in his head.

As fast as he was able to, Alex jerked his arms back to his chest, before the sound of his shirt tearing even reached his ears, fighting against the air whipping by them. His mind switched tracks almost instinctively. His consciousness rushed towards the darkness around him, timing it so that the faint flicker of flame wouldn’t slow the spell down, making it race against his own body. Given a somewhat surprising boost by the freeloader in his mind, it delved into the shadow that he was about to be splattered against.

It collapsed the ground into the abyss, causing umbra swirling upwards to catch their master. The portal to the void was wide enough to accommodate him, the inky sea rising to wrap themselves around his feet. The darkness exerted enough resistance to slow him down to a halt without crumbling his entire spine, the frigid pushing him back to the surface before he could fully submerge. As he rose, the slit to his domain started to mend, the shadows leaving a patch of themselves atop his shirt’s torn threads, and soon he could feel his soles on rock once again.

Thank you.

A response would’ve been more surprising. Alex touched the rip in his shirt to find an interim mend already in place. Hovering his hand over it, he stared at the cloth surrounding the black patch, trying to catch every single character it held; colour, lustour, and whatever else one could notice at a glance. Mana seeped out of his hand, floating in the air between, condensing to a mist only a fairy could appreciate before it started to layer upon the umbra.

First, the inky fabric was concealed by a layer of white, stretching over the edges till it was flush with the cloth. Second, from the edges of the magic, threads appeared to materialise throughout, turning pale, chalky, ivory, to finally settle on a pearl that mimicked the rest of his shirt. And as it neared its end, the entire spell rippled along itself, creating crevices, shifting its lustour to match what surrounded. It all only took him a wave of a hand before even he couldn’t make out the split between the illusion and the rest of his sleeve.

“Move,” His partner’s voice bellowed from above.

Just as he took a step forward, Elyza appeared behind him, her red hair flickering with the flames in the tunnel. Yet, as her feet shifted from the sides of the ladder to the ground, her green eyes reflected concern along with a shade of olive.

Gesturing for him to raise his hands to make sure he wasn’t bleeding, she sighed out, “Why must you be this way?”

“The demon in my head asks that every day,” Alex replied, holding his hands above his head and twirling for her, his ears catching a hushed echo of a footstep in the process.

It came from further up the tunnel, but the flickering lanterns that peppered his sight made it harder for him to focus. “Boss, may I take the lead for now?” He glanced back at his partner, who took a moment before nodding her answer. “Snuff them out,” he directed, delving into the tunnel before a stream of wind rushed beside him, smothering the flames trapped within the lanterns, along with giving him a slight push forward.

As darkness filled the tunnel, his eyes widened to take as much information as they could, peering through the settling dust in front of him. His feet made no sound as he continued forward, unlike the faint echo that his ears could finally pick up now that the roar of the lanterns. Studying the path, Alex felt his partner’s hand tap twice on his right shoulder, and he responded by pulling out his dagger from his cloak’s shade.

Gripping it in reverse, he held the blade low to the ground, flattening himself against the right wall, his shoulders grazing the rock as he led the way. His eyes discerned a split in the path ahead, but before he had the chance to deduce which way to align himself to, the sound of footsteps echoed through the tunnel. His ears picked up on the arriving company, meaning Elyza’s warning was correctly informed.

Slowing to a halt, his back flush to the right side of the tunnel, his dagger rose to his head’s height as he neared the split in the tunnel. The echoes of the footsteps turned booming as they resonated through the tunnel, his mind focusing on the panicked breaths of the one approaching them. Whoever it was, their attempts to keep calm were clearly not working.

From around the corner came first the point of a spear, and Alex lowered his dagger in order to embed it straight into the arrival’s stomach, only to find Elyza rapping her knuckles on his shoulder. A hesitant glance revealed his partner mouthing the word ‘bait’. Sighing silently, he threw his dagger to his other hand, catching it just in time. A moment later and he would have missed the spear revealing the grip of its wielder, the weapon pivoting a bit too late to face them.

His dagger hooked onto the spear’s head, pulling it forward while his free palm struck the staff in front of the guard’s grip, using it as a pivot to rip the weapon from their hand. A smart fighter would have let the spear go as soon as its centre shifted too far from their grip. Luckily, most fighters don’t concern themselves with intelligence. It strained his arms, which wished that the other had just let go, but Alex doubled down, swivelling his entire body to add as much torque as he could.

The staff snapped as it turned vertical, but the leather armoured boy still had enough momentum to slam into the roof of the tunnel. The wooden supports built into the rock shuddered as he fell down, the wind knocked completely out of his chest, and Elyza stepped over the guard to act as a sentinel for him. His wheezing did nothing to invoke empathy in Alex, who stomped on the guard’s spine as he reached down.

Pulling the slaver’s arms back, he bent one so that the hand touched its own shoulder, wrapping the appendage around his leg, eliciting a groan from the guard. The other he simply pulled straight upwards, twisting it a bit more with each scream he heard, till he reached the arm’s limit. The slaver’s screams were loud enough to echo through the tunnels twice over, but he needed to ensure the rest of his friends swarmed towards the duo. So, with a simple but firm tug on the arm, a pop reached his ears before being overtaken by a deafening shriek, and as he let go of it, it fell limply to the ground.

“Calm down, it’s only been dislocated,” Alex assured the now weeping man writhing on the ground, stepping back towards his partner, screams still echoing through the tunnel. “What’d you say, boss? Wait and entrap, or push forward?”

Elyza’s ears perked up, angling themselves to point towards the left tunnel path, noticing, he assumed in much greater detail, the barrage of footsteps coming their way. She calmly took out a knife from her pouch, twirling it in her fingers as she answered, “Give them no chance to retaliate.”

Her arm flicked forward just as he peeked to look onto her arriving victims, the knife whipping through the air, poised to embed itself into the grey rock. Elyza stepped into the tunnel just as another donning leather armour turned to greet her knife, the blade striking his stomach. The man’s scream lasted for a moment, before his head was slammed into the wall behind. The addition of his partner’s kick to the slaver’s face, and the concussion he had surely endured, the man slid down the wall coughing out blood as he slumped to the ground.

Pulling out another knife, she faced a bloodthirsty scream as another slaver emerged from the corner with his sword raised to strike. Elyza tucked in her back foot, shifting her weight backwards to balance herself as her leg shot forward. Her kick connected with the man’s neck, hammering his head into the wall, the crack that followed not from his skull but his iron helmet. Slamming his arm next to him, she wrestled the sword from the slaver’s grip, using its pommel to pummel into his head till she was satisfied he couldn’t figure out up from down.

Walking towards her first opponent, her knife was ready to strike as soon as she turned the corner. She reached for her first throwing knife, which was soaking in blood and guts, and an iron axe fell upon her. Alex’s hand shot forwards to intercept the attack, wrapping around the attacker’s own, yanking it back towards him. The bone bent around the corner of the tunnel with a heavy and clean snap, the hand losing its grip on the weapon. Clattering to the ground, the sound of the axe resonated with the third guard’s bawl, which was cut short by his partner punching him in the face, knocking him out cold.

He stepped in front of Elyza, in time to see more guards funnel into the lone lantern’s light at the far end of the tunnel. Drawn to the screams of those before them, he noticed the slavers’ eyes struggling to lock onto him, something Alex was quick to exploit. With a snap of his finger, his hand was engulfed in flame, illuminating his and only his face as he spoke, “Greetings, you dastardly bastards. I hope you all don’t mind that I let myself in, but I care not for your opinions or the futile attempts of winning your mind is currently cooking up.”

Out from the dark of his cloak, he pulled out his gleaming bronze xiphos, as the men in front split to let through a guard clad in iron armour. Waving the double sided sword in front of the orange blaze, Alex made sure to scratch its tip on both the walls that flanked him, causing sparks to fall to his feet. As soon as the iron garb tried to speak, he immediately interrupted with his own words.

“Ah, unfortunately it seems that my blade is too long for this fight, if you give me a moment’s reprieve…” Alex requested, leaning to reach his calves, aiming to retrieve a non-existent knife. As his head cleared her sight line, Elyza immediately flung forward two knives, with enough force to make the steel whistle. They cleaved the air to reach their target, unquestionably aided by their wielder, striking the armour clad man twice. One slid in between a gap in his helmet, the second shearing through the flimsy iron chestplate, embedding itself in his ribs.

“Forgot to mention, I brought company as well,” Alex remarked, standing straight once again, giving the shocked slavers a quick grin before the flames in his hand were replaced with a torrent of lightning flooding the tunnel, followed by an ear shattering screech.

The purple shone so brightly that it even blinded its evoker, momentarily causing him to freeze, his partner vaulting over his shoulders to exploit the opportunity in his behest. Sight was not necessary to take a step forward, and a quick dash as his eyes readjusted to the dark was even simpler. His sight returned, albeit still blurry, as he felt the crunch of metal beneath his boot. Quickly glancing down, he saw the iron armoured slaver breathing heavily as Alex stepped off of him. He was lying next to a group of his brethren, scars etched onto their leather armour by his magic, the smell of smouldering flesh accompanying the sight.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Lingering on a sight in any other battle would’ve been a death sentence. However, as Elyza stabbed two of the five guards not currently lying face down with soiled pants, that didn’t seem to be an issue. “Save some for me, Ears,” Alex remarked, smacking one with the flat of his xiphos, flicking the blade back to slice across the man’s chest, carving the leather chestpiece in two. He slid beneath his partner’s arm as she pummelled the two stabbed slavers into each other. Kicking another guard paralysed by the sudden change of their fortune, he flipped back to his feet, reaching over the keeling woman to parry an attack by her partner over her.

Dragging his xiphos’ edge down to the guard of his opponent's sword, Alex forced it to point back towards the man. As he did, he struck the one beneath the blades, bashing into the woman's face with his knee. Blood dripped down to stain the ground, while he pulled out his dagger, using its crossguard to wrench control of the slaver’s sword. Embedding his dagger into the wall, a puff of dust shot sideways as the blade split apart the rock, the sword hanging from it.

Through the dust Alex yanked the slaver over the coughing woman beneath, slamming him into the ground. His partner refused to give the man any refuge as she stomped on his chest. Leaving only one, who collapsed as he tapped the side of her head with his finger.

“You know, being assassins and all, shouldn’t we at least try to be sneakier than this?” Alex remarked, retrieving his dagger from its mineral sheath, wiping off the blood before it seeped into his pants.

Elyza flipped the two whining bodies at her feet, yanking her knives from their collars before she answered, “It is mostly because of your theatrical tendencies.”

Bowing to his partner, with as much embarrassment as he could muster while still keeping his grin, he apologised, “I apologise, boss. This will definitely happen again…”

As he attempted to say more, his words were cut off by a voice bellowing through the tunnel, its anger echoing through the walls, distorting what it was trying to convey. Yet, his ears still attempted to interpret the noise, and after a moment’s reprieve to think over what they had heard, Alex remarked, “I’m seldom wrong, but even I find it hard to believe that we’ve just been called ‘stupid whore’ by the rocks.”

“I can not argue against your hearing,” she confirmed his suspicions, wiping off the blood from her knives to ready them for reuse.

No words were exchanged as he walked down the tunnel, his partner protecting his flank as they navigated the passageways. Soon they came upon another split in the way, but his gut favoured one rather than the other, ignoring the path that had been smoothed over by soles a thousand times over. The voice stayed silent, only a few grunts and the rattling of armour seeping through the tunnel.

Turning another corner, like he had done many before, he found the passageway dotted with iron doors, at least ten of them, lanterns in front of each. Each seemed to be locked, and peering inside the ones they crossed, they found nothing of note, but suddenly, his ears perked up. They recognised the sound of struggle, muffled screams reaching them, and with them, tears dripping to the floor.

Door number six.

Her words were alarmingly uncaptivating for once, the facade the Empress had worn for most of his life gave way to what Alex knew her truly as. A universal force that could crush armies with a single thought. The essence of darkness herself. Her loathing threatened to spill over his mind, and for once he had no idea what had caused the sudden change.

The door appeared to be open, the sounds starting to become more guttural and desperate with each inch he got closer. His mind was finally able to decipher it completely, his ears picking up the two different people in the noise, and he hoped that they were wrong. Taking in a deep breath, he slammed his foot into the steel door, kicking right below the handle. The door shuddered as it hit the rock wall, before ropes of umbra anchored it to the rock, preventing it from bouncing back into Alex.

His mind was silent as he saw a slaver jolt up in the corner of the room, hurriedly retrieving the sword thrown nearby on the ground. The man shouted something at him, tugging his pants back to their place, but his attention was drawn to the girl in the corner, curling up to hold herself. He could hear her snivelling, her arms and legs riddled with deep scratches, her skin bearing numerous red patches, and her eye bruised to a point that her skin had split, dried blood where her dark circles should’ve been. Her face reminded her of the last time he saw his sister, and that thought was stored deep within him, alongside his cherished memories as he let his mind fill with rage.

But he froze, staring at the man, whose mouth was open, but he heard no words. Something recent, something he had promised himself to follow, something he knew had no chance of happening stopped him from dropping the slaver from this plane of existence. Allowing the man a moment, Alex's mind opened up to hear his words.

“WHO THE FUC–” That was all that he needed to hear, his hand shooting forward, and in a rare display of camaraderie, his freeloader allowed him to tap entirely into her domain. Shadows erupted from his own, tendrils of umbra turning to blades, cleaving the man’s sword in two, and with it, his arm too.

He was not worthy of the relief of a scream, Alex yanking his arm backwards, causing the dark tentacles to envelop the slaver, muffling whatever noise that could’ve escaped. As the shadows dragged him back, they constricted, from the bottom up, allowing only the cracks of his bones to echo through the room, and preferably echo forever in the man’s skull. Forcing the slaver’s knees to bend with a flex of his fingers, the two kneecaps snapping in half as his femurs became parallel to his thighs.

Alex held him aloft, tendrils slithering out of the crying man’s shadows, waiting to drag him to the depths when given the command by their master. “Don’t be under the false assumption that death will give you any reprieve. There is no place for monsters like you, and if you somehow manage to slip through the cracks, I will personally make you face oblivion,” He said calmly, his voice warbling as some of the Empress seeped through his words.

There was no answer, at least no discernable one, through his sobs, and so, Alex put his fingers on the slaver’s eyes, and helped them shut close. With a snap of his fingers, tendrils invaded the slaver’s throat, towing him behind them in a procession as they sank back down into the darkness. He would drown slowly, stuck just above the plane of light, freezing in the ocean of shadows with a false, and fleeting, hope for freedom.

“Elyza,” Alex spoke into the room, trying to calm down his mind, wanting to focus his energy on someone who deserved it.

“Behind you,” His partner reassured, keeping a hand on his shoulder, and squeezing once. He felt the touch, but his attention was fully on the girl in the corner.

Even in the darkness, he could see her eyes completely empty, staring at the floor. She was used to this, her mind retreated back into a shell, in an attempt to shield her from horror she was not yet ready to deal with. Her entirety had started to shiver, her knuckles whitening as her hands clasped her knees. The room was starting to fill with the quickening breaths, the drip of tears down her face slowing down to a crawl.

Alex despised the idea that he was helpless at the moment to help the girl, yet he knew that it would take time for such scars to heal. He turned to his partner, kneeling to the ground to call upon a ball of umbra from his shadow, his palms bustling with electricity as he retrieved the inky sphere. Delving into his memories, he moulded the sphere accordingly, fueling the spell with his mana, and sustaining it with his lightning. It did not need to be perfect to his vision, so the layer of mist that descended upon it weaved lazily to create a barrier to the magic, a thin veil of illusion forming a jacket for the shadows.

“Go clear the path forward, I will handle the girl, she may know where the rest of the beastmen are being imprisoned,” Elyza muttered, holding her hands out to receive whatever he was creating. Her ears fell before perking up, her expression mirroring their confusion and amazement as Alex plopped down a tiny kitten in her arms, its wispy fur as dark as his cloak, and just as soft.

“Follow the screams, Ears, I’ll make sure to keep them frequent,” He remarked, forcing a grin to appear as he stared into his partner’s forest green eyes. As they reflected himself back at him, he saw the worry in them, and his faux grin turned real, mumbling as he squeezed past her, “It’s heartwarming that you’re concerned about me, Ears. Just need some… tension alleviation.”

As he walked back through the tunnels, absentmindedly following the map in his brain, he hoped to find someone, anyone. He needed to release the lightning coursing through him, the rage, the anger, the doubts. The want to just act was greater than ever, threatening to boil over, and he could feel Elina hovering at the back of his mind, waiting for her chance to steal the reins.

And then, at last, as he turned the last significant corner he could remember, the ground became smooth as sand underneath his soles. In front of him was a mob of slavers, who froze where they stood, clearly surprised to see him, whether that was due to fear was yet to be seen. As if they had choreographed it, the slavers pulled out their weapons in unison, and Alex couldn’t help but grin.

Lanterns lined the tunnel, and with a snap of his fingers, all but the one closest to him were swallowed by their shadows, engulfing the passage in black. “I only say this because I have no other choice,” Alex’s voice echoed off of the walls, “Leave if fear of facing the other side still lurks in your mind.”

There was a quiet murmur at the back of the group, before it was quickly hushed. “Perfect,” Alex remarked, letting his grin grow long.

His order rippled the darkness they sat in, causing strings of ink to emerge from the shade, crawling over the walls, the ceiling, and the floor, and even creeping through the air. They were called to his feet, shadows bending towards him, as a swirling typhoon of umbra stole their darkness to fuel itself. The pillar rose till its peak lay above his eyes, the inky gales becoming more feral, lashing out like whips. Yet they worked, forming a connection with the domain of darkness, and as Alex commanded it upwards, the whirlpool melted back into the shadows to reveal his claymore.

The charcoal black and crimson red sword could not be separated by the darkness that it stood upon, only the edges of its colossal and tapered blade revealed the brilliant metal it was forged from. Its gem core gave out a subtle weak glow, struggling even to surpass the wisps of shadow that emanated from the surrounding metal. The glow was charged by lightning, as Alex’s entire body convulsed with purple arcs of electricity.

Pulsing down his arms, using his hands as a medium to feed his sword, the lightning danced across the metal, patches of the crimson gem shining as they felt the touch of his magic. The blade crackled violently, shining like the sky did as sunset, a mesmerising amalgamation of vivid orange and deep violet, before it just stopped. The lightning ceased to exist, only remnants of it jumping in between his hands as they held onto the claymore’s grip, yet still he fed. Slowly, as the charcoal blade consumed the last of his spell, the core started to glow with an unmatched warmth, seemingly doing nothing but blinding the slavers, who stood frozen still.

The charcoal blade started to burn, the jewel running the claymore’s length doing what it was designed to do, relaying his mana through the sword. However, it was not pulsing the metal with lightning, instead the crimson gem was feeding on his mana, instead of dispersing it. The entire blade started to glow orange, the air sizzling as it stood ready to be wielded by him, the sound echoing through the tunnel. Dissipating the shadows it stood on, Alex held the sword in the air, taking a deep breath as he focused on sustaining its hunger with himself.

He swung the sword to rest on his shoulders, caring for what it may encounter in the process. As the metal touched the rock that had been carved by men, it cleaved through it as if it was cold butter, leaving a trail of blackened molten goo that briefly fell before solidifying back into stone. The air filled with the smell of burnt earth, as strings of rock that lingered on the edge of his blade evaporated under the heat they faced. His cloak protected him from the gem singeing his skin entirely, the edge resting peacefully on the cloth, and his meagre control over flames allowed him to absorb the heat that it emanated.

Alex’s grin dropped as he held his claymore in front him, his feet naturally shifting to their positions in the stance, and as he spoke, his voice refused to echo off of the walls, “Finally.”

FINALLY.