"You die here!" The monster roars out as it tries to get its claws inside the hole I dove into. I laugh, "I'd like to see you try dickhead." I turn around and look. I don't see much except a door. "What's a door doing down here?" I think as I walk to it. As soon as I get to the door, I hear something behind it.

I open the door to see a vampire crying in a corner. He sees me and screams. "NO, GET AWAY FROM ME; DON'T HURT ME!" Taken aback by the outburst, I slowly walk up to the strange man and hold my hands up. "I'm not here to hurt you; what happened? Why are you down here?" I asked the man.

Sobbing, the man answered. "I was sent to gather information on someone who recently entered EverRest and report back to the King. I heard a noise from the cave and investigated. I had four others with me, so I didn't think anything of it. We set up camp here, assuming we'd stay a little and look around before investigating the noise. That was before we ran into that monster out there. It was too powerful for us to deal with, and I ran while the others dealt with it."

I look at the man and ask him. "Who were you here to investigate?" Sobbing, the man answers. "There was a man and two men that entered and met up with Elizabeth, and we were told to investigate him, take him out if we considered him a threat, and take care of whoever was with him."

Hearing this, my blood boils, and rage slowly takes over. I put a hand on the man, and he squirms. I look him in the eyes; there's blood red tears coming out of him, and I say, "Well, let's just say you did find the man; how were you going to take him out?" The man looks at me confused. "Well, we were going to take one of the men hostage, and while he was dealing with that, we were going to cut his head off with our blood ability and take the others as prisoners of war."

Hearing this, I sigh and squeeze down on the man's shoulder. The sound of his shoulder cracking and breaking could be heard from outside. "I really wish that wasn't your answer." I say as I lean in closer to the man so he can see my eyes as they're consumed by the darkness. He screams out. "It's you; you're the man we were supposed to be." He didn't get to finish his sentence as I let the darkness wash over him and eat him alive slowly. The man feels his skin slowly be eaten away. He tried to swat it away, reaching his hand out. He tried to hit me. I grab his hand and snap it in half. He screams out more. Looking at him, I say it with a smile. "You should've stayed in your kingdom. Say goodbye to everything." As the darkness completely consumes him, I hear his bones crunch, and soon after, nothing is left. Except for a crystal. I look at it curiously. "Eat it." I hear Lumen say: Following what he said, I put the crystal in my mouth and swallowed.

I feel pain all over my body as I fall to my knees. The darkness slowly fades from my eyes, and blood flows from them as I cry out in pain. "What is with this pain? It's worse than before. Why did I even listen to him?" I think to myself as I black out.

Back at the Algost family home Ruby can be seen staring out into space; her eyes look blank. Then suddenly life comes back to them, and she hits the wall and leaves a dent. Seeing this, Jenny runs up to her and asks, "What's going on, Ruby?" Ruby looked at her, and it came out as a growl. "My master is in trouble; I feel his pain. Suddenly, it stopped. I don't know what has happened to him."

Hearing this, Alistair stands up quickly and runs over to her, grabbing her by the shoulders. "What do you mean? What's wrong with Kamen?" Alistair stares at her. Patience wearing thin, he yells out "WHERE IS HE?" Jenny grabs his hand and calms him down. "Alistair, nothing will get done if you yell at her. Give her some space to tell us what happened."

Alistair calms down and apologizes. Ruby looks at them. "He's in a cave, from what I could tell from his emotions. He ran into something that terrified him to the core. It seemed he tried to fight it, and it isn't going well." Elizabeth hears her and sighs. "Why can't he listen to anything anyone says?" She walks up to her and asks her. "Can you tell what cave he's in?" Ruby shakes her head. "No, unfortunately, I cannot. I can only sense that it was a cave."

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Jenny, looking concerned, looks over at Alice sleeping on the couch. They were going to need her help, and she knew it. Walking over to Alice, she tries to wake her up when suddenly Alice's eyes open up and stare at her. "I know where Kamen is; you may not know it. But when you two were sleeping, I cast a spell on myself so neither of you could detect me, and I took a blood sample in case something like this happened."

Jenny stares at her with a hint of anger, but let's let it go. "Can you lead us to Kamen?" Jenny asks her. Alice nods and gets up. "Everyone, get ready to move out." Alice says she is walking towards the door. Everyone looks around to see if they have everything they need and leaves the house.

I woke up 10 minutes later. I look around and notice I can see perfectly in the dark. "Lumen, is the light still active?" I ask him. "No, it isn't; you're seeing just fine. From what I can tell, that crystal was an ability crystal." He replied. I look confused. "I didn't think there were ability crystals." I say to myself. Lumen laughs. "There's a lot you don't know about this world. All you have to do is ask." He says this before going back into my mind. I nod, get up, and look around.

I see a couple of canisters. I open one up and smell blood, but it's not from a human. "They had beast blood in here. Were they drinking it, or did they bring it to lure whatever they thought was in the cave?" I think to myself as I open the canisters, pour them into the biggest one, and put it in my pocket. "I really need to figure out a better way of doing this." I say to myself. "Why don't you just use the darkness?" I hear Vestis say: I stop and think. "The darkness can hold things," I say to him. He chuckles. "Why couldn't it? If you don't want to 'eat' it, I can easily store it for you. Just bring the darkness out and put whatever you want in there."

I look at the canister, summon the darkness beside me, and throw it in. The darkness consumes it. "So if I ever need it, I can just pull it out of there?" I ask. "Yes, all you need to do is think of it, and you will be able to pull it out of there." Vestis replies. I nod as I pull the other crystals out of my pocket, throw them in there, and make for the door.

Outside of the door, I don't see an easy way to leave with that monster out there. Thinking to myself, I decided to name the monster Jerry. "Jerry's never a good name for something." I chuckle and move on. I look at the hole and shake my head. Walking around for what seemed to be forever, I finally reached another fork. *Sigh* I decide to go right this time. I walk down the corridor and reach a dead end. I turn around and hear stomping. "Shit, Jerry's coming," I think to myself as I look around for a way to get out. I spot another hole and run for it. "Damned holes," I think to myself as I dive for it. As soon as I think I'm in the clear, I feel something tug on my leg and pull me back out.

Looking upside down, I can tell it's Jerry. "Hey there, Jerry. Long time, no see." I chuckle. Jerry doesn't seem amused. "Me, not Jerry. Me Elkoris." Before I can think, Jerry or 'Elkoris' throws me against the wall, knocking the air from my lungs. I look up at him and catch my breath. "I'm getting real tired of you, Jerry." I say getting up. Jerry roars, charging towards me. I combine the light and the darkness with fire and a slash towards Jerry. Seeing this, Jerry holds his arms up to block the attack. He laughs "You think this is enough?" Soon his smile is gone when I hear a wet thud on the ground. Jerry is pissed at this point. He looks at his hands and loses them; he charges for me, hoping to bite into me. I see his teeth. They're sharp like razors and have blood on them. I jump out of the way. "I'm sorry, Jerry. I can't play with you anymore." I say as I charge my sword up again and send a slash of light, darkness, and fire into his face. Jerry tries to put his hands up to defend himself again, and when he notices they're enraged, he roars out. "Others find you; kill you." Jerry's interrupted as the slash goes through his skull and hits the wall behind him. All I can hear as I turn around and walk away is flesh being pulled apart and blood gushing out.

I smell his blood, and my heart aches. I turn around and see Jerry's corpse lying still. Walking up to it, I see the black blood pooling out. I lean down, bite into his shoulder, and suck the remaining blood out of him. Feeling the pain come back, I fight through it. I feel like I haven't drank in years. "Why is this happening? I should have been fine without blood." I ask myself. Lumen appears in a form I haven't seen before. Light encases him. He speaks "You're a rare case; the more you fight, the stronger you get. But there's a downside: the more you fight, the more blood you'll need. I'm sure that you'll eventually not need to do this. But for now, drink as much as you can." As soon as he says this, he disappears back into my head.