Darius quickly rushed over the hills and ran straight to the destined location, still fearful about what would lie within the bizarre cube. Once he reaches it, the first thing he notices are the veins on its sides which dig into the ground, which make him feel uneasy. He makes a lap around the cube to find any openings, but he can't seem to find any. He charges electricity in his fist then frowns and punches the cube, but his element was nullified the moment he tried to pierce it.

“What the hell is this…” said Darius to himself.

He leaped backwards then casted a thunderbolt in his right hand which he used to throw at the cube. Upon impact, the bolt split in every direction and spread onto the cube, quickly being nullified. Darius casts another thunderbolt in his hands, but before throwing it, he rubs its tip in a circular motion and molds it into a conic space. He grips tighter with his right hand onto it, which empowers his arm and the bolt as well. The tip of it grew spiky, then he took a few steps forward and threw it alongside a battle cry. The bolt went faster than ever before, drilling into the cube and bypassing it's nullification, causing a large aperture, enough for him to go through. He took no time to jump right into it, finding himself just as Ares and stefan3B, amazed by the actual size of the cube's mostly hollow interior. He, as well, was faced with 2 buildings stuck next to each other. The same hallway both stefan3B and Ares had to go through, but the other building was different.

“A psychiatric prison…?” said Darius, in a mix of fear and amazement.

He got a slight shiver down his spine as he saw that veins were situated on the prison as well.

“Ugh… I hate this place…” said Darius to himself as he proceeded towards the hallway.

Darius looks around, somewhat scared of the pitch black surroundings.

“It would be better if I rushed and finished this already…” said Darius in his mind before sprinting towards the door of the hallway.

Before opening it, he stops in place and contemplates whether or not he should at all.

“What if… What if there's monsters within… But I'm going to die either way… sigh… At least I'll die with glory…” said Darius to himself before quickly opening the door.

On the corridor there were, once more, 20 low rank shadow elementalists. Darius is shocked simply by their number, let alone about the thought that he has to fight them.

“Hey! A new guy! Shoot him down!” shouted a fighter.

The 5 rangers launched projectiles at Darius. He quickly casted a lightning bolt then throw it at them, only being able to shatter 2 of them, the other 3 still flying towards him. Darius barely dodged each and every one of them. 2 fighters rush Darius and engage in close quarters combat, he is able to dodge their hits and counter them quickly, knocking them backwards with a kick. Darius leaped towards, rushing for the end of the hallway.

“Fire!”

And another wave of blasts was shot. This one, Darius did not need an attack to dodge them as he already learned their patterns. But as he was dodging the final blast, a fighter cast a shadow strike, catching Darius by surprise. The fighter quickly kicks him right in the liver with his shin. Darius gasps and his eyes widen, feeling like he's almost going to vomit and his body instantly starting to shake. The fighter retreats his leg then pushes Darius's back forwards, forcing him onto the ground. Darius clenches onto his liver as he tries his best to get up, but he can barely tremble a few centimeters upwards.

“What the hell…” said Darius in his mind.

From the pain, he started to even sweat and his elementalist coat turned off. He forcefully turned it on once more as he stood up very slowly. He looks back and sees the fighter slowly approaching him, with his guard up.

“Muay Thai…? I don't know any martial arts… I can't defeat him…” said Darius in his mind.

He quickly panted as he made a step backwards.

Darius tries his best to raise his guard then launches a hook with his right arm. The fighter parries his hit then kicks him right in the heart, pushing him several meters away. Darius's entire body paralyzes for a few seconds then once he regains control he can barely breathe. He tries to stand up but falls back down as his body is shaking vigorously. He coughs a couple of times then progressively recovers and stands up again.

“Something's wrong… I can't feel any life in my body… It's as if my blood stopped flowing… But I I've been acting the same ever since he kicked me in the liver, but now… It just feel different… What did he do to my heart?...” said Darius in his mind, clenching his hand onto his heart before looking at him again.

“Nonetheless, it's good that I had my coat activated, its energy will be used until I recover.” said Darius in his mind once more.

Suddenly, the next wave of blasts is shot. This time, Darius fluidly dodges them, with no mistakes in the process. Using the momentum he gained from dodging the blasts, he propels himself forward, towards the end of the hallway, easily passing by several fighters. A fighter rushes towards him, jumps and goes for a midair punch, Darius slides beneath him then boosts himself again and leaps once more. He was right about to bump into another fighter but he flips forward, curling into a ball as he did so. The fighter tries to hit him with an ax kick but it barely misses the tip of his head, allowing Darius to quickly stabilize himself on his head then boost himself once more. As he almost reached the end of the hallway, the rangers were fully ready to launch another wave of blasts. With no second thought, Darius crashes with his foot into one of the ranger’s faces. Right in the moment where they were ready to deliver their blasts, Darius jumps, making them blow up each other. Darius flips backwards, easily dodging the explosions then lands safely on his feet. He looks around and he can see their injured bodies, surprisingly they make no sound as they slowly get up.

“What the hell… No groan of pain?...” said Darius in his mind before rushing to the end of the hallway.

Right before bumping into the door, he spins and then kicks the door directly in an attempt to knock it down. To his surprise, the door was soft and flexible, bending easily as his foot pushed through it, but it did not break nor rip apart. Darius is seemingly confused by this.

“What… What is this? It's so easy to push around… But it looks like a pure steel door.” said Darius to himself before leaping back a bit and then dashing, gaining momentum to kick through the door at once.

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As said and done, Darius easily manages to tear apart the door, but now he finds himself in a different location.

“A… Psychiatric prison…” mumbled Darius to himself.

He looked behind him and he saw the shadow elementalists scared, as if he had done something wrong. Darius is seemingly confused for a second, but nonetheless he continues to walk through the prison. There was a long, dirty hallway, which resembled a hospital in a way or another. There were also several rooms which in a way also looked like hospital chambers. Darius gets an insanely uneasy sensation every time he peeks through the doors of any of the rooms, so he continues walking down the hallway. After a few moments, he realizes that everything seems a bit trippy, his vision blurring very slightly as he progresses, but his body tells him to keep going and so he does. He starts panting lightly and sweats, his elementalist coat turns off but he continues walking.

“Wait…” he suddenly turns around and so does the entire world, his vision blurred so hard he could see the entire hallway at once, layer upon layer, giving him a massive headache all at once. He leans against the wall then starts to slowly slide down as his knees felt weak.

“No, no, no, I'm not that weak… I'm not that weak… What is this place?!” said Darius to himself as he closed his eyes and put his hands on his head.

He slowly stood up on his feet fully and continued walking down the hallway. Slowly but surely, a static buzzing sound could be heard which started to drive him mad. He stops his place before letting out a shout of pain.

“Why?! Why out of all people, I am the one that's here?!” said Darius, feeling like he's about to vomit.

Suddenly, he could hear slight whispers behind his back.

“Because you're weak…”

His eyes quickly widened and he froze in place.

“Because you're afraid… Fear… Fear is a lack of knowledge… And a lack of knowledge… Is weakness…”

As Darius was listening to the familiar voice he started shivering constantly, his breath hitching and his eyes twitching. All he could wonder was:

“Why do they sound… Like me?...” said Darius as he slowly turned around, but nobody was there, he truly is all alone.

Even though he could not believe that he was alone, a sudden wave of loneliness just washed over him. He leaned against a wall and slowly started to slide down, eventually reaching the floor, curling into a ball, hugging his knees.

“I would not do this to myself… I would not hate myself…” said Darius to himself, slowly getting sleepier.

“You are nothing but a waste right now… They don't need you anymore… There are 3 cubes for a reason, you're not needed here, you're nothing but a bonus, you're nothing but useless shit. You can be replaced with Radu anytime, they saw how much of a puss you can be.” continued the voice.

Darius's eyes suddenly opened wide and the world around him started to shatter.

“But… I did everything I could… Why won't they accept me…?” said Darius to himself.

“Because you're weak! Outclassed! Yeah, they don't need you!”

Darius's body suddenly started to shake.

“If they don't need me…”

Electricity started flowing around his body and his elementalist coat flashing.

“I'm going to have them beg me to be in their team!” said Darius, as his elementalist coat intensified and he regained full consciousness.

In reality, he is covered in a sphere of sludge, slowly solidifying. Darius pushes into the sphere with all of his limbs at once and intensifies his elementalist coat, using all of his power to break free from the sphere. He quickly looks around him and sees the shadow elementalists all surrounding him.

“He ranked up! What do we do?! He wasn't supposed to do this!” said one of the rangers.

“I told you to use a higher concentration of energy! You literally gave him enough time to-”

Darius quickly jumps on the wall the leads into a fighter's face with a kick, instantly knocking him down, Darius slides on the floor, leaving trails of lightning them zooms into the next fighter, landing a charged right punch into another fighter's face, exploding on impact and knocking him back into the wall, creating a hole in the wall when he hit against it. The other fighters and rangers attempt to lock target onto Darius and assault him, but before they'd get to barely see him, Darius chooses his next victim and dashes towards him, swipes down his legs and punches his head into the ground, cracking it. The rangers finally manage to see him perfectly, without any second thought they launch their blasts at him. Darius swiftly dodges all of them then uses the momentum to summon a lightning bolt, blowing up on impact and chaining the effect onto 7 other elementalists. Darius takes his chance and dashes through the current, instantly landing dozens of blows instantly into them. Once his momentum stops, he slides backwards with lightning trails once more. He quickly looks behind him and sees another fighter about to strike him. Lightning quick, Darius turns around while raising his leg then ax kicks him in the head into the ground. Darius can feel the presence of another fighter right behind him due to his lightning trails, he quickly casts a lightning bolt and solidifies it, wielding it as a spear then turns around and swipes the fighter fiercely, he then remember how he was kicked in the heart, so he does the same, he charges up his foot then kicks the fighter in the spot of his heart, greatly knocking him back and leaving him flat on the ground. The 2 remaining rangers shoot their blasts which Darius deflects with no effort back at them. He frowns and clenches his teeth then dashes faster than the projectiles deflected and knocks them out rapidly, each with a vicious swipe and kick. With all the rangers defeated, only 8 fighters remained. Darius notices one of them raise up his guard, just the way the Muay Thai fighter beat him up before. He takes no time to dash, leap and dive with a dropkick into him. The fighter parries the dropkick with his forearm, feinting Darius then grabbing the back of his head then slamming his face into the floor. The fighter dashes backwards and Darius quickly rises up, angrier than before. The fighter kept his guard up and stared sharply into him. Darius casted a lightning bolt then threw it at him, the fighter swiftly dodges the bolt, grabbing the bolt as he spun 360 degrees then throwing it back at Darius with increased force, hitting him directly. Darius blocks the shot and the energy spreads around his body, dealing minimal damage to his body. The 7 other fighters admire them absolutely starstruck and utterly lost. Darius starts thinking about a way to counter him.

“So, I won't be able to land a single blow on him if it's directly in one point, he'll always find a way to feint and counter me, but what if…”

Darius creates a net of lightning then swipes it onto him. The fighter gasps and tries to parry it, but fails fully. The net coils around him fully then shocks him all at once before disappearing, leading to a loud shout of pain from the fighter. Darius took this opportunity to dash then spin and kick him up in the jaw, knocking him back a great distance. He uses the momentum to rush and knock out the other fighters as well. Afterwards, Darius looks around him, not knowing what to do, when suddenly he hears the voices again.

“What do you think you're getting from this?”

His eyes widened and he froze in place.

“Do you think that squishing some ants… Those horrid lump of wastes, as fragile as a critter on a highway… Each of your teammates have killed in cold blood their enemies, that's why they're still alive and kicking, you couldn't even graze your opponents, you're the only reason you're here right now, you should have died that day,you don't deserve the title of a royal guard.”

Darius stares into nothingness for a brief moment before suddenly raising his leg.

“What the hell are you doing?!”

Darius kicks down into the ground at full force, shattering the ground. Using the momentum, he charges his feet then boosts himself upwards. He casts a bolt of lightning and sticks it to the ceiling. Once he touches the ceiling, all the compressed energy explodes, blowing up the roof of the building fully. As Darius was rising from the building he could see the veins of the building split wide open and sticking off the building smoothly. Darius is disgusted by the sight and soon lands down on the cube's base. Darius rubs his forehead a little.

“Ugh, that was such a headache…” said Darius to himself.

Suddenly, his feet sank into the cube’s base and he could feel it become softer. Darius is confused due to why this is happening, but then he looks up and sees that the ceiling is falling. He quickly casts a lightning bolt and swirls it before throwing it, drilling a hole through the ceiling, allowing him to get out. Without a second thought, he uses that momentum to rush to the wizard's altar.