A sharp groan escaped Arthur's lips as he slowly ca to. His limbs ached with a dull, throbbing pain, like he'd been beaten with a club and left to rot. Every breath felt dry, scraping the inside of his throat like sandpaper. The darkness around him was absolute—oppressive. Not just the absence of light, but a suffocating black void that clung to his skin and made his eyes feel useless.
'Where… am I?' he thought, blinking hard as if he could will his vision to adapt. But even the Wretched Crawler's Eye wasn't helping here. Whatever this place was, it swallowed light like a bottomless pit. The farthest Arthur could see was a few ters around, and it helped him figure out that he was inside so sort of cell with walls made out of stone. He could hear water dripping sowhere in there, with every move he was making echoing in every corner.
Arthur stirred, pushing his body upright until his back hit sothing cold and solid. A wall. Stone, by the feel of it—damp and smooth, but unforgiving. He rubbed at his pounding head and groaned again, trying to rember how he got here.
"I was…" His voice cracked. He paused, squinting into the dark. "Where was I?"
And then it hit him—mories flooding in like a dam breaking. The mysterious man. That impossible strength. Their conversation. The punch.
"That bastard knocked out… just one hit…" Arthur hissed through clenched teeth. "Didn't even get a chance to touch him."
The frustration welled in his chest as his hand instinctively balled into a fist. He drove it into the wall behind him with a sharp grunt, but instead of the dull thud of skin eting stone, a loud clank rang out.
Arthur froze.
Clank.
He moved again—waist, ankles, wrists. More tallic sounds. Chains. Shackles. He was restrained from head to toe, bound tightly to the wall.
"What the hell?" he muttered, yanking hard on the cuffs. Nothing gave. He tried again. And again. But no matter how much strength he used, the shackles didn't so much as creak. They were cold, impossibly sturdy, and completely unyielding.
"What kind of tal is this?" he growled, his breath growing heavier with effort. "Alright… fine. Freeze them."
The plan ford quickly—freeze the shackles, make them brittle, shatter them. He'd done it before. Easy. This wasn't the first ti he was stuck in a situation similar to this, where he had to deal with hard tal.
So, Arthur closed his eyes and began channeling his mana.
Nothing happened.
His frown deepened. He tried again, focusing harder. Reaching deep into himself, willing the cold to rise, to flow through his limbs like it always did.
Still nothing.
A hollow, empty silence crept into his ears again, waking him up to the horrifying reality.
"…What?" Arthur opened his eyes in disbelief and looked down at his body, half expecting to see sothing wrong—so mark, so symbol, sothing. But there was nothing. Just the weight of the shackles and a body that felt powerless.
"My mana… why can't I feel it?" he whispered, panic creeping into his tone.
He sat in stunned silence for a mont, staring into the void. Then, like a spark of dread igniting in his chest, the realization hit him. He cannot use his Mana at all. That sentence was enough to send chills down his spine.
"The shackles… Are they suppressing my mana?"
He didn't want to believe it. But the signs were there. He was cut off—completely. No mana flow. No energy. No Frost Fla or any other ability for that matter.
"This can't be happening…" His breath quickened. "This can't be happening!"
In a frenzy, Arthur pulled against the chains again, muscles straining until veins popped in his neck. He thrashed forward, biting down hard to hold back a scream of frustration. Every second that passed without mana was a second closer to defeat—no, death. He was completely exposed. No spells. No armor. No chance. It was nothing short of being completely exposed and waiting for a cruel end.
Mana was his one and only weapon in this world, and it was his way of solving any problem. Without it, Arthur was nothing short of a powerless prey ready to be eaten.
"Dammit, DAMMIT!!" he roared, slamming his fists into the wall, bruising his knuckles in the process. "Think, Arthur, think! There has to be a way!"
He forced himself to breathe, deeper this ti. Slower. The panic threatened to drown him, but he had to fight it. Think tactically. Strategically. This wasn't the first ti he was outmatched—but it was the first ti he'd been this helpless.
'Inventory… maybe sothing in there can help .'
He opened his system interface with a thought. It flickered into existence, illuminating the area around him just a bit—revealing the glint of steel and stone. He scrolled through his items quickly: potions, monster scraps, low-grade weapons. Junk, mostly. Nothing powerful enough to break enchanted restraints.
He cursed again under his breath.
Then his eyes landed on a familiar object tucked neatly at the top of the inventory: the Divine Shard.
Arthur stared at it, his breathing slowing. Sothing about it called to him. Maybe instinct. Maybe desperation. Or maybe—just maybe—it was sothing more.
"…Could it work?" he whispered.
His hand inched toward the shard, trembling just slightly. His instincts scread at him that it was a bad idea, that there was no way it would work in this situation. But another voice—the sa one that had led him this far—told him to trust it. To try.
Just as his fingertip hovered over the shard—
SCREEEEECH
The cell door groaned open.
Arthur's body tensed imdiately. He closed the inventory in a flash and stared at the entrance, his eyes sharpening into blades. Heavy footsteps echoed down the hallway, slow and deliberate.
A silhouette erged from the dark—familiar, mocking.
"Oh? You're finally awake, Persona," the man called with a grin. "That nap must've been refreshing."
Arthur's glare hardened. "Release ."
Naless chuckled. "Release you? That wouldn't be very smart of . You've got quite the rebellious streak, you know."
Arthur bared his teeth. "I swear to every god left in the skies, I'll kill you."
Naless sighed with exaggerated disappointnt. "Such hostility. I expected better manners. But then again, you're still waking up."
He stepped forward and grabbed one of the shackles binding Arthur's arm. Without effort, he snapped it in half.
Arthur blinked in shock. Not at the strength—that he expected—but at the ease. The casual cruelty.
One by one, Naless shattered the other shackles.
Arthur moved fast.
The instant the last restraint broke, he lunged forward, sprinting toward the open door. Hope surged in his chest—but it died just as quickly.
The mont his foot crossed the threshold, a force yanked him backward like a hooked fish on a line.
He hit the ground hard.
"Ah, ah, ah," Naless chided, shaking his head. "You'll get lost if you wander off, Persona. Can't have that."
"Let go!!" Arthur scread, fingers clawing at the stone floor. "I'll tear your throat out, I swear!"
Naless leaned down with a playful smile, his eyes glittering with sothing darker than amusent. "Tsk, tsk. You'll thank later, you know. After all…"
He paused, leaning closer until Arthur could feel the chill in his breath.
"…You're about to witness sothing… divine."
A//N: I'm Back! Anybody missed ? Haha! Anyway, sorry for the hiatus, guys! Had a lot of stuff happen the past few weeks. But, hopefully I'm back now :)
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