Vashno slumped against the cold wall of an empty, unknown chamber. His chest rose and fell rapidly, each breath ragged and shallow. Sweat plastered his hair to his forehead, and his body ached from exertion.
’I survived...’ he thought grimly, glancing to the side.
The battle earlier had been utter chaos. At first, they fought the Blood Hunters, their relentless strikes tearing through the field. Then the locals joined the fray, adding their own unpredictable fury. And on top of that... the unknown creatures had appeared.
One of them had power rivaling a peak Eight Shackle Realm—a force so terrifying that even Raven had been forced to unleash every trump card in her arsenal just to hold it back.
In the aftermath, countless lives were lost. The battlefield had been ripped apart so violently that space itself fractured. Those who survived had been left with no choice but to gamble their lives, leaping blindly through the spatial tears to escape.
’What... are these creatures?’ Vashno muttered inwardly, eyes narrowing.
They didn’t feel like living beings. Not truly. Their movents, their sheer destructive power... they were more akin to golems, constructs of sothing far beyond mortal comprehension.
And yet, their danger wasn’t just in strength, it was in their presence. They radiated a relentless, unnatural force, one that made even the most seasoned warriors hesitate.
Vashno’s fingers clenched against his knees. These weren’t enemies to be fought lightly. They were monsters. Powerful, terrifying... and utterly unpredictable.
Vashno slipped his hand into the small bag strapped to his waist and pulled out a tiny vial. With a practiced motion, he drank it. Instantly, a portion of his mana seeped back into his system, knitting his energy together.
He exhaled slowly, pressing his back against the wall as he tried to make himself as small and invisible as possible. Then he raised his head—and froze. Footsteps echoed from above.
"I heard that outsiders had appeared," one voice said.
"The emperor sent troops to kill and capture them. A large number of our soldiers have already fallen."
"Then... why are we fighting these outsiders?"
"Huh? You haven’t heard?"
"No."
Vashno’s eyes narrowed as he listened, crouched in the shadows. From their cadence and hesitation, it was clear they didn’t suspect his presence.
"They say the outsiders ca to plunder the resources of our land. An envoy of our goddess descended and spoke to His Majesty about it," another voice explained.
"An envoy of our goddess?!"
"Yeah... I haven’t seen the envoy myself, but they say he possesses imnse powers, blessed by the goddess."
Vashno’s jaw tightened at the ntion of the goddess. Slowly, he pressed himself closer to the wall near the staircase, straining to catch more words. But the footsteps had already faded; the two had left the upper floor.
He let out a quiet sigh.
This place—the stench of rot and despair lingering in the air—was a prison. A place holding countless souls in tornt.
Once he was certain the upper floor was empty, Vashno moved. He ascended the stairs cautiously, each step silent. At the top, he surveyed the dim corridor. Inside the prison cells, he could sense movent—figures huddled, alive, but trapped in misery.
Vashno’s eyes flicked across them. Every prisoner here was a story of suffering, and sowhere among them might lie answers or opportunities.
Vashno’s eyes swept over the prison cell. Inside, a gaunt figure slumped against the cold, damp wall, body trembling like a flickering candle about to go out. His eyelids were heavy, barely clinging to life. Weak, erratic pulses of energy radiated from him—so faint they barely registered even to a trained eye.
Vashno’s instincts sharpened. If this man ever recovered, he might reach S-rank. But in his current state... he was a corpse waiting to happen. Every shallow breath rattled through his frail fra, each movent a struggle against death itself.
Vashno flicked a finger, letting his mana weave into a tight, silent cage that isolated the cell from the rest of the prison. Outside, the muffled groans, shuffling feet, and cries of others vanished.
The man’s eyes shot open with excruciating effort, bloodshot and trembling, locking onto Vashno standing just beyond the bars. His lips cracked and dry, whispering with ragged urgency: "You dare... to use your energy here... They will detect you. They will hunt you down."
"What?!" Vashno’s eyes widened, heart thudding as danger clicked into focus.
The prisoner coughed violently, then rasped out the truth: "This prison... it’s alive with detection. Any energy outside a cell... it screams. If you didn’t know, then how... how did you get here?"
Vashno’s jaw tightened. He had entered through a narrow underground passage, unseen, carefully—but now he understood. This was no ordinary prison. The walls themselves were sentinels, the stones humming with surveillance, the air thick with silent malice. Every pulse of energy risked setting off alarms.
He exhaled slowly, the cold, stale air of the chamber filling his lungs. Every shadow seed heavier here, every sound amplified. One misstep, one careless flicker of power... and the hunters would descend.
This place didn’t just imprison bodies—it monitored, hunted, and punished. And Vashno had just walked into its teeth.
Perhaps the prison’s detection chanism was low-rank. It couldn’t sense him while he deliberately masked his presence, allowing him to move like a shadow among the condemned.
"So... what do you know about the goddess?" Vashno asked, his voice low but commanding.
"Nothing," the man rasped, his weak fra trembling. "I’m imprisoned because I don’t believe in the goddess." He shook his head, eyes dim with exhaustion.
Hmmm... Vashno turned away, scanning the rows of prisoners. A fleeting thought of opening every cell crossed his mind—but he abandoned it almost instantly. They were too weak. Even if he freed them, they would collapse imdiately, succumbing to their frail, broken bodies. To open the cells would be a rcy in na only, a slow march toward death.
He exhaled and moved toward the stairs, keeping his presence hidden.
Soon, he reached the warden’s office.
The warden himself was formidable, a Fifth Shackle Realm expert. But to Vashno, even that level of power was negligible, a minor obstacle easily swept aside.
Vashno sensed three people inside the room. One was the warden. The other two won were at the level of First Shackle Realm. They were entangled in so intimate act with the warden, their grunts and moans echoing through the chamber, oblivious to everything else.
Oblivious... and unprepared.
Vashno’s eyes flashed with a cold, rciless light. His hands blurred in an instant, tearing through the air like twin blades slicing reality itself.
The room erupted in a single, silent mont of lethal precision.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Three dull cracks echoed in the cramped room—too fast, too violent for any of them to react.
Vashno’s fists slamd into their faces with bone‑shattering force.
The two won crumpled instantly. First Shackle Realm or not, the difference between their strength and Vashno’s was like paper before a storm. They hit the ground unconscious before their minds even registered pain.
The warden, however, remained barely conscious—a testant only to his Fifth Shackle Realm, not to any asure of preparedness. His vision swam violently as he staggered, eyes wide with disbelief. Soone had struck him. Here. In his office. In the heart of the prison. The idea itself was absurd.
Vashno didn’t give him ti to comprehend.
He stepped forward, shadows stretching with his movent, and clamped a hand around the warden’s throat. His fingers dug into flesh like an iron vice.
Then—pressure.
Vashno unleashed his energy into the man’s body, a vicious current tearing through nerves, organs, and ridians all at once.
"Ghh—!"
The warden convulsed, blood spurting from his mouth, eyes bulging with terror.
"Y‑You... outsiders?!" he managed to choke out, spittle and blood dripping down his chin. The terror in his gaze contorted into sothing rabid, unhinged. "Outsider... there’s only one outco for you. You... will... die."
Before Vashno could answer—
BOOOOM!
A monstrous force erupted from sowhere far above.
The entire underground prison shuddered, dust pouring from the ceiling, tal bars rattling like they were about to tear free. Even through layers of earth and stone, the energy fluctuations were overwhelming—powerful enough to crush weaker people outright.
Vashno’s pupils contracted.
Whatever was happening on the surface...
It wasn’t normal.
And it wasn’t small.
Boom!!
Vashno’s frown deepened as he lifted his gaze. With a sickening snap, he crushed the warden’s neck in his hand. The man’s body went limp, collapsing to the floor with a hollow thud—life extinguished in an instant.
"What... is happening...?" Vashno muttered under his breath.
Above, the air quivered with countless surges of energy. The fluctuations weren’t subtle—they were enormous, and every pulse scread of imnse power.
Without hesitation, Vashno vanished, reappearing in the shadows of the upper floors. His ascent toward the surface was swift and rciless.
Dozens of guards crossed his path. They were disciplined, ard, and ready to confront intruders—but Vashno was a storm incarnate. With each step, each flick of his hand, they fell like wheat before a scythe. Fists collided with bone, elbows shattered ribs, and a blur of movent left a trail of unconscious or lifeless bodies.
He had no ti to hide. He had no ti for subtlety. Every second counted, and every guard that stood in his way was nothing more than an obstacle to obliterate.
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