《Delve》


 Prologue - The Ballads Of A Dying Universe

    Thunder clashed against earth as rain poured over untold amounts of desolate land. The loud sounds mixed with the constant cacophony of falling water on dry soil created a tragic melody.


    A requiem for a dying world.


    On the surface, gigantic creatures roamed about. Their slow and measured steps brought yet another note to the harmony, as their colossal feet stomped on the ground and broke wet stone with their massive weights. Towering everything around them by being dozens of meters tall, these creatures looked around with deliberate attention, as if searching for something.


    Their bodies were pitch black, made of some coarse material, even rougher than stone. Their structures were humanoid, and yet completely featureless, with slender limbs and a neckless head. The only thing that gave away that they were live beings instead of badly sculpted monuments was the fire pit right in the center of their faces. These fires shone withsupernatural heat, movingaround as if alive. Huge, unblinking fiery eyes.


    The other, last component of the melody that heralded the lastage of that world, was the stifled and slow breathing of dozens of creatures hiding in some stone crevice on the ground. Humans, hiding inside a cave.


    Scared, hungry, weak, and dirty, they squeezed themselves on the stone corners of the cave. Their eyes were desperate and soft prayers could be heard on their lips.Pleads to forgotten gods in hope that reality just went away.


    The cave looked as if it was originally a tunnel. The tunnel, however, seemed to have collapsed at some point, trapping those people there, near the surface and hunted by the gigantic creatures.


    Inside the cave, however, there was a single man with something more than fear inside his eyes.


    Defiance, rage, hope, and sorrow all battled inside that man''s heart.


    In his arms, he held something. It was covered under thick blankets and seemed to have a spherical shape. It was slightly larger than an adult''s head, and if you looked close enough, you would realize that it shone with such light that even the coarse cover couldn''t fully block its brightness.


    Huddling with the man were a woman and a young boy. They whispered among themselves with soft words, making weak promises for a better future of safety and comfort. Things they had lost for what felt now like an eternity.


    Still, there was love there. Even in the end.


    It was only when certain demise came into the cave that the family let go of each other. Despair came in the form of an enormous black fist breaking through stone as it violated the group''s last refuge. The ceiling exploded and instantly the dark limbsmashed half a score of refugees. Chips of bloodied stone flew all around the survivors, splashing on their faces and cutting exposed flesh.


    The mysterious man took a last look at his family and then crouched to the child''s height. Hell had broken loose around them, but the man seemed to ignore everything as he whispered some few last words to the young boy. When he was finished, he passed the spherical object to his son and then turned around.


    The monster''s punch had made a hole in the ceiling, from which the creature had already retrieved its arm. Body parts and collapsed stone were all around the dark cave as the screaming of the survivors mingled with the yells of pain from those that had been unlucky enough to be pressed down by the falling stone.


    Suddenly, the darkness of the cave was pushed back as the giant creature outside moved its fiery eye to look through the hole. The orange tinge on the walls only served to panic the people inside the cave even more. As if burned by the hotness of the magical eye outside, the people inside screamed in despair as they soiled themselves from every possible orifice.


    The exception was, again, the man and his family.


    Aiming at the fiery eye looking straight at him, the man extended his arms with open palms.


    Upon seeing the man''s stance, for a single moment, the creature''sfiery pupils seemed to contract. But it was too late.


    From the man''s hands, a blue beam emerged with the cold fury of a thousand dying suns.


    BZUMMMMMM!


    The blue whiteness blinded everyone inside the place as it pushed into the creature''s head. Soon, the fire from its face was extinguished and the black material it was made of explodedoutwards intoinnumerable pieces.


    Not taking any breaks, the man looked around the cave andwaved his arms.


    The collapsed stones that had fallen from the ceiling floated upwards and rotated in sync with his hands. He made some movements with them, and soon, they pilled upon one another to form a ramp to the hole in the ceiling.


    With a yell, the man gathered the attention of those inside the cave that still had their senses. He only said a few words, but those who listened to them seemed to surge with hope once more. He then pointed out of the cave, and without another word, jumped outside.


    From inside the cave, the man''s family, together with over a dozen of the more courageous individuals, all rushed outside with him.


    On the surface, the man took his bearings and somberness appeared on his face. There were over a dozen of the giant creatures around, all now moving to his position. With his almost godly vision, he could also see in the distance that even more of the creatures were being formed, as mana surged and black rock assembled itself on the horizon.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    Rain whipped at his face and soaked his clothes and hair as he looked back to those that followed him.Thunderechoed in the distanceas he took a deep breath and pointed to one direction.


    It took but a moment for the people around him to understand his meaning and put themselves into a run, towards that direction. Even his wife and son, only took one last look at him, before turning around and fleeing.


    And then he turned around again.


    To face the monsters.


    His battle cry slashed apart the skies louder than the thunders, as his body surged with blue energy that poured from his very soul. His eyes blazed with blue light as his body floated a few meters into the air and his hands lighted up with mana.


    The creatures also roared. They also became infuriated and also unleashed their deepest powers as they rushed towards him. But their rage and willwere not the same as his.


    No. They were monsters. Mana Aberrations wired with sinister purpose by corrupted forces. They had no souls and definitely did not have what the man had.


    He was a human. A father. A husband. The Guardian Of The Everlasting Core. Protector Of Zathar. A soon to be martyr.


    His mana and soul burned together to fuel the desires of his heart. With a roar and a punch, mana beams pierced the dark clouds in the sky as his fists extended his rage through the monsters cores. Creatures were destroyed and exploding dark stone showered the ground as the tempest picked up speed and more monsters formed from the ground.


    Different designs of monsters also started to appear. Twisted copies of what once had been normal creatures. Wolves, bears, chimeras, wyverns and even dragons. All made of black stone and with fiery cores in the form of giant eyes in their faces.


    But the man was unstoppable.


    Flying around like a trailing blue star, swerving around giant arms, fangs, and claws while focusing his mana into beams that blasted the monsters'' fiery cores to oblivion.


    The collapsed stone from the dying forms of the creatures started to gather up and form a mountain. Seeing the undying man, atop the remnants of their allies seemed to make the creatures even angrier. The world seemed to rage, and even more creatures surged from the ground.


    And days passed.


    The mountain grew to an enormous size. Unscathed, even if tired, the man stood atop it. During all this time, the tempest had never stopped. Rain still fell around him and black monsters stillformed to destroy him. Suddenly, the ground opened up and from it, lava surged in waves. Monstrous arms took shape from the hot magma and tried to reach for the man, but he just flew higher. Swerving around his mountain, he now fought against the lava from the ground and the mana aberrations at the same time.


    Weeks passed.


    The man''s once raven black hair was greying. His sparkling green eyes were losing their color. His muscular frame, withering. But still, he fought. Over the last weeks, the lava surging all around his mountain had solidified over and over again, providing even more mass to the accumulated stone from the dead creatures. The mountain had risen to loom over even the tallest of the enemy creatures. It was almost a hundred meters tall.


    During all this time, the tempest and the rain had become more and more furious. Down there, at the foot of the man''s mountain lakes were being formed over the stone bodies of the long deceased. The wind had started to magically condense itself into air pressured blades, constantly chasing him from everywhere. Tornadoes had formed around the mountain and they whipped stone around the mountain with furious disregard for the creatures attacking the man. More than the aberrations, the man was now fighting against the forces of nature.


    Months passed.


    The man''s visage was that akin of a tortured prisoner. His magically enhanced robes had all been slashed apart by now, under the constant cutting powerof the wind. The man''s flesh was completely scarred, by being cut over and over again, at the same places. His hair was now completely white, and so were his once green eyes. Looking like wiry old man, he stood naked atop the mountain of stone corpses.


    The mountain now was hundreds of meters tall, rivaling even famous natural formations. It stood atop a raging sea, from which stone creatures constantly surfaced to climb to the top. Most of them died on the way, thrown into lava pits by the tornadoes, smashed apart by the huge stone debris flying all around, or even cut into pieces by the sharp wind blades that constantly roamed over the mountain. Regardless, some still managed to get to the top. And those, the man still fought.


    As if enraged by the man''s defiance, the dark clouds in roared. Like rage, some red electricity had been building up inside of them over the past few months.


    Suddenly, a red thunder came down from the sky. Cutting through the rainwater and wind like a heated blade, it targeted the man with unerring velocity.


    The thunderous boom of the thunder came only after the pained roar of the man, and even then, it paled in intensity.


    But still, the man held. With tired body and soul, but unwavering defiance.


    This was his universe. For it, and all there was in it, he would resist.


    Black smoke rose from his charred body as raised his hand and fired his mana at the skies once again.


    Earth, fire, water, wind, and thunder. Nothing would break him.


    Not until his universe was safe again.


    A hundred years passed.


    Atop his mountain, the man stood. Atop this world, his mountain reigned.


    Breaking through the skyline, taller than the clouds, the winds and the influence of earth itself, his mountain had now thousand upon thousands of meters. It reigned supreme over all mountains of this world, the man was sure.


    Risen from the bodies of all the monsters he had defeated, of all the elements he had overcome, the man felt pride of how high he had reached.


    His skin was cracked, and from the openings on his body, one could see the still massive power of the man''s soul. Potent, blinding mana escaped through the gaps in his pale, dry skin. His white hair pooled around his feet and it shone with the same intensity of his mana beams. His eyes were the same, in a permanent state of overflow.


    Only his facial expression gave away the true state of the man''s body and soul. Twisted in a permanent grimace of pain, his godly eyes leaked a constant flux of blood. Tears of utter, unspeakable, agony.


    His soul was stretched thin, like a taut string. His body had been broken apart so many times that only his will maintained it together.


    And still, he fought.


    Many years ago, the Enemy had switched strategy. After the man had resisted the elements and risen above their influence, the focus had changed from quantity to quality.


    Every day, the man fought a single beast. Different in design every time, the creatures all held inside the power of thousands of its lesser siblings. They also possessed titanic sizes, being hundred of meters tall.


    Upon rising the mountain, these creatures were blessed by the elements, instead of hindered by them, like before.


    Atop the mountain, the fights were always difficult and only barely the man managed to win. But he always did.


    Until one day.


    One day, when, instead of a fight, what he got was jubilation.


    He could feel it. The mana flow was restored. They had made it. The universe was alive again.


    After uncountable years, the man''s perpetual scowl softened. He smiled.


    "I hope you are alive, Xer''er."


    And then, the man was no more.

 Chapter 1 - Jack Coast And Post Modern Tragedies

    <section>


    "Thank you for your contact. If you have any questions, feel free to call us again. Have a nice day!"


    And done. I finally let out my breath and relax my neck. Was that the 20th? I never know. I guess I shoul-


    Ring, ring!


    And here we go again.


    "Hello, my name is Jack Coast. Thank you for calling the Maxnet Support Center. How can we help you?"


    "Finally! I''ve been calling for ages! Don''t you people work there? Let me tell you..."


    After 20 minutes of ranting and me trying to wrestle some semblance of cooperation from some angry lady, the call finally goes off and I hurry to log off the system. There are few things worse than that extra call you may get after your shift if you are too slow to get on your feet.


    I head to the office kitchen, fill my water bottle, go to the bathroom for a quick piss and then hurry out of that hellhole - a place those that are unfamiliar with it call Maxnet Technical Support Call Center. My job, curse, and lifeline.


    I''ve worked just over 6 hours - the morning and a bit - and still, I feel like I''ve survived a buffalo stampede going over my head while I tried to keep balanced on a tight rope. Scratch that. On poisoned and barbed tight rope. In flames.


    To put it simply, I hate my job. I am pretty sure everyone else I work with also hates their jobs, but hey, we all got to make a living, don''t we?


    Still, some days, I just wished people were a tad little better. It would certainly make my job less miserable, not having to deal with insufferable assholes who just want someone to yell to. Or people that are so stupid that they could rival iron buckets on an intellectual match. Or even people that just think I am guilty of the massive incompetence the internet provider I work for is responsible for - if you had any doubts, DO NOT HIRE MAXNET.


    Currently, I am waiting at the bus stop for my ride. Together with my fellow zombie workforce, we eagerly await the metaphorical moving jail and not so metaphorical body hugging.


    It is funny to think that I have been so physically close to those people - for years now - and still, I have never really talked to any of them. It may have to do with the fact that we all have that void look in our eyes. The look of people resigned to do the same thing every day for the rest of our lives.


    It is that kind of mentality that just feels it is okay to suffer daily so that we can actually live in the gaps between chores - what some call free time but is actually nothing of the sort.


    What was this situation called again...? Capitalism, right?


    But again, maybe not really. Maybe this is just life at its finest. I am not sure there is any better way to live in modern society.


    So I just go along with it. One boring, stressful day after the other. Working in a job that is definitely not suited for me - not with my slight antisocial, human-hating outlook on the world - feeling like a robot following call scripts and compliance guidelines and then taking uncomfortable, personally intrusive rides back and forth between my home and workplace.


    Talking about my ride, it is getting here. The bus of number 5106 comes forth, packed as always with what feels like hundreds of tortured souls, with desperate sockets of despair in place for eyes. I follow the line, with bodies pressing me from the back and front and get up in the bus.


    The familiar, hot and sweaty air immediately fills my nostrils and I have to hold a sigh escaping my mouth. Some days are harder than others.


    Oh, how I love my life.


    It is only after over 45 minutes of sweaty, uncomfortable proletariat networking that I arrive at my destination.


    To get off the bus I have to pull the signal, and after I am sure the driver has missed my stop, have to yell over the masses to tell that to the driver.


    Then, when he stops, I get off the bus slightly off route and still have to walk over 15 minutes to get to my home.


    But finally, I am home.


    I open that door and welcome my dark palace. Heavy curtains blackout every inch of sunlight that could have made present inside my house, and the smooth, refreshing coldness embrace me after all that human contact. This is where I am alive.


    Depressing? Not really. I actually enjoy very much the dark, and I still have the soft glow of multiple electronics around the place, blinking with ominous red and blue lights.


    I say, fondly, that it is a palace, but it really isn''t (obviously). It is just a small apartment on the 7th floor of a rundown building downtown. But it is mine (not really, I rent it).


    My familiarity with the place relieves me of the need to turn on any lights upon entering it, and so I just navigate around blindly, depositing my backpack on a spare chair and then going take a bath to get rid of all the metropolis grime.


    When I am all refreshed and comfy, I go to the freezer, take a beer can and pop it open.


    Slowly, I sip it.


    Jubilation. Damnation. Pleasure. Hopelessness. All in that first sip only good alcohol can provide you with.


    Oh yeah, I am not sure if I''ve said it, but I am slightly alcoholic.


    So I take my beer, head to my coach, and sit on it, drinking in the dark. After a few moments, I turn on the television and put a game to run on my gaming device. The current RPG I am clearing.


    I select my saved game, wait for the loading screen and then a new world opens up in front of me. My body slowly becomes the joystick held in my hands, and all the worries and pains disintegrate, bit by bit.


    Money? Love? Pain? Life, Death, Despair, and Pleasure? It all loses meaning, dissolving on the chase of the perfect game, the strongest build, the most daring achievement, the before unreachable ending. I am no longer a hopeless cog of the machine, but a force of nature, someone who can bring change and make my own choices about what is right and wrong. I can shape myself and the world around me. It is beautiful.


    But then I am off. My cellphone alarm yells at me, saying it is time to sleep. Best to heed its warning, lest I fail to wake up early and get late at work.


    So I turn off my console and TV, go to the kitchen to pacify my raging hunger and finally go to bed.


    It takes a while for me to be able to sleep, and when I do, I dream of dragons and magic, of sword and sorcery, heroics and sacrifices. I dream of a better world and better people.


    And then I woke up. Day began anew and with it came my daily drudgery.


    Around me, everything is still total darkness. I, however, know I am awake because that is just how my body is conditioned to work.


    Every day, at 6:00 AM I wake up like a fucking robot. That is the hour a dipshit like me has to start his day if he wants to be in time for his dipshit''s job, at 7:30 AM.


    Unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried, although my body wakes at this hour, my mind has never agreed to do the same.


    So I use my secret weapon.


    A cellphone sleepily rises and suddenly lights up like a white sun, banishing the darkness to the far-reaching corners of the room. The full brightness of my totally white background blasts through my retinas and truly wakes me up, grumbling.


    The pain gives me momentum to abruptly rise, and go straight to the shower.


    After a bath, I go to the kitchen and grumble once again, like every morning, about how there is nothing tasty and easy to make.


    In the end, I just dump a bunch of cheap tasteless cereal in a bowl and shove it up in my throat with milk. In minutes my belly is half-satisfied.


    Then it is the bathroom, brushing my teeth, making it kind of inhabitable to anyone with a nose, and then I am ready to go.


    About 15 minutes and a short walk later, I find myself getting to the bus stop - and hey, it seems today I will be able to sit while waiting.


    So I sit, take off my phone and start browsing through the news. These bus waits are really the only moments I have to catch up with the world.


    But is it worth?


    Movie Star Hits Hobo And Spends Night In Jail!


    Boring.


    The economy in crisis! Specialists predict a never seem before unemployment rate by the end of the year!


    Predictable.


    Gun On The Rise! Polls indicate that over 68% of the country''s before unarmed population have acquired guns in the past 10 months!


    Stupid.


    President Declares War On Yet Another Country!


    Predictable AND Stupid.


    Hardzen Studios Announces Sequel For Blood Fields Series.


    Now THAT is interesting. That game sucked balls. Why the hell are they going to make a sequel for it?


    I open the link, but before I can fully delve on the depths of enterprising stupidity, my bus comes with a blur of movement from those around me.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    With my phone pocketed, I prepare for it.


    And then it comes.


    Bus hell.


    Telephonic torture.


    Bus hell.


    Gaming bliss...


    ... And then awakened.


    And all over. Over and over again. Every day.


    I can hear the cheap infomercial in the background: Jack Coast, the perfect mindless drone, offered to you by Modern Society. On sale! 90% OFF if you come and kill it right now!


    It may sound sad - because it should be - but by now I am just numb to it. I wear irony and self-mockery like a cloak and just flow with the reality of things. Life sucks and that is it. Not sad, not bad, just a fact. Keep going.


    One of my strategies to keep numb about it all is... Guess what?


    Drum-drum-drum... Alcohol!


    Yeah, I never said I was authentic.


    But it just proves my point. Thousands of years getting people through it all and they still have not discovered something better. Not even illegal drugs managed to worm their way into people''s hearts as beautifully as it.


    Oh, and by getting you through, I don''t mean it will get you through AND healthy, okay? Nor alive. But that would be asking too much, don''t you think? No one here is in the miracle business.


    Aside from alcohol, the other two things on my happiness - or something like that - recipe, are:


    Diligence and routine.


    Okay, okay, it might not make any sense at first. A man who complains all the time about how shitty life is, says he is actually a diligent person who never fails to accomplish his routine tasks? Yeah, well, my reasoning is as it follows: If you are going to take an outlook on life like mine, the last thing you''ll want people telling you are things like "You are just not trying hard enough, son", or "You are doing it all wrong, my dear". No. Just no.


    So you do your shit right. If you are going to be a dipshit, at least be the best motherfucking dipshit there is out there.


    I may hate my job but I do it like a fucking artificial intelligence (which is what they should be actually employing).


    I never get to the job late. I never get sick days. I never stray out of the script they give me. I never even use company time to take a shit (and trust me, I know everyone does that).


    There is a total of zero complaints about me and that is because that is the number of reasons I give people to have them for me.


    And I am the living proof that IT DOESN''T MATTER.


    You will still have a terrible job. Your boss will still treat you like a piece of garbage. The bus will still stink like an outhouse when you leave for home.


    But still, you remain diligent. Because only then you will have your point proven.


    After that, it comes routine. Make yours and stick to it. Then everything becomes easier. Humans beings are funny like that. We may get used to pretty much everything.


    So set your alarms and push yourself to do what must be done. When you realize, your body will have taken over. No longer you will have to put actual effort into being diligent.


    Automatic self-torture. No need for thanks, mate!


    But alas.


    The reason I am saying all of this to you, dear reader, is simply to explain that when you get all of those things together, there is a single, inevitable conclusion.


    Bar Night.


    That is right. Today is Friday, and instead of taking my bus home, I am heading to my favorite bar in this part of town. It is part of my routine and I crave for it every other day of the week.


    My taste for alcohol, my diligence for doing things throughout and my set routine have contributed for me making all my Fridays afternoon and nights into drink-yourself-into-oblivion-nights!


    So it is a good day, and maybe that is why I am so talkative today.


    People give me strange looks when I pass them by with my creepy smile and I give zero fucks.


    It doesn''t take long and soon the rundown building around the corner enters in my view.


    It is old. It is dirty. It smells. I don''t think it even has a name.


    This is a bad part of the city, and still, this must be one of the most trashed places around.


    But still.


    Its decadence strikes a chord in me. A place that makes you think that maybe your life is not that bad.


    I enter the place with the sun on my back, and, unsurprisingly, find it empty - with the exception of the owner.


    It is not that this bar doesn''t have its clientele. There is plenty of old broken men that will come here this night.


    It is just that I come here too soon. It is very rare for someone to be so eager to desecrate themselves in the middle of the afternoon. People have to work, after all.


    Luckily, federal law states that, and I quote, my job is "too stressful, mentally exhausting and absolutely unbearable for regular, self-respecting human beings to waste more than 6-hours per day into".


    Ok, maybe I am not really quoting. But it was something like that.


    The fact is that my job only allows for 6-hour shifts, instead of the regular 8, or even the extra-demanding 10 to 12 hours. A mental health program or simply a way to diminish the number of psychopaths running around.


    That, together with my early start on the day, gives me the delicious opportunity to have this shithole all for myself.


    It is just past 2 PM, and the skinny and crooked old man behind the counter looks at me with the same dead eyes of always. I think he likes me.


    The inside of the place is smaller than it looks from outside but just as terrible. Dusty wooden floors framed by walls covered in mold. Cobwebs are visible in the room''s corners and the chairs and tables seem to be all eaten halfway by termites.


    Behind the owner there is a bunch of unlabeled liquors, showcasing for god knows how long. There is no menu or price table, nor any kind of inclination from the man to serve you.


    The only noteworthy furniture in the place is an old jukebox in one of the corners. It looks really old, and I would not believe that it still worked if I hadn''t seen it making grown men cry on multiple occasions.


    Ahhh. So refreshing. There is no need to look alive here.


    "Hey, Mr. Johnson. How''re ya doin?"


    I greet him with true enthusiasm - very rare for me - and get exactly what I was expecting. A grumble, a scowl and the question I wanted.


    "Jack. What''s gonna be today?"


    "Ahh... Let me see. Let''s start with a bottle of Hilly''s Grape, will we..? Yes, give me one of those"


    Like all the other things in my life, I like my drinks cheap. I don''t care so much about taste as I care about how it makes me feel. Hilly''s Grape is the cheapest of wines - I don''t think it can even be considered wine, as it sure as hell doesn''t taste like one - but it always makes me feel all fuzzy inside. I like it for an opening.


    With my order made, Mr. Johnson opens the old freezer at the counter''s side and takes from it a plastic bottle with a darkish purple liquid inside. Not the kind of color that would bring forth desire to any sane person.


    He puts it in front of me and returns to a seat in the back of the counter without a word, fully immersed in a piece of paper he takes from his back pocket. I think it is crosswords.


    With the wine in hands, I go and sit on one of the less damaged chairs, at one of the room''s corners. When I am settled, I eagerly open the flimsy bottle seal and take a big mouthful, directly from it.


    Ahhhh... Disgusting as always. It is slightly sour and it goes down burning like acid. When it is all done, though, it makes your belly all kinds of funny. Slowly, a smile blossoms on my face.


    After a few more mouthfuls, I pick up my phone and start-up Twitter.


    Yeah. I have one of those. Ya got any problem with that?


    This isn''t a social network for amateurs and is definitely NOT a social network for young girls to pretend they are snowflakes. That was Tumblr.


    No. This one is made for people that like to whine about every little thing that happens to them and those around them. And in case you still haven''t noticed, that is pretty much the definition of who I am.


    So I tweet away. Mouthful after mouthful of wine I write increasingly outrageous things about the most varied things. The funniest thing about it all is that the more I drink, the more reasonable everyone on it seems.


    Sometimes, I secretly suspect that everyone using Twitter is under the effects of at least one kind of drug. I at least, always am.


    After hours of that and runs to the counter for more booze, it is night and I am slightly drunk.


    Young me would already be wasted, but god has blessed me with something called alcoholism. It is like a passive skill that gives you alcohol resistance.


    By now, the bar is filling up. Old, gruff and unfriendly men start popping left and right of me. They are all poor looking, but before long the jukebox is playing one of the many depressing folk songs available on its array.


    Feels like home. I pocket my phone and just stare around, thinking about life and looking nostalgic.


    23 years today. It is my birthday, you know? A long time ago I had been a bright child, coming from wealthy parents and with equally wealthy opportunities waiting in the future.


    Child prodigy. Academic awards. Smiles all around me. Unhappy.


    Why? I never knew. It just always felt like something was missing. As if I had been starved from something I never even tasted.


    In the end, the equation is simple. A bunch of rebellious years, plus cut ties with parents, plus a new city where you know no one, plus obscene quantities of alcohol, equals me here.


    But still. Maybe this is the place I have felt the happiest in my life. In this terrible, oh so terrible bar.


    The floors, the walls, and the furniture may all be very dirty. The food may be un-eatable. The patrons may be losers that have nothing else to lose. But still, there is something valuable here.


    A silent agreement. Knowledge of a hidden truth. An absence of words that tells you more than any amount of said things could.


    Here I feel everyone gets me, just like I get them. I don''t have to complain to anyone. They all have their owns complaints to give and to live with.


    Holes in their chests they don''t know how to fill.


    For them and for me I smile. I smile and drink.


    Together our souls cry, even if our bodies are too dried up to do the same.


    While the mundane life of Jack proceeded on Earth, far more extraordinary happenings unfolded on far more extraordinary universes.


    One of such legendary moments, however, was about to cascade into a truly unimaginable series of events for Jack.


    It all started in a place that could be called both magical and strange for earthling standards.


    Terra was the name of this universe. A big, infinitely vast flatland, full of mysteries, wonders, and opportunities. It was a place where the dreams and fears of young earthling children could all be found and touched. A land of dragons, fairies, witches, and magic.


    And it was in the capital of one of the many kingdoms of this land that Xerxes Vash started it all.


    Where previously there was nothing, suddenly there he was, popping up from dust.


    In such occasions, what most people would ask themselves would be something along the lines of...


    "Where did this man came from?"


    But in this particular instance, the ''there'' was far more important than the ''from where''.


    For you see, the ''there'' was the Royal Palace of the Kingdom of Takresh. More specifically, inside the throne room. The place where King Baglamesh currently held court.


    In such an environment, any disturbance to the ruling voice of the King would be noted.


    Watching from above, there were Archers posted on alcoves. Down on the floor, there were royal guards standing at every corner of the room. Individuals encased inside so much metal that it was surprising how they still moved around and glared at everyone.


    There was no chance whatsoever of an intruder appearing unnoticed inside the place.


    So when the man appeared with a flash of light inside the room, everyone gaped.


    And the gaping did not stop when the light went off and the human''s visage was made known. For that man was more than it looked. Instinctively, everyone on the room knew that the frail flesh showing itself was but a shell for something much greater.


    With that said, it must be known that the flesh of Xerxes Vash was no small thing either. His height alone was almost two meters. He wasn''t overly muscular, but his body radiated strength and tightly shut potency.


    Nevertheless, what made him big was something intangible. A presence.


    It was not a royal presence, although he certainly had that. His sharp, refined looks were composed by pale skin, piercing green eyes and raven black hair pulled back. It did make him look like an heir prince if accounted together with his exotic, fine clothing - heavy robes blurring in a hurricane of every existing color, each color accompanied by matching sets of perfectly cut gemstones.


    It wasn''t simply an intimidating presence either. That would imply people inside the room would be feeling fear. It wasn''t that.


    They felt what every young peasant must feel when they realize that they are not anything special. That they are not heroes, nobles, kings or even leaders. That they are each just one more cog inside the blurred machine that is society.


    And still. Those feeling this now were not peasants. They were used to be the very subject of such feelings, the ones that made everyone else feel as ordinary. The noblest of Takresh. Powerful, rich, beautiful and extraordinary. Now all reduced to mere peasants.


    So it was not fear they felt. It was hopelessness. Something that made even the hardened warriors of the Royal Guard freeze their steps and lower their arms. The battle was already lost.


    And then when Xerxes walked, the people parted for him, slack-faced. He walked among nobles made peasant and there wasn''t but one voice that managed stop him.


    "Enough. Who dares to invade this one''s court!?"


    The deep, powerful voice reverberated through the marble walls of the palace. It came from the big black beast seated on the throne. Beast King Baglamesh, previously known as the Black Fury of the Lion Tribe.


    The King, like all the other warriors and nobles inside the room, was a beastman.


    The difference between him and them, however, couldn''t be bigger. Standing as a mass of muscled sinew and fur, the King physically dwarfed even Xerxes. Of leonine heritage, his face looked like that of a black lion. His beautiful mane cascaded his shoulders and gave way to furred and ripped humanoid chest and legs.


    Similar to Xerxes, he too, had his own aura. Brutal strength and authority radiated from him, making the room grow heavy with tension. The clash of potency between the two brought forth a pressure that few could resist bowing to.


    And it just got worse when the stranger answered his name.


    "I am Xerxes Vash."


    A name with as much weight as any. Maybe the heaviest of all. His fame followed him through the ages. Immortal, legendary and utterly bloodstained. Akin to a myth, and yet, here real.


    "And I have come to bargain."


    </section>

 Chapter 2 - Deadly Drinks

    I belch. Loudly and happily. No one notices because everyone is minding their own damn business. Holy damn, this may be heaven after all.


    But no. I am still inside the unnamed bar of Mr. Johnson. Finishing up, though.


    Stumbling around, I manage to reach the counter and say my thanks to my sommelier of the night.


    "Taaaanziss Mizer Jozon..!"


    Yeah. I am drunk. Surprise!


    Fortunately, here lies no rookie bohemian. I and Mr. Johnson have a long-standing business relationship, and even while drunk I know my protocol right.


    So I simply pick up my credit card and give it to the barkeeper. He swiftly swipes it on his machine, enters my password and returns my card, together with a receipt.


    Yeah, I also trust barkeepers with my passwords. Come on, if I can trust them enough to serve me my alcohol, I can also trust them to charge me fairly.


    Besides, I am the best fucking client they will ever have on their lives, so trying to con me would be a really dumb move. There are only so many alcoholics in the city.


    I turn around to go, but before that, Mr. Johnson grunts at me.


    "Hey."


    I turn back and see that he is filling up a drink for me.


    It is atranslucent liquor, looking almost like water. He fills the cup and pushes it to me.


    "I''ve heard today is your birthday. This one is on the house. To keep you warm on your way home."


    And then, without even meeting my eyes, he turns back and goes to his old chair.


    I smile warmly and hold back a little tear from escaping my lids. Throughout the night I may have yelled once or twice that today was my birthday, but I really did not expect a gift.


    I recognize the liquid, of course. It is Brazilian Cacha?a, the first liquor I ever drank here. It tastes like burning sugar and numbs your lips and mouth while going down. Delicious.


    I drink it all in one go, with a grunt of appreciation. Then I leave the bar. It is just past midnight and should already be home.


    Once I am outside, my smoking breath tells me it must really be cold, though I really can''t feel a thing. Alcohol never fails me.


    The metropolitan side streets are all empty at this hour, as expected.


    I find myself on a dark alley, lit only by the yellow lights from the lamp poles. It is littered with the garbage that comes as a natural symptom of any long-lasting contact with human activity. Together with the ominous large and abandoned buildings looming all around me, this place gives a REALLY bad vibe. Fuck.


    I mean, I always knew that this place was a bad neighborhood, but under daylight, everything looks a little bit better and a little less spooky.


    Even in the times when I left only a few hours earlier, there were still people around and a few shops still in the process of closing for the day. But now...


    A rat, bigger than my head, crosses the street with a flash of movement and a splash of garbage.


    Shit.


    I really should have left earlier.


    Anyways. Complaining won''t solve anything. I have to get to the main avenue so that I can take a nocturnal bus to my home.


    So, with my zero procrastination motto, I start walking.


    In little time I reach a corner, turn it and then keep walking a little more.


    Then I do it again. And again.


    15 minutes later, or 30, or a whole hour later - do ya get it? I have no idea how long - I suddenly reach drunken enlightenment.


    I am lost. And in the bad part of town. Crap.


    By now, the dirty paved streets and rundown buildings have given way to narrow village-like alleyways and small residential shacks. Very poor looking. Standing on a very slated ground. A decline.


    Oh. Ohhhhhh. I am inside a favela, ain''t I? Holy gods.


    A wrong turn and a small amount of overestimation on my drunken navigational skills, and ta-da!


    Rookie mistake, I know. A proper drunk should triple-check his every action lest he does dumb shit. I should have known better, from experience.


    But alas, I will not let this spoil the wondrous evening I''ve had.


    Regardless of what people say, the slums are not THAT bad. I know from experience. On my wild years I did all kinds of stuff, and entering a favela is not that high on my list of stupid-things-to-do


    As long as you are not a cop, does not look like a cop, isn''t a hot girl, does not dress like a prick, don''t carry or show a lot of money, don''t speak like a fuckin moron, and don''t, absolutely don''t, mess with the wrong people, you are set. Also, don''t react to robberies. If people ask for your things, just give them, for fuck''s sake.


    Actually, thinking about it, entering a favela is pretty high on my stupid-things-to-do list. I am a white guy who, indeed, looks like a prick.


    So giving up hubris, I stumble to a nearby wall and squat. I take off my phone from the pocket and try to use it to trace a route to my bus stop.


    I can''t see anyone on this alley, but still, people may pop up from the corners of this maze-like place at any time. Let''s hope I am not robbed.


    The phone lights up and in no time my map is opened and...If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.


    BIZZZZ!


    My phone lights up with sun-like intensity, blasting my retinas and electrocuting my hands holding it.


    FUUUUUCKKKKKKKK!!!


    IT HURTS!


    By now I''ve thrown my cellphone the farthest I could and am curled up on my corner, holding my throbbing hands.


    What the fuck just happened? That cellphone was no Samsung, to blow off like that!


    The pain is great, and when I look up I see stars where before there was none.


    Actually, just one. A bigass star. Flaring with strange colors that I have no name for. Growing larger and larger.


    Ah. I got it. It is not a star.


    Just as I come to the realization, the meteorite reaches me and bursts everything into pieces, all around me.


    But instead of the expected painful, burning death and brimstone, what I get is sudden stillness.


    The debris raised by the meteorite impact stop and hover mid-air. And what came from what I expected to be a meteorite happens to be a couple of weirdly dressed guys.


    One of them is dressed in red robes, a mix between those traditional brown catholic priest robes and the Chinese noble vests of old. Those you see on kung fu movies. He is an old man and his long grey beard makes him look like a wise scholar.


    The other''s clothes... I have no words to describe. To me, it looks like an amalgamation of colors, textures, and silks, all thrown together in a fashion that still allows for movement. In a way it is beautiful. On the other, it is actually a little bit intimidating and creepy. Kind of alien, just like the unnaturally beautiful face of the tall man wearing them.


    What the fuck was in that cacha?a you gave me Mr. Johnson?!


    But before I can spew any of my foul vocabularies, I suddenly stop.


    Not because I want to, but because something is making me. I don''t know how to describe, but it is a really weird and uncomfortable sensation. Saliva builds up on my open mouth and I think I am drooling a bit.


    The men slowly approach me, seemingly unconcerned with the floating stones around them or the increasingly obvious stream of saliva leaking from my mouth to the ground.


    Come on guys, this is disgusting. Notice me! And help me!


    But then I get the idea that maybe they are responsible for both of these supernatural things.


    Oh. Okay, but that really should not be possible, right? Right. Right?


    What the fuck is happening?


    They are talking between themselves in a foreign language as if I am not there. The red-robed one seems to be deferential to the other, looking almost as afraid as I am of him. Every ten of his words were matched by only a couple or so coming from the rainbow-dressed one.


    He looks as if searching for something, and when his eyes meet mine, I know he has found it.


    His eyes creep me. I can tell that he sees nothing more than a mound of flesh when he looks at me. There is absolutely no empathy in that look, no mercy or other soft things. It is a look harder than steel and sharper than a diamond.


    Eventually, the rainbow man approaches me, slowly.


    He looks down at my curled form with those emerald eyes of his, and while he does so, I fear.


    I fear more than I ever have in my life.


    And you should know, I have felt fear before. Not just physical fear.


    I mean, I have been at gunpoint more than once, on robberies and other cases of urban violence. But those are far from the worst fears I''ve felt.


    The worst fears are those that are so deep you can''t even properly describe where it comes from. It assaults you when you are least expecting and leave you a cold shivering mess.


    Way worse than fearing death... is fearing life. Fearing that no matter what you do with it, nothing will ever really change. That the universe is just as meaningless as you are. That death may, after all, be just what you are looking for, all this time.


    I have felt this before. I have felt it all the time, for the biggest part of my life. From my teenage years up until now, I have learned to grow numb to it and to fight it back, but now, on those green eyes...


    I see worst things. I feel a man that has felt all I have, and more. Oh, so much more.


    And the numbness. His has grown to become an all-encompassing avalanche. Death in life.


    So I fear. I fear all that I have yet to feel. I fear to one day, become like that.


    And he knows it.


    "Skjartin kur doustin."


    He says a phrase and it feels like an executioner''s sentence.


    With a lift of his finger, my body tenses and then floats up. I am raised midair, like a puppet.


    I am now eye to eye with him. It just makes everything worse.


    Fuck, fuck, fuck!


    He cups my paralyzed face, almost tenderly. And then, slowly, his hand slips down.


    Down.


    And down.


    And when it reaches my chest, then it comes.


    Lacerating pain. Sharp, wet and completely unbearable. And still, I can''t scream.


    The man''s hand has stopped lowering and started to dig. As if my flesh was mud, his hand sunk on the left side of my chest. It then stops, rotates a little, and comes out.


    With a heart.


    My heart.


    Oh.


    The man slight smile is the last thing I see, as everything starts to blackout and my body ceases to function.


    And then I am dead.


    Archmage Boros stared with wide eyes as the Warlock Xerxes Vash tore the young man''s heart out of his chest.


    That moment felt so... Powerful?


    More than a violent and brutal murder, the scene had looked almost artistic.


    There was a kind of softness in the Warlock''s movements, a ritualistic sense of weight.


    Seeing it, Boros was about to make yet another question, hoping that it became one of the few that the other man had felt worthy of a response.


    Before it, though, Xerxes clarified.


    "This individual is a suitable subject for the project I have promised to your King."


    He said that while looking intently to the bloody heart held by both his hands. Blood escaped between his fingers, trickling down his hands, into his magical robes and then down to the ground.


    "...High levels of mana sensitivity... Extreme degrees of Mana Starvation... And a surprisingly resilient constitution. Yes, this soul will be very suitable indeed..."


    And as he said that, a green flame erupted from his hands and consumed the heart. With a flash, it appeared and then went out.


    But when Xerxes finally opened his hands, what again appeared between them made the old Archmage let out a startled gasp.


    "A Soulstone?!"


    The bloody heart had become a translucent crystal with a sick greenish tint. Small, moving specks of light seemed to wander inside it.


    "That is correct Lord Boros."


    The answer was cold and monotone, as if of no consequence. The man didn''t even take his eyes from the crystal.


    "Fear not, although I''ve had quite a few enlightenments in the Path of Necromancy, I can assure I derive no pleasure from the less palatable workings of this art. It is a mere tool. One of the many I have at my disposal, and that will be of use in the project I am assembling for your King."


    The levity with which the man spoke about Necromancy just made everything more shocking. Xerxes Vash was known as a legendary Warlock, one of the most mysterious and powerful Paths known to man. Knowing he was also a Necromancer, which was also an elusive and extremely shunned Path, was mind-blowing.


    Though, if you consider the legends about him dating hundreds of years ago... It makes you wonder. He has certainly had the time... thought Boros.


    And that was just one of the many mind-opening moments that Boros had been having this night.


    From that scene in the King''s Throne Room, when he had been dismissed from the place together with all the nobles, everything was a mess.


    It all started in the middle of the night, with him being summoned by the King and receiving the order to accompany Xerxes on a mysterious project. He was told to supervise - more like spy - and render any aid needed - laughable as much as flattering, to think his King thought he could help a legendary figure like Xerxes Vash with anything.


    After that came the meeting with the surprisingly friendly Warlock and then being dragged into a flurry of magical motion even he didn''t understand: being teleported into a black room, feeling a mana maelstrom that would dwarf even the combined efforts of every spell he knew put together, a gaping, terrifying hole, and then...


    Boros shivered just thinking about the things he had witnessed to get to this strange place without an ounce of mana.


    How did people even live out here?


    That was just one of the many questions floating inside his mind. He would be forever scarred and marveled by the terrifying wonders he had seen while being dragged by the Warlock.


    It was only when Xerxes snapped his fingers and the young man''s corpse burst into flames that Boros woke from his reminiscence.


    "This will be enough from this place for now. We still have to gather a few materials from other planes, so it is better for us to get going."


    Xerxes cold voice made Boros scream inwardly.


    Other planes?


    Unbeknownst to the Archmage, this was going to be a very long night for him.

 Chapter 3 - Survivor

    Ugh...


    ...


    Ahhhh...


    Shit.


    Oh.


    Fuck.


    ... My head.


    It hurts.


    A lot.


    God.


    Thinking hurts.


    There is too much light.


    Everything is spinning.


    I want to throw up, but I can''t.


    I am on my back and can''t move any part of my body.


    It feels like when you sleep on your arm and then wakes up incapable of moving it. But instead of an arm, I have slept onto myself. My whole body feels dormant like that. It is weird, painful and uncomfortable.


    I can feel every part of my body waking up. Blood flowing in, warming my arms, legs, chest, and cheeks. It is like a billion ants crawling on my skin, organs and even bones. My lungs are painfully filling themselves with as much air as they can and then bellowing out carbon like a truck.


    After a long time, I manage to open my eyes.


    OUCH! Shitshitshit.


    Let''s not do that again. Ever.


    I will just keep still until it all goes away.


    Breathing in...


    Breathing out...


    Slowly...


    And then again...


    In...


    Out...


    Shit. It is not getting any better.


    What the fuck happened? The last thing I remember is... Bar Night! Oh yeah, I must have gotten really wasted yesterday... I''ve never had such a fucked up hangover. My body is so stiff that it feels like it was cold dead a few moments ago...


    Hahahaha...


    Haha... ha.


    That did happen, didn''t?


    And then the memories come to me. Getting lost in the favela. That star that turns out to be a meteorite that turns out to be a couple of guys flying down the stratosphere. Then the rainbow man. Those green eyes. Cold, merciless and yet so damn profound.This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Then his hand. Digging into my flesh. Pain. Humiliation. Rage. Despair.


    Epiphany... Death.


    Death.


    A single word. Five letters. So much trying to be contained into so little.


    And still, is there any number of words or letters that would be able to explain that feeling? To describe the realization of the end. Explain the full stop of life. Register the shift in perspective from being alive to being dead, undertaken in the few milliseconds between hope and despair. Tell about the psychological processes that take place simultaneously inside your mind, blowing every shred of rationality apart and seeking a way to cope with your new reality.


    And then all that being slashed apart and stopped by the cold, irresistible truth: you are already dead.


    There is... no way to describe all that. Not perfectly.


    So, in the end, ''death'' becomes a word as good as any other that the human mind can come up with. A testament of the true capabilities of humanity. Proof that some things we just can''t know. Shouldn''t know.


    The thing is...


    Now I know.


    It is with that thought that I realize I''ve stopped breathing for a while. Tears are bursting out of my closed eyelids and dripping down from my face to the ground. Ragged cries, like that of a strangled animal, come out from my chest, through my throat, and into the world. I cry.


    Like a newborn baby, I cry with all my strength and breath. I cry for what I''ve lost, the innocence I did not even know I had until it was gone. I cry for my death and the death of all that came before me. And then I cry for all that will still die. For the cruelty of reality that makes death come for all of us.


    And at that moment I am sure of two things. First, I am alive again, somehow. And second is the fact that I will never let myself die again. Ever.


    No matter what, I will survive.


    With this realization, it is as if a gate has opened inside my mind.


    A gate... to something greater.


    Some energy I did not even know I had flows between me and this great place. I don''t see it as much as I feel. But what I feel...


    It is the answer to everything.


    Time.


    Space.


    Life.


    Death.


    The instructions that weave reality.


    All the equations human science have labored to discover for millennia are contained there, I can feel.


    And more. Much more. Things that the human mind can''t even properly comprehend. Truths beyond defying.


    Everything contained into that place... that thing. It is universal. Unchanging and unbending. It recognizes me and basks in my awe. It knows me because I am too contained inside it. It acknowledges and approves what I know. And so it gives me more. Makes me more.


    More knowledge, more truths. Better than to say that it tells me things it would be to say that it makes me comprehend better things I already knew. To see what I couldn''t see and feel what I couldn''t feel.


    Somehow, I know what that is. It tells me. It is the Universal Truth. The source of all things undeniable. The ruler of all that is ruled. Reality condensed and described inside... something. And for discovering a part of it, for realizing an infinitesimal aspect of the whole, it is rewarding me.


    Enlightening me.


    Stay alive. Endure, it tells me.


    ...And then it is gone.


    The gate in my mind closes, and I am left gasping for air. It was so beautiful. So grand. So fulfilling. I want to see it again. To witness more. To know more. But no matter how much I wish, it is closed for now.


    The truth it showed me, however, remains.


    I can feel it suffusing every cell of my being. My body was told to endure, and so it shall.


    The pain, burning so brightly before, now feels like a ghost of what it was. Uncomfortable and annoying, but totally manageable. Endurable. So, slowly, I open my eyes again. The light still hurts, but not even remotely as it did before.


    I can see a dark, stone ceiling above me. It surprises me to know I am in some kind of cave. The blinding light I thought was coming from some scorching sun was actually from the cave''s opening, up above.


    Slowly, I rise. My aching body protests and cramps against me, but still I persist. First rolling into my belly. Then using my knees as leverage. Pushing back with my arms and then finally getting up on my feet, one before the other.


    And then I stand on all my naked glory. Despite being unconscious in some dirty cave for god knows how long, my body is as clean as if I had just left a half hour bath. My black hair is silky and untangled and there aren''t even boogers on my eyes.


    I look down to my chest and there isn''t even a scar where before the rainbow man had yanked my heart out. Only smooth, pink skin. Nevertheless, I know what happened. There is no amount of alcohol or hallucinations that can emulate what I have felt back then. It was real, I am sure of it.


    I take in my surroundings and wonder how I got here. It is a humid grotto. At my back, going down, there is a crevice with running water, descending down into darkness.


    Up above there is the small hole from where the light was coming, but I don''t think I can climb up there. The walls start to rise with some horizontal angle but soon become fully vertical and then, a few meters above - around 10 meters - circle again, forming a dome. Besides, the rocks are all full of mud, grime, and silt.


    Eventually, the truth settles in...


    I am trapped.


    And the only way I can go is down.


    Into the dark.

 Chapter 4 - Into The Rabbit Hole

    The cold air is heavy and leaves a strange taste in my mouth. All around me, the cave''s walls loom as if waiting for my decision. There is a certain kind of stillness in the air, the static type that precedes the discharge of change.


    I hesitate. All around me, there is darkness. The only light present in this place comes from the hole up above, in the stone ceiling. It is a crevice that lets me know I am not that far from the surface, but still, can''t reach it. It works as both a motivational factor and a disheartening development. So near and yet so far.


    By now I have tried to climb the walls to the surface multiple times, unsuccessfully, as I expected. The walls are slimy with moss and the angle is too vertical for climbing.


    The only other way I can go is towards where I am looking right now. But if around me there is darkness, what I am looking at could only be described as an abyss.


    The little amount of light coming from above that allows me to see myself and my surroundings is completely swallowed down into that path. The sound of running water, flowing through the gaps in the stone, also seems to disappear, further down there. Even the moss that infuriated me so much during the time I was trying to climb up the stones seems to avoid those clean, grey stones.


    And still...


    Why is it that I feel so attracted to that place?


    Ever since I''ve woken up in this cave, I have been feeling strange. It is not just the bizarre, supernatural circumstances that have brought me here. Nor just the strange, almost spiritual awakening I''ve had just now when remembering about my death. It isn''t even the unnatural freshness of my body, that seems to have forgotten about all my years of alcoholic abuse and sedentary lifestyle.


    No... there is also something else. A fundamental change. It is in the air I breath. It is on the stone floor I stand. And in the darkness that surrounds me. It is also inside me, and even more, it is down into that hole. That abyss.


    This thing, this energy, it fills me with jubilation, ecstasy, and something I can''t describe. Satisfaction. Yearning. A high stronger than that of any drug. It is as if I have fulfilled a goal I had been hoping for all my life, without even knowing. As if the gaping void that haunted me most of my life had finally been filled. A thirst quenched.


    It makes me smile. A genuine, happy smile. Something I thought I had forgotten how to do.


    And it also makes me want to abandon all caution and delve deep into that abyss, looking for the source of this energy, to take it for me and never have to worry about losing this feeling ever again.


    But the Survivor awakened in me says no. It advises caution above all. To think it through. To preserve my life, no matter what. It will help me endure and I will help it survive.


    And thus I hesitate.


    My situation is not pretty, I know. I''ve heard of stories of alpinists way better prepared than me trapped inside stone crevices and dying in environments very similar to mine. Be it from starvation, thirst, or injuries, death rarely fails.


    Fortunately, there is water here, so at least one of those deaths I can avoid. If any of what I''ve read in my life stands true, just water can get me through at least a few weeks. That doesn''t mean I will be strong enough to take action, however. I have no idea where I am, or if anyone is coming for me. I don''t even know if I should want people to find me. I sure as hell don''t want to see that rainbow man ever again. If he is the one that put me here, shouldn''t I strive to get away from here the fastest I can? Even if police found me, I don''t think they could do anything against someone that can survive orbital impact unharmed and then rip people''s hearts barehanded.


    Besides, I am naked. For now, the temperature is completely endurable, even nice, but I have no idea how it will be during the night. It may soon become cold enough that I will have problems without something to warm myself up.


    So, in the end, reason stands that I should take action. The thing is...


    This abyss goes down. Not straightforward, not upwards. Downwards.


    I think the chances I have of somehow ascending to the surface through that way are very, very slim. Most likely, from what I know of grottos, I will just end up facing even deeper holes and more maze-like pathways. Maybe I will even have to face bats, rare insects, reptiles or other strange critters...


    Oh. And that lights up a metaphorical lamp in my head. Critters may actually be a solution for my food problem.


    Usually, I would be the first one to scoff at the notion of eating insects or something like that. But now... it feels actually pretty natural. A very small thing inside the array of actions I would be willing to take to stay alive. Very, very small.


    I can still hear the echos of what I''ve experienced with that... enlightenment. Survive at all costs. Endure.


    If I focus on it I can hear even smaller murmurs... hints of something deeper, that keeps escaping between the fingers of my conscience when I try to grasp it.


    Fuck, look at that. When did I become such a... spiritual guy? Always an inbred atheist with a skeptical outlook of all things, now talking about an ethereal source of knowledge and power as if it was a natural thing. Just because it feels so... right.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    Currently, that is just one more thing in the long list of things I don''t understand. For now, I will just have to go along with it.


    I look up again and try to see the sun through the hole in the ceiling. I don''t quite manage to find it in the sky, but the light coming from it still seems pretty bright. I should have at least a few more hours of daylight before it starts to get dark.


    With that knowledge in mind, I decided I should use those hours to at least make a quick trip downwards, in order to gather more knowledge and ascertain the true nature of the abyss. Maybe it actually curves upward further down and my worries end up being for nothing.


    Yeah, right. As if life ever made things easy for me.


    Nevertheless, I have made my decision.


    So, preparing myself by taking a drink from the small water stream - hoping with all my strength that there isn''t anything bad on it - I start my descent.


    Within my first steps, the air grows heavier and colder. The walls start becoming narrower and the places where before there was the greenish of fungus are replaced by grey, hard stone. The little stalactites on the cave''s ceiling start to grow bigger and bigger, dripping occasional drops of water on my tense face.


    Soon, darkness envelops me fully and I have to start to use the walls for support and guide. Missing a step and falling by myself would be kind of embarrassing, even if there is no one seeing. Considering that I can''t even properly see the ground anymore, that is a very real possibility.


    After some time, surprisingly, the ground evens out. Patting my surroundings with my hands I recognize the markings of a tunnel. It seems the abyss was actually a slope leading to a straight tunnel. The passage is about my size, both in width and height, requiring only that I slightly lower my head to enter it. But before that, I stop.


    Looking backward, to the top of the slope I came from, I frown.


    That is the only source of light here. By now, the hole looks to be no bigger than a glowing golf ball, but it still offers a sense of direction.


    If I enter this tunnel, however, I will be truly walking blindly. I was never one to be scared of the dark, but still...


    Shit.


    Steeling myself, I resign to my previous decision. I have already determined that this is the optimal course of action for survival. Going back now would just be me sacrificing a chance of freedom for fear.


    So, touching both sides of the tunnel with my hands, I go ahead. Soon, I am relieved to sense that the tunnel is really straight, with no curves or side paths. If I need or want to go back, all I will have to do is turn around. There is no chance of me getting lost.


    Knowing that, my confidence is renewed and I forge ahead, confidently.


    Step after step, the minutes come and go, blurring into each other. After an unknown amount of time - an hour, maybe? - the terrain changes again. This time, the ground is actually going up.


    Excited about the prospect of approaching the surface, I dash ahead, only to find that the tunnel is also getting narrower. A little further and I start to have to crouch and then crawl on all fours.


    Just when the claustrophobic experience starts to get a little too much for me, I notice something that makes my heart skip a beat.


    Light!


    Up ahead, the tunnel seems to open up into some large cave complex. The angle I have is pointed to the ceiling, but the distance between the tunnel''s mouth and the top of the cave still seems to be far. Really high and far. The stalactites that were of the size of kitchen knives back where I woke up, looks to be of the size of trees up there.


    More importantly, though, is the fact that all of them look to be illuminated by some orange, constant light.


    Fuck yeah!


    Civilization!


    Could it be that I am inside a coal mine or something? Light usually means people, and the only kind of people that I can think of that dwells inside caves are... Well, miners.


    Other than that... Serial killers, maybe?


    Hahaha... Ha...


    There is no way there will be a serial killer at the end of this tunnel, right?


    My question, however, is soon answered by the visage that assaults my eyes as I reach the tunnel''s mouth and look down.


    Down into...


    ... What. Just... What...


    This.


    No way. No fucking way in hell.


    No. Just no.


    Fuck you.


    Fuck you, eyes of mine.


    So I crawl backward a few meters like a fucking scared cockroach and wait a few minutes. Am I hallucinating?


    After some time, I crawl up again. And what I see...


    No!


    What the fuck?


    There has to be something wrong with me.


    So I stay frozen there for a long time, absorbing everything I am seeing and hoping as hard as I can that somehow it all turns out to be a joke. When I feel that I''ve had enough and that what I am seeing is not going to change, I crawl away.


    Crawling backward, this time I go all the way down.


    Then, when I reach the straight tunnel, I stand up and turn around. Absentmindedly, I walk carelessly and mechanically, all the way back to the moss cave, where I woke up.


    When I reach there, I notice there is still light coming down the hole, albeit fainter. Then I just sit still, looking with a blank face to the running water.


    Hahaha...


    I guess I''ve found my answers about my newfound spirituality. I must be insane. Hopefully.


    Because the only other possibility is even worse.


    Do you doubt? Okay. So I will tell you what I saw there and you take your conclusions, all right?


    Long ears. Pointed outwards.


    Stub-like arms and legs. Skinny but with wiry strength.


    Rags for clothes, or none at all.


    Huge-ass noses. Like, really big and ugly.


    Do you see where I am getting at?


    No?


    Well, then there is more.


    Pointed teeth. Hairless heads. Creepy glowing red eyes. Clawed hands and feet. Green skin.


    Yep. That is right. Fucking goblins.


    Shit. I never thought I would say that word out loud.


    "G-O-B-L-I-N-S", I say.


    It sounds strange in my mouth. That word belongs to games and movies. Get the fuck back.


    Even worse, what I saw was not just one or two green fuckers, but a whole colony of them. The tunnel gave into one of the multiple holes on the ceiling of a huge chamber. Some kind of weird ventilation system, I suppose.


    Down there, there were torches. Lots of torches. Then there were disgusting mounds that were what I assume to be sleeping mats, made of moss, scraps, and other unidentified materials. Dozens.


    Most of those mounds had goblins sleeping on them. Only the few standing around gave me the apt description of what I was seeing.


    Fuck.


    Do you see? If what I saw is true and I am not absolutely insane, then it means that there is something seriously wrong with this place. Dangerously wrong.


    If any of what I''ve read, watched, and played about these creatures is right, they are vicious little assholes with a perchance for cruelty and raping.


    Maybe entertaining on fiction, but definitely not something I would ever want to see in real life, where they can actually hurt me. Or worse.


    I shudder. I am definitely not getting raped in this place. No way in hell.

 Chapter 5 - Routine

    Once there was a man who lived in a time when the world was young and the people younger still. Among his tribesman he lived and with them he hunted.


    In one of such hunts, however, he was felled by fang and claw. Pain, blood, damnation, and rage. In but a few moments, his before pleasant life was reduced to suffering and betrayal, as his once companions turned their backs on him and his festering leg. Wrong, they admitted. Needed for survival, they justified.


    Alone, in pain and blood, he cursed. He did not understand. He could not understand. And so he endured. Day and night, crawling for cover, hiding from danger, sustaining nature''s abuse.


    But not for long. First, the Hunger came. It struck like a bull''s horn, carving a hole in what was steady. Then the Thirst, draining the will of all that was sure. When Disease arrived, bringing oblivion with it, all that remained was a husk of what was once a man. If anything outlasted it, only Insanity would claim it, he thought.


    It was in his last moments that Enlightenment and Truth came for him. His clear mind and pure heart were rewarded with true Endurance. A Survivor he became, and with it came understanding. Pain, Hunger, Thirst, Disease or Insanity, no more those mattered as much as the willingness to do what was needed.


    It was with one leg missing he got back to his tribe, after a few days. His hunting companions he met, and it was as if nothing had happened that friendship was built again. Never he spoke anything about what had happened, and no grudge he ever held. Because now, he understood. For he too, was a Survivor.


    .......


    With a start, I wake up. Sweat covered my body as the echoes of my actions as a primitive hunter haunted my thoughts. The pain of severing one''s own leg was still fresh.


    Oh, great. Another one. These days it seems as if I can''t get peace even in my dreams.


    Every night, I dream of being a different figure. Themes vary, but in the end, one thing remains always the same: they are tales of people enduring terrible things, and after all of it, surviving.


    I guess I could consider these dreams as being motivational, given my similar circumstances. It''s just that... It is all too much. All their sufferings, together with what I am already experiencing... All these things are taking their tolls on me.


    Today, it completes a week since I first woke here in the Moss Cave, as I have come to call it. It also marks seven days from the day I found my way to the Goblins Cave. Since then... My world seems to have been getting progressively dark.


    I feel my body and mind withering, even if the hunger that should consume my inwards is unnaturally absent. It is just an echo of what it should be, like if I was just a few hours without eating, instead of the full day it really is. The same goes for the cold I should feel every night when I sleep on this humid stone floor, or the pain from the gash I got in my arm when trying to climb the moss walls one last time.


    By now, after all those dreams, I have understood. That epiphany I had when I remembered my death opened a door in my mind to something spiritual. Some kind of mother nature entity. That which called itself "Universal Truth". Or that I named. I am not sure.


    Just like all those people, it has deemed me a... Survivor. Whatever that means. What I know, is that when it did it, it also changed me. Fundamentally. Both in body and mind.


    I can feel in my bones. What should be unbearable to me, no longer will. It frightens me. Something powerful enough to change me like that. Invasive. It brings me memories of that man. The one that killed me.


    I feel tired. Maybe this is the inevitable effect of not consuming food for this long, even with the supernatural aid I have now. The joy that the energy all around the cave filled me with is no longer that strong. It is actually starting to bother me, making me feel as if I was underwater or something. Bloating.


    I miss home. My soft bed and covers. My warm shower. My gaming console. Alcohol.


    Nevertheless, I rise. Lamenting won''t solve anything. Up in my feet, I start the routine I have been building for myself. The world may have gone crazy, but my motto stays the same: routine and diligence.


    First I pick up the sharp stalactite I have made for myself five days ago. I got it by kicking one of them loose from the ceiling of the entrance to the tunnels, down into the abyss. After getting it, I sharpened its point by rubbing it on the ground.


    I have been using it to... Write into the ground. I suppose the right word would be to scratch the ground, but come on, that would make me look like some sort of savage. The fact is that I have been using it to mark my days here. Every day, when I wake up, the first thing I do is to write a vertical line into the ground, near the wall.


    I I I I I I I


    There, done. Seventh day.


    After that, my routine consists of dragging myself to the small underground stream, drinking water, bathing, and then doing as many pushups and situps as I can manage.


    Why, you ask?


    During my first days here, I was at a loss about what I could do, trapped in this cave. The only possible way out, through the tunnel, gave in into a room full of goblins. There was no way in hell I would try to force my way through there. I had no idea if the pathway I saw the goblins coming and going from was a path to the surface, to another colony of green-shits, or even if it was a dead end. That aside, I am pretty sure that those fuckers were going to swarm over me as soon as they saw me. Not something I would want to see. There is no amount of mythical endurance that would make the sedentary phone attendant Jack Coast win any kind of physical conflict against anyone. Especially not against a swarm of anyones. Not a chance.


    So, that made climbing the hole in the ceiling the only sensible hope of me getting out of here. Which I couldn''t do.


    Thus, me trapped here.


    In this situation, focusing on staying alive and sane was the last option I had. Maybe something would change, or someone would find me.


    And that is why I decided to start working out. There was a very small array of things I could do to keep myself sane while naked, alone and trapped in a cave. Working out was one of the few that could actually improve my situation. If I was stronger, more dexterous, and leaner, maybe I could even climb the hole after cleaning up the moss.


    That aside, having a few more muscles could not hurt if the goblins actually found out I was here. Looking down from the tunnel mouth to their room, back then, I was pretty sure that climbing from their positions to my tunnel would be pretty easy for them. Their skinny, wired bodies indicated them to be natural climbers. Besides, there were a lot of handholds and crevices in the stone wall leading up there, making the climb itself very easy. Maybe even I could do it.


    Also, working out, something I had always found to be extremely boring, happened to be the very gratifying when the other pastimes you had mostly consisted of looking at a stone wall wondering how old it was. I was actually starting to understand why prisoners were usually so ripped when they got out of jail.


    At first, I was worried that I might not be able to do it due to the unusual diet I was undergoing here. Or maybe even that doing it could be harmful to my body, since I wasn''t really ingesting most nutrients needed to replenish my losses from the workout. Fortunately, the dreams I had every day dissuaded those fears very quickly. Once I understood the strange things that were happening to my body I came to the conclusion that working out would not be that big of a deal. Let''s just say that, to survive, I experienced people doing things much more physically draining.


    I shiver from the memories.


    It was thinking about those things that I managed to complete my exercises. Today, surprisingly, I did 50 pushups and 200 situps.


    Wow.


    I mean, it is not that much, but the thing is that before waking up here I think I would not have been able to complete even a tenth of that. And now, every day I am able to push myself a little further, which shouldn''t happen either, I am sure. I went from 10/40 to 20/80, 30/120, 40/160 and now 50/200, in the five days I have been doing the exercises. I am pretty sure that is not how strengthening one''s own muscles should work. Maybe this ?Endurance? of mine is helping, but even then...The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    Well, no matter. I guess I should just be thankful that at least one thing is going right in my life.


    Following ahead with my routine, I prepare myself to eat my breakfast. Approaching the cave''s wall, I start to look for the chubbiest pieces of moss hanging around. Scraping here and there and soon I have a handful of green mass in my hands.


    It does not smell nice. And it definitely doesn''t taste good. After eating only that for a whole week, I may be considered a kind of specialist on this matter. Unfortunately, moss ended up being the only food I managed to find both in this cave and in the tunnels. I have been trying to eat as little as possible, considering that I don''t know if it will do any harm to my health. I also have to make it last for as long as I manage since once I run out of it, I will be truly fucked. Due to those reasons, I have been eating only once per day. Namely, at breakfast. Like now.


    Urgh.


    Suppressing a sigh, I shove the disgusting mass up into my mouth. It is mushy, bitter and sticky, but eventually, I manage to eat it all.


    It was not much, but together with ?Endurance?, it manages to abate my hunger and even make me feel satisfied.


    Mildly satisfied.


    After cleaning my hands and mouth in the stream I prepare for the final I start the last activity of my planned routine. Namely, surveying the goblins.


    To do that, I go down into the dark abyss, facing the unpleasant odors of the piss and shit I have been taking here, away from where I sleep. Then I enter the tunnel that leads to the Goblin Cave, taking my sharp stalactite with me, just in case.


    After doing this same route daily for the last few days, I show no hesitation while walking through the dark. With unerring steps, it takes about 20 minutes for me to reach the narrowing upwards slope that leads to the Goblins Cave. When I reach it, I immediately crawl on my all fours and slowly creep up the slope.


    Even though now I have done this half a dozen times, the visage of the goblins still makes my heart beat faster. They are the material, undeniable proof that something is wrong with this place. Maybe something... Magical.


    They are ugly, they look dangerous, they smell even from up here and still...


    Looking at them still brings wonder to my heart. Sure, they scare the crap out of me, and every time I come here I try to stay frozen like stone, hoping with all my strength that none of them manage to see me. But seeing them is not that different to me from seeing a freaking unicorn, or a majestic dragon. Like those, they should be impossible.


    Back when I first saw them, I was in denial. Multiple thoughts crossed my mind, but the sum of them could be simply described as the fear of the unknown. But now, after several days and much thinking, I had already accepted the fact that I was surrounded by precisely that. Unknown. There was no denying it.


    Unknown place, unknown body, unknown dreams, unknown feelings... The list went on.


    I had made my theories, of course. Considering the rainbow man and his partner had come flying from the sky, I could be dealing with aliens. Fuck me, I can''t believe I am even thinking about this.


    But there are reasons. Every single thing that happened to me since I met with those men could only be described as otherworldly. Maybe they had killed me, transported my body to some place and then used some kind of super-technological medicine to bring me back to life. That would also explain why I awakened inside such a fresh body, without even a hint of any of the scars I had.


    They could also have brought me to their world. Maybe I was in some distant planet, being used as some human guinea pig for some grand scientific experiment. Oh yes, that would suck.


    Maybe the goblins were experiments as well. Maybe they were just as confused as me.


    As I said, I just don''t know. For now, I could only go with the flow and focus on staying alive.


    One thing, though, was undeniable: those green creatures down there evoked in me a sense of wonder I had forgotten a long time ago. Maybe since my childhood. They made me want to believe in magic and fairies again, to think I could be some hero that vanquishes evil and is celebrated through all lands as a savior.


    They also made me think of all the games I had played in my life and wish I was inside one of them. If I was inside a game I would be some super powerful warrior who could just jump down there, swing my sword a few times with cries of courage and rage, and then transform those fuckers into experience points that would only make me even stronger. I wouldn''t even feel any fear, as any mistake I committed would be fixable by a simple reload of a previous checkpoint.


    Ah. How great that would be.


    In reality, all I was was some naked dude stalking goblins from the shadows. Too afraid to do anything but too entranced by their novelty to turn away.


    This curiosity, however, had already rewarded me with some knowledge about them.


    After watching them for a whole week, I had gathered that this room I was seeing was actually some kind of infirmary. Or at least a place where wounded goblins came to. I had not noticed any of them being taken care of by anyone, but it was a fact the most of the creatures inside the room had at least one kind of wound.


    Missing legs and arms, head bleeding, broken bones, missing eyes, and all other kinds of injuries: I had seen it all.


    It made me speculate about how they were getting those wounds. I mean, even if there was some kind of natural predator inside these caves, like a bear or something, you would expect their wounds to follow some kind of pattern related to what they were facing. But that did not happen here: there were scratches, limbs cut cleanly, bite marks, puncturing wounds, purple bruises and abrasions, burn marks, broken legs, and many other conflicting injuries.


    They also all carried one kind of weapon or another, all crafted from primitive material and skills. Bone clubs, stone daggers, leather slings, and wooden pikes were the most common, but some also held other more exotic weapons and things I did not recognize.


    There were 31 sleeping mats, and 27 goblins resting on them. I had counted day after day, and this number only varied slightly.


    That didn''t mean that the goblins there did not change, though. On the contrary, I could notice that each goblin only stayed there a few days, at most. This happened because they had a surreal recovery speed. Even the gruesomest of wounds I had seen there were healed in no more than 3 days. One day a specific goblin had a severed arm bleeding buckets of blood and 2 days later he was sporting a closed stump while waving a bone club around with his other remaining arm. In the next day, he was gone. Surreal, as most things I saw here.


    Another interesting thing I observed was that they had a lunchtime. For creatures that did not seem to communicate beyond sharp grunts and crude mimics, they were oddly punctual about that.


    At around midday, an extremely loud horn always sounded and every capable goblin got up and hurried to the only exit the cave had. Only the most wounded goblins and the ones with leg injuries stayed, grumpy and sad looking by being left behind.


    The first time I saw that, I thought that maybe they were gone for good. After waiting for about an hour, though, I was greeted by slowly moving goblins coming back to the room with bloody mouths and swollen bellies. Some were even burping.


    You may think that I would have felt jealousy in seeing those foul creatures eating like pigs while I fasted - because I did a little - but mostly what I felt was mild terror. Those wicked and sharpened teeth all stained with fresh blood while the creatures happily grinned gave cold shivers. All I could think when I saw that was how much they would like if that was my blood.


    Today I did not wait to see that again. After watching them for what must have been an hour, the horn sounded. This time almost all goblins went to get their food, and only four creatures stayed behind. Three of them had leg injuries and the other was too badly wounded, overall. I fantasized a little about going down there, fighting my way through those few handicapped midgets, but in the end, I just crawled back into my tunnel.


    I had only gotten into a few fights in my whole life, and all of them as a young teenager. I had absolutely no confidence in pitching my life against creatures that actually did it for a living, with real killing tools. Besides, I had no idea of where I should go after going through these goblins. I mean, the only real path out was towards where that little green army had gone to eat. That did not give me confidence in my odds of actually surviving a trip there.


    It was with those depressing, hopeless thoughts that I went back to my Moss Cave. All I could do was to focus on my survival and live day after day.


    .......


    Pain.


    I wake up.


    More pain. My head is killing me.


    I get up and look around.


    Everything seems to be dancing to some silent song, flowing into a neverending rhythm and mocking me while doing it. Like if everything was underwater and waves shook my very core.


    The sound of the slowly flowing water of the cave''s stream reaches my ears as an acute grating string of wails.


    The light from above enters my eyes like a laser-powered beam, engraving stars into my vision and eliciting a yell of pain from me.


    I kneel. My limbs are shaking. I feel as if I had put together into a mug the powder of the strongest coffees of the world and then watered it down with freaking energetic before gulping it all down in one go. Then I had snorted a whole kilogram of cocaine.


    Holy fuck!


    The high!


    I feel as if I am going to explode.


    "AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH¡ª¡ª!!!"


    Yelling does not help. I jump up and down, like an excited child on drugs, but it doesn''t help either.


    Without me even noticing, I am on the ground, doing pushups like a maniac.


    10, 20, 40, 80, 100!


    I am soon hurting even more, with arms burning like torches, but the feeling doesn''t go away. My heart is beating like a jackhammer, and I fear I may soon have a heart attack.


    Fuck, fuck, fuck!


    Do something, do something!


    Is this a panic attack?


    Before I realize, I am down into the tunnels. What is happening?


    I don''t feel in control. This is madness!


    I shouldn''t go this way!


    But in the end, the will of something inside me is stronger. It wants freedom. It wants to breath fresh air and experience all that this world has to offer. To let go of all pressure and discharge into the world the true potency it holds within it.


    And I can''t deny its wish. So I go where it wants to go, even if rationality screams "No!" at me.


    In my frenzy, within what feels like seconds I have covered the whole extension of the tunnels. Upon reaching the upwards slope, I crawl up on all my fours, like a beast, and don''t even stop when reaching the hole''s upper mouth.


    And then I go down. Hard.


    The pain of the 8 meters fall doesn''t even register inside my mind.


    I am down there.


    With the goblins.


    Even drowning inside this feverish madness that imbues every inch of my being, I can''t help but let out that one meaningful word.


    "Fuck."

 Chapter 6 - First Blood

    I am dead.


    That was the only thought that blazed through everything else inside my mind as I truly realized what I had done. Jumped to my death.


    Not death by fall, mind you. Death by dozens of bloodthirsty goblins, more like it. Even the euphoric frenzy that drove me to do such a stupid thing was frozen solid by the cold fear that enveloped me as I realized that.


    That cold clarity, however, also allowed me to actually look up and take in my actual surroundings.


    And what I saw almost made me cry. From relief.


    It was lunchtime.


    The horn must have sounded at some point while I was frenzying in my cave. Usually, I would have known, since the sound was quite loud and its echoes reached even the Moss Cave, but during my euphoric state, it must have gone completely over my head.


    The majority of the goblins must have gone to feed themselves. Right now there were only four startled creatures looking at me with raised ears akin to that of spooked cats. I might even have had found the scene funny if four was not four more goblins than I could handle by myself.


    Still, it was a remarkable improvement from "certain death by 20 plus goblins". Even if it was probably only to "likely death by exactly 4 goblins".


    Those thoughts all passed through my mind in less than a few seconds, and as soon as they were gone, the hot madness from before took over again.


    Must.


    Get.


    Out.


    Fuck. What is this shit? My body burns like a 45¡ãC degree fever and I feel like my entrails are burning. The rush I have to get out of here is an enhanced version of the one you get when you have a sudden attack of diarrhea inside a crowd. Except I have no anus and no idea of how to take a dump.


    Don''t laugh. It is not funny.


    At the same moment my frenzy came back, so did the battle instincts of the feral beasts in front of me. Two of them immediately rose to their feet, readying themselves to circle me. One other started to crawl towards me, as his legs were both messed up down from his knees. The last one didn''t even move. He just kept staring at me with huge eyes and completely messed up body. Both his arms and legs were mangled beyond recognition as if they had been chewed by a giant.


    The two, less wounded ones that were slowly trying to circle me only had injuries on their feet, with missing parts. Probably bitten off.


    Unfortunately, one of them was also between me and the exit.


    My pounding head, incapable of rational thought, only managed to give me a single answer for this dilemma:


    Push through this fucker right now! You have to get out of here!


    And so I did that. Using my superior physique and whatever I was holding on my right hand ¡ª oh wait, it is my sharp stalactite! ¡ª I rush at this particular goblin, planning to swipe my tool while simultaneously doing a body slam.


    Rushing, I think the sudden ferocity given by the frenzy surprised even the goblins. It certainly startled me.


    Hah. That will teach him a lesson.


    Take this you fu¡ª!!!


    Oh.


    A sharp pain in my abdomen pierces through even my euphoria and makes me fall to my knees.


    "AAARRGHHH!"


    Looking down, there is a long, thin red line starting from my navel all the way to my back. It slowly gets redder and redder until blood starts to seep out from it. In but a few moments, it has become a large gash, pouring blood down like the red curtain that signals the end of a piece.


    I drop my stalactite and use my hands to try to hold the blood inside. It doesn''t help. The blood trickles between my fingers and keeps dripping into the ground. Unceasingly.


    Soon my hands are a red, grisly mess and so is all the right side of my body.


    Oh no. I am going to die? Please, no, not again! Tears form in my eyes.


    What had I been thinking? I am a phone attendant, for god''s sake! Not some fighter or soldier.


    These creatures, however...


    They are monsters. Every day there are dozens of them here, with battle wounds. They have probably fought every day of their lives. Killing machines.


    I look back. All three of the ones that were moving are now close to me. Way too close.


    They are looking at me, down into the ground. The one who hurt me didn''t even move from the place he was. He has just turned to the place I fell while looking like the happiest goblin alive. The glee in his eyes creeps me as much as the bloody knife he brings to his mouth to lick.


    Tasting my blood.


    The wicked smile he gives afterward, tells me he has liked my taste.


    Fuck.


    The other two join him and start emitting sharp, guttural noises. They are laughing.


    Yeah, laugh away. I am a fool.


    Rushing like that at an armed individual used to fighting was sheer stupidity. I can''t even fully blame the frenzy I was under. There was a small, naive part of me that actually thought that I may have succeeded. Been a hero.


    In the end, all he did was to sidestep my body slam and leave his thin knife steady on my path. I wounded myself on it and my stalactite swipe went over his head, hitting only air.


    Hahaha... ridiculous.


    The other two goblins now seem to have given up their share of me, in some tribalistic agreement that gave the rights to the goblin with the knife. They back off and watch from afar.


    By now I am lying down in a pool of my own blood, on my back. The winner, limping over to me with his half-eaten feet, approaches me and raises my head by my hair. With my empty hands holding in my entrails, I must look a sorry figure. Harmless.


    As he raises his dagger to cut my throat, I ponder on the facts that the creature has missed.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    Jack Coast may be a simple, depressed phone attendant. He may also fight like a freaking child and be dumb as a rock. But there is also another thing he is...


    He is a Survivor. And he is in a fucking frenzy.


    Focusing on the burning insanity that placed me here in the first place, I let go of my slipping entrails and swiftly use my hands to grab him. With one hand, I lock the wrist of his dagger wielding hand and with the other, I grab his throat.


    He resists, but I am stronger and bigger. There is no skill needed here. Just brutal, primitive strength. With a grunt of effort, I am on top of him and his dagger hand is pressed to the ground.


    Another grunt and I have raised his head by the neck. His clawed left-hand try to scratch my eyes out, but I am relentless. I don''t stop, only turning my face and letting him gouge the side of my head all he wants.


    Guiding and steadying his dagger wielding hand up, I swear. Then, with a roar of rage, I push down his raised head. The back of his cranium is hammered down, hard, into the knife held by his own right-hand. Once, twice, thrice.


    When I am done, his red eyes have popped out of their sockets, pressured from behind by the bloody mess I made out the back of his head.


    His left-hand claws made a mess of the right side of my face, I can feel. Bloody gouges crisscross from under my left eye to my cheeks.


    But I am alive.


    Standing up, I pull the entrails that hanged loosely from the wound on my right side back inside.


    Looking toward the other two goblins, I see they have stopped laughing. They don''t look impressed, but they are narrowing their eyes as if assessing how much of a threat I am.


    I don''t give them time.


    Grabbing the dead goblin''s dagger, I rush at the other goblin that is standing. This time I actually think about what I am doing. This goblin only has a bone club as a weapon. Even if he hits me with it, I can probably take one or two blows. All I have to do is grab him during this time. They can''t win from me on a strength contest.


    And so, as I rush him, I don''t try to slam him into the ground. Instead, I go for a grab.


    As I come, he swings his club on a horizontal arc and it catches my left shoulder. I hear a crack and I think something may have broken there, but I keep going.


    Soon, I am inside his range of attack and as he tries to back off, I give him a one-armed hug. With my other hand, I shove my dagger inside his belly. Once, twice, thrice... And more.


    Until a sharp pain on the back of my leg makes me remember there was another moving goblin, the one crawling around with fucked up legs.


    He bits a chunk of my calf off and then tries to use his claws to climb into my back.


    I don''t let him.


    Using my uninjured leg to kick him away, I grab for the dying goblin''s club and use it to retaliate.


    Holding the bone with both hands, the last thing the crawling goblin sees is my raging face as I bash his skull into a pulp.


    I only stop when the grey matter of his brain splashes on my face and I realize all the moving goblins are dead.


    They are dead.


    And I am alive.


    This realization opens the floodgates of my eyes, as tears come to my face and drop to the ground, unceasingly.


    But more importantly, it also opens a different gate.


    A gate to the Universal Truth. The same feeling I had when I first awakened here.


    And as it opens, Ifeel the burning madness that consumed me and guided me to do all these things leave through that path. The gatewelcomes itand transformsit into part of itself. And as a reward for me, itshows me more truths about things that I already knew but did not truly understand.


    Now I see it. Suffering should not be avoided. To survive is to suffer. So suffer. Suffer knowing that eventually, everything can be regained. Everything can be recovered from. Everything can be regenerated.


    And suddenly I know that all those wounds I have suffered will not kill me. Nor any other wounds I may suffer from now on. Death is the only true enemy and I will always thrive against it. No matter what.


    And it also shows more things about myself. Things that I may have always had inside myself. Once forgotten, now brought to light.


    For Fighters, fighting is a gift. It should not be avoided, but instead, embraced. For them, it is as important as the air they breathe, the water they drink and the food they consume. It is the fuel of their souls and the language with which they speak. Without it, they are not complete. They are less.


    Hidden as it may be, the Fighter inme is unmistakably alive. For that, I should rejoice. Losemyself intomy art and speak the languageI was born to expressmyself with.


    Realizations strike me like punches, one after the other.


    And after I recover from them, more come.


    Fighting is natural. As much as walking or breathing, everyone knows it. Knowledge may be hidden, but never truly forgotten. And so remember I shall.


    With this one, a flood of information surfacesinside my mind. As if a dormant part of me had suddenly awakened.


    Dear god...I blanch as I realize what has appeared inside my mind.


    The knowledge should make me happy, as itrevealed to me that I will survive even these grisly wounds all over my body.


    The reality, however, is that it just makes me feel hollow.


    I am spent.


    Without the frenzy, that I understand now, was caused by the accumulated energy inside my body, I am void. Like back then, on my daily job, my daily drinking, my daily drudgery.


    The pain of my wounds came back multiplied, and everything hurts. I just want to lie down and sleep.


    But I can''t. Now, more than ever, I have to survive. It is just who I am now. An inseparable part of me.


    So I rise. Covered in blood, both mine and of the green creatures, I look around.


    I had almost forgotten about the last, fourth goblin. He is still in the same place as when I first fell here. Invalidated as he is, he couldn''t have moved even if he wanted. Which, looking at his scared, trembling face, I am not sure he wanted.


    I limp toward his mangled body, made of twisted limbs and exposed flesh. He is currently laying on one of those sleeping mounds of theirs, resting his back on one of the cave''s stone walls.


    As I approach, he grows restless. Trying to get away from me, he twists right and left, but his limbs don''t seem to answer to him. Eventually, his body loses balance and falls to the ground, awkwardly.


    Reaching him, I raise the bone club high and prepare to¡ª


    What? Murder him? Bash his skull in as I have done with his friends?


    I look around again.


    What was before a resting place, even if a dirty and smelly one, is now a veritable slaughterhouse. There is blood everywhere. The stench, that before was the same sweaty one you could smell from homeless people and dirty animals, was now akin to putrefaction. Entrails, loose organs, brain matter, bone splinters, intestinal juices and all sorts of other terrible wastes were strewn around. The corpses of two of the goblins couldn''t even be identified and the one who got killed by the gut wounds laid with a terrified facial expression on its face, frozen forever into that way. I didn''t know which one was worse.


    And then I look back at the twisting, terrified creature on my feet. His eyes were watering like waterfalls, and he was making sobbing sounds that sounded like a child crying. Looking at his wet rags, I was also pretty sure he had pissed himself.


    God. What the fuck am I doing?


    Disgusted with myself, I approached him one last time. Picking up his terrified body up, I propped him back on the cave wall. Then I took the fabric scraps that made up their beddings and gathered it around him, to make him feel more comfortable.


    The creature seemed surprised and stopped crying once I let go of him without doing any further harm. It is a sad thing. He must never have been treated with anything but harshness.


    Turning my back to it, I prepare myself to climb back to my hole, up there, near the ceiling. Looking around, I decide to take these weapons with me. The dagger and the bone club had both been instrumental to my survival here. They could be needed again.


    So, I throw both things up there, on the hole, and then try to climb up with my empty hands.


    It turned out to be a quite simple climb, even if made excruciatingly painful by the multiple wounds accumulated in my body.


    Thankfully, the ?Endurance? I had been givenwhen first arriving here allowed me to ignore the pain and focus on the task at hand.


    The shoulder, which I had suspected to be broken, had only been dislocated. At first, it stopped me from climbing, but then all I had to do was put it together in place. I had done that before, in one of those terrible survival dreams I had been having. Now I was glad I had them. It seemed they were useful, after all.


    Once I got up there, I immediately dove back into the tunnels. It was only a few moments later that I heard the commotion and roars of rage as the goblins came back to the cave from lunch.


    Just in time.


    After that, it wasall a blur. All I know is that at some point of that day, I was back inside my Moss Cave.


    I would like to say that it was a victorious return, accompanied by a feeling of satisfaction and relief. But the truth couldn''t be farther from it.


    It was a crying, broken man that slept on that cold stone floor that day. Covered in blood, both his own and that of others, he couldn''t help but wish, at least a little, that he had died back there. Because at least then, he would not feel that terrible, oh so terrible guilt.


    It was not guilt born simply by the things he had done, the living, thinking creatures he had killed.


    On no.


    It was much worse.


    What made me feel so terrible, so monstrous was knowing, deep down, how much...


    I had liked doing it all.

 Chapter 7 - Character Sheet

    That day, I did not dream with survivor tales nor anything magical.


    No.


    On that day, when I closed my eyes, all that I saw was blood. My blood. Their blood. Blood of people I did not know and blood of people I had met before in my life.


    Screams, pleads of mercy, and cries of despair echoed inside my head composing an unending requiem of death. Endless killing. I tried to stop, but my hands moved by themselves. My stained soul did not forgive me as much as theirs didn''t. That was all I could manage to think as I butchered every face I had ever seen in my life, one after the other. I felt my pain and then I felt their pain, but still, it was not enough to pay for what I was doing to all those people. Despairing, all I could do was to look inside those sparkling eyes and ask for forgiveness I knew I wouldn''t get.


    I remember, blurrily, waking up a few times between those nightmares, to drink water or consume some of the moss around me. Moved by habit, my body even scratched lines on the ground with my new dagger, signaling the passing of days. The pain from all my wounds was terrible, but I could easily push through it. My mind, however, was simply a mess.


    I may have had a fever, because the feeling I was suffering from was very similar to it, you know? That weakness that makes you want to sleep all day. It disarrays all kinds of structured thought andpunishesyou with waves of pain when you try to fight against it.


    It was only today, after three days - if the marks on the groundcould be trusted - that I have woken up feeling like myself again. I still have some minor headaches, but overall, I am much better. My bodily wounds, unsurprisingly, have miraculously closed. After the surge of information that entered my mind back there after I... defeated... those goblins, I know why it happened.


    Since I got here in this cave, all those strange things have been happening and I have been pretending to not notice the parallels they have with things I actually understand. And all this time, in the back of my head, my conscience has been screaming at me all those similarities. Fighting against it all, I have been just telling myself: That is not possible, right?


    But now, as I get up and use the water from to stream to look back at my reflection, I ponder.


    The claw scars given to me by the first goblin I killed crisscross from my eye down to my cheek, all the way to my jawline. The pudgy fat I had under my chin is completely gone, together with any softness my face may have had. My eyeslook deep,having gained dark contours and a brownish glint - maybe from all those days without eating real food. My bony cheekbones give you the impression of a hardened and dangerous man. Looking down, even my body, always soft, is now shaped and strong looking. Together with the numerous scratches and the white horizontal scar that circles the right side of mystomach, it all makes me feel like another person.


    Altogether, what I see is very similar to what an edgy young videogame player might want his character to look like. A role-playing game character, maybe.


    Hahaha...


    Shit.


    Isn''t it just too much? I have been trying to pretend I have not noticed how much this all looks like those games I have played before, but everything seems to lead me back to this point. And the information that flowed inside my head when I killed those goblins was the last straw.


    The first time it happened, when I had just woken up inside this cave, I just shrugged away the experience as a one-time spiritual awakening or some similar bullshit. I ignored what it had told me and had made me feel in order to keep my sanity. On the days following that, as I realized the changes that had been made to my body, I just accepted it as part of the mysterious situation I am in.


    But now. Now I can''t deny it any longer.


    This all looks like a fucking game.


    A very cruel, dangerous, bloody and hardcore game. Exactly the kind of game I would love to play back in my place, but definitely not something I would want to live into.


    When I got here, that thing told me I was a Survivor, like if it was a game Class or something. Then it told me I could understand about enduring things, and therefore should be rewarded with ?Endurance?.


    It is just me, or doesn''t that sound like a fucking Skill reward?


    And then, after I kill those goblins, I get rewarded again.


    Fuck you. That is a Level Up! From killing things! What kind of sadistic shit is this? That shouldn''t happen in real life!


    And then I get another Survivor Skill, which the game tells me is called ?Regeneration?. Because, supposedly, I understood about sacrificing my flesh and mind for survival - and surprise! It allowed me to heal from those grisly wounds I got while fighting. That was why I knew I would live.


    But it didn''t stop there. Right after that, it gave me another class, called Fighter.


    Hahahahaha! As if. Me, a fighter?


    As if hearing my thought, the game shut me up by giving me another skill. ?Unarmed Combat?, it told me it was called.This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    And it was in that moment, with a brain-frying surge of information, that I knew for sure this was a game. Because then I really became a fighter.


    Stances, flowing forms, exercises, wrist locks, kicks, punches and many other fancy moves I had no names for. I knew it all. Techniques people should take years to master were all simply wired into my brain, like a fucking cheat sheet.


    If this wasn''t a game, nothing made sense anymore.


    After coming back to my Moss Cave and recovering from those wounds which should have killed normal people without medical treatment, I am even more sure of this fact. ''How?'', ''Why?'', ''Where?'', those questions were not as important as that single realization. Because knowing this was a game freed me in the same amount as it distressed me. It may be a dangerous and cruel game, but every game had to be winnable, right?


    And I always win my games.


    So it was towards that goal, that I was now doing for myself what every proper game should have:


    A character sheet!


    Making for myself another sharp stalactite,as I had lost my last one in the goblin infirmary, I prepared myself to write my stats down.


    It was with my own hands and a stalactite that I wrote down all I knew of myself:


    <table style="background-color: #555">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    Name: Jack Coast??Race: Human??Age: 23


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>


    Classes:


    Survivor (2)


    Level 1: Endurance


    Level 2: Regeneration


    Fighter (1)


    Level 1: Unarmed Combat


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td>


    Skills:


    ? Endurance ?: Helps me resist and ignore the effects of hunger, thirst, diseases, and things like that. I think it also helps with mental health. Otherwise, I would be crazy, right?


    ? Regeneration ?: Boosts the natural regeneration of my body from injuries and diseases.


    ? Unarmed Combat ?: Gave me knowledge about fighting. With my fists and legs, I guess?


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    When I am done, I just have to laugh out loud.


    Hahahahahaha! What the fuck.


    I never, ever, thought I would write down something like that. When you put it down into words, it sounds really simple, you know?


    I laugh, and laugh and then suddenly I am crying. Wait, what?


    Aahh. This is so fucking crazy. I don''t want any of that.


    The craziest of it all is that back when I had a normal life, if someone talked to me about getting into living inside a game I might actually have entertained the idea. Anything to escape that colossal boredom I constantly felt while leading that meaningless life, right?


    But now, thinking back... Was it really that boring, my life? Was it really that terrible, to eat anything I wanted with atouch on my phone, or to sleep every day under warm blankets? I don''t know.


    All I know is that this isn''t what I wanted. I may be stronger than ever and have health that would best even the most competent of athletes, but still, I don''t feel happy. Not in the slightest.


    Here, cold, alone, with a scarred and naked body, all I can think is of all the things I could have done, if I were back in my city, working on my boring job and playing my harmless games.


    It was like that that I spend the rest of my day: looking into those nonsensical words written down in stone, daydreaming about what the "me of now" would do if he was in the place of the "me of then". It hardly felt like if I was here only for 10 days. It felt more like a decade.


    When night came and the light from above dimmed, I laid down on my usual spot and prepared myself for another night of bloody nightmares. No matter how game-like this place felt, I knew those goblins I killed had been real, living creatures. I had been watching them for too long to think otherwise.


    Was it really okay to do what I had done? Wasn''t it... murder?


    They may be ugly, smelly and aggressive, but still... it did not feel right.


    Those thoughts consumed me that night just as they had for the past three nights. It took a while, but soon, I was asleep.


    Surprisingly, that night I did not have nightmares. Just blackness. Total absence of conscience. A reward for my acceptance, maybe.


    The creature rose through the uneven stones with the dexterity of someone who had done it more times than it could count. Leaving the tunnel it had walked through for a long while, it and its companions stalked through the dark stone cave with shared intent: hunting.


    Looking around, it realized this cave was dangerously close to the surface. Not a place one of his kind would ever dare to make a home of. They knew all too well the dangers the outside held.


    No. For them, the deeper, the better. The closest they got to the source the stronger they would be. Alas, those places were not available for young ones like him or his companions. They were reserved for their betters. Older beings.


    And so they hunted. They hunted to get better, to bring more strength to their tribe and, more importantly, to please the source.


    Do it enough times, and maybe the creature would be worthy of one of the deepest lairs.


    But alas. Admonishing himself for his distraction during such an important hunt, the creature looked back at its prey.


    Across the slow stream of water that ran over the cave''s grey stone, a human slept.


    The Goblin Killer. The murderer of his brothers.


    It was a creature the goblin had never seen before that fateful day. He knew it was called human, from the knowledge imbued into himself upon birth by the source, but he had never actually seen one. They were rare, as far as he knew. Maybe one of his elders had seen one, but he hadn''t. He was young, with less than a hundred days of life.


    The knowledge he had about the humans, however, was a curious one: they could be as harmless as a small rodent or as dangerous as a direwolf. Maybe even more dangerous. It all depended on the individual.


    For the goblin, it was a strange notion. A direwolf was a direwolf. It could kill you in the blink of an eye and rip your inwards out from you before you could even scream a warning for your tribe. But that was it. There were no harmless direwolves and there were no direwolves that would be able to survive a true goblin swarm. It was natural.


    But not this man.


    He fell from the hole in the ceiling like a dizzied bat and then rushed at his brother like a foolish newborn. His brother promptly punished such incompetence, cutting into his flesh and then following to finish his prey.


    But then the man changed. Like a berserking bear, he overturned his brother and killed him in a show of strength, right before grabbing for his other brother and butchering him, together with his third brother. A massacre.


    That must be what the source''s knowledge meant about their strengths varying, the goblin thought.


    It was only his arrogance that made the man leave him alive, wounded as he was.


    Now with arms and legs recovered from the previous hunt, the goblin had gathered a few of his tribemates and came for vengeance.


    Together, the nine creatures crossed the water stream and approached the sleeping form of the man. The vision of his brother''s weapons laying around the man fueled the goblin''s rage and gave surety to the fact that this was his prey.


    And that today he would have his vengeance.

 Chapter 8 - Cradle of Hatred

    It was the smell that woke me up.


    As the disgusting scent of unwashed bodies and old blood reached my nostrils, I could not help but open my eyes.


    That was a good thing, as what greeted my eyes was a plunging dagger coming down straight at my face. The goblin wielding the dagger seems to be startled when I open my eyes. Maybe due to that, his grip on the dagger wavers and the blade shakes wildly as it descends to my face.


    A few days before, such a situation would have meant my death. But after being baptized by blood back at the Goblins Cave, my mind is able to jump from drowsiness to full alert much more quickly.


    It is with a sudden and desperate strength that I grab for the goblin wrist with my right hand. The speed and steadiness of my grip surprises even me. That was close.


    For a brief moment, as the goblin realizes his assassination attempt has failed, our eyes meet. And I recognize him.


    The goblin from the cave! The one I spared!


    My surprise, however, is soon taken advantage of by another goblin. It lunges from the shadows, bringing with it a stabbing attack. With ferocity, it aims a crude wooden spear at my raised arm. The same one that is stopping the dagger from descending to my face.


    Laying on my back, surrounded by two foes, dodging would be a difficult feat. I try twisting away, but in the end, it is for naught. The wooden spear pierces my right forearm and continues pushing through it. The momentum brings the second goblin closer, and I can feel his rancid breath on my face.


    Godammit! This hurts!


    But I had learned my lesson from the last fight. I could not surrender myself to the pain, nor show any hesitation in the middle of battle. ?Endurance? would see me through. All I had to do was to focus.


    Taking advantage of both the momentum of the charging goblin and the fact that his spear was now embedded on my right forearm, I use my left hand to pull the small goblin by one of his long ears. As I do that with one hand, I also manage to use the other one - that is holding back the dagger - to twist the blade towards the incoming head. The resulting collision is accompanied by a yell of surprise from the first goblin, as he kills his own companion.


    As soon as he realizes that, he releases his dagger and backs off. His retreat finally gives freedom to my right hand. Using the much-needed relief, I also back off to the cave''s moss wall.


    It is when I cover my back with one of the stone walls that I look back. And realize that I am surrounded.


    Around the cave stand eight goblins. If I hadn''t managed to kill that spear-wielding one, there would be nine.


    Fuck!


    I shouldn''t have spared that little fucker! He waited for his wounds to recover and now he is back for my blood! With friends!


    Despair threatens to overwhelm my mind and body, but I resist. I will not give up here. Not after all I have already been through.


    My right-arm is throbbing, with the wooden spear being embedded on it. The pain, however, is manageable. Looking back to where I was sleeping, both the weapons I had gotten from my first fight were left there. Now, the goblins surround it.


    Well. It seems I have no choice. I know that as a first-aid principle I shouldn''t do this, but this is an emergency.


    Gritting my teeth, I pull the wooden spear out of my arm.


    Argh! This hurts even more than being pierced in the first place!


    But now I have a weapon. Wielding it, I look up again. Three of the goblins are charging.


    Without wasting any time, I straighten the spear horizontally. As soon as I do it, the first of the goblins reaches me. He is wielding a bone club. Seeing my raised spear, instead of foolishly rushing to his death, he stops and tries to swing his weapon at mine. He wants to break it. I don''t let him.


    Instead, I pull the spear back. Without a target to hit, his swing goes wild. Exactly what I wanted.


    Spinning around, I capitalize on the opening by bringing my leg straight at the side of his head. It is a roundhouse kick, if I remember correctly.


    The fluidity with which I perform the move surprises even me. It is as if I had practiced this for the biggest part of my life. The movement is smooth and my balance is perfect. And the speed...


    The speed is like that of a leaping tiger. My leg comes crashing at his head like a meteor, bringing his whole body to the ground with a dull crashing sound. I may have killed him.


    The other two goblins that were charging me, however, don''t stop. As soon as my foot touches the ground again, they are on top of me. The first one leaps at me wielding a... rock?


    Yeah, a big piece of stone. This one seems even more reckless than the others. As he jumps at me, all I have to do is to raise my spear and stab him right in the middle of his chest. As he impales himself, a shower of blood comes out of his mouth, surprising me as it sprays over my eyes.


    Ahhh! My eyes!


    I close them momentaneously, but that is all the other charging goblin needs in order to land his strike.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    A sharp pain erupts on my upper leg. Once, twice and then another time, on my belly. The fucker is stabbing me!


    Opening my eyes through the burning ache, I blurrily see the smiling face of the culprit. Motherfucker!


    Releasing my spear - that is now stuck on the chest of the dead goblin - I use both my hands to grab the little shit. With a few cleverly employed twists of his arm, his dagger is on the ground. Another twist and I lock his arm behind his back. Adding a little more pressure on the arm lock, his joints pop and he is on the ground screaming, with a broken arm.


    But he doesn''t scream for long. As soon as he is on the ground, I kneel on his back and smash his head on the ground. Then I pull it back and smash again. Again and again. Until the screaming stops.


    When I look up, I see exactly what I expected. The other five goblins, trying to take my brutality as an opportunity, are all rushing at me. Hellfire.


    This time, they don''t take turns.


    Coming as one, the creatures seem to abandon all resemblance of civility, giving themselves to their primitive natures. Throwing their weapons away, they just jump at me in a blur of claws and fangs. A veritable goblin swarm.


    Maybe not unexpectedly, this is their most effective tactic until now. As the five creatures jump and hang on my limbs, I am soon down on the ground.


    Their fangs and claws sink into my flesh. In but a few moments, every exposed surface of my body is in the process of rending. Since I am naked, that meant my whole body.


    I scream. It is as if I had been thrown inside a twisting blender. My skin and flesh are being pulled apart.


    Even ?Endurance? is not enough to make me push through this kind of pain. I thrash around, rolling, screaming and bashing every moving thing on sight.


    My knee connects on the head of one of the creatures, and he falls from my body. He stays down.


    Pain. So much pain.


    I lift one of the goblins by the nape of his neck and grind his face on the rough stone walls. Sharp pieces of stone dig into his flesh. After an unknown amount of time, I notice the skin of his face has given way, and I am only grinding bone. I release his body.


    More bites.


    Between the flashes of blurring red and green, I can see chunks of my flesh strewn around the ground. They are so intent on biting me that they are not even swallowing. Just spitting it on the ground and getting their fangs back inside me.


    Using both my hands, I manage to twist the neck of another one. I break it. The goblin falls like a sack of potatoes.


    But occupying both my hands was a mistake. Through the opening I gave, the most cunning of the remaining goblins pokes at my face. His single digit claw comes straight into my eye.


    It pops.


    Blood follows. The vision from my left eye is replaced by bloody darkness.


    The goblin has destroyed my eye. The realization, together with the massive pain that engulfs the totality of my body stuns me. Even if I survive, what is going to be left of me?


    Using common sense, anyone would say that my body is beyond saving by now. There is little remaining, and even what is left is swiftly being devoured. Flashes of bone can be seen between the rends all over my body. Flayed skin hangs loose on every appendage of my body, and I believe most of my muscles have been munched at least once by now. Looking down, I realize that even my scrotum has been bitten off at some point. Am I still a man?


    As I ponder, strength slowly leaves me. My will is wavering and by now I am laying still on the other ground.


    I feel weak. I haven''t eaten properly for more than ten days now. During these ten days, I have been under fear, discomfort and pain on every single moment. Even during my dreams.


    I am just tired.


    I want to go home.


    Looking at the two remaining goblins, they don''t seem to have been affected by the demise of their companions or the pitiful state they have put me in. They keep slashing and biting at me with the same furious frenzy with which they started doing it.


    Hah. They really are beasts, aren''t they? Undeniable monsters.


    It was very easy to fool myself into thinking of them as living creatures worthy of respect. Of guilty. Seeing them walk around like little green people for so long, at some point they had become my sole companions in this dark place.


    And because of that, when the moment came, I hesitated. I spared when I should have been harsh.


    So stupid.


    So... So stupid!


    Rage.


    Rage like I have never felt before.


    Rage at me, rage at the goblins, rage at this place, rage at the world. Unbridled, all-consuming rage.


    Why?! Just why did I have to spare that piece of shit?!


    Before I realize it, I have thrown one of the remaining goblins on the stone wall. Brutal strength I didn''t even know I still had fills every fiber of my being.?Endurance?goes overdrive as my mangled body raises like a zombie.


    Pain will not stop me.


    I will have my mercy withdraw.


    As this resolution firmly imprints itself into my conscience, I can feel that it has also opened a path to something more.


    The Universal Truth is here again.


    Surviving is defying the shackles of biology. Fleshy bodies are born weak. But they don''t always have to be. Now I see it. To change it, it is a simple thing. Oh... So simple...


    In the back of my head - behind the red fury that makes me want to smash the world apart - I can feel that familiar gate opening. I am leveling up.


    The knowledge it brings is instinctive. Like the flexing of muscles or the blinking of an eye.


    I harden. My remaining flesh pulses and suddenly it becomes something more.


    The last goblin, who had stopped his chewing as I threw his final companion away, looks at me with dread as I stand. Despite all my wounds, my back is straight and my eyes alive.


    I know what he must be seeing. A ragged man, holden together by tenacious strings of tendons and thin strips of skin. Missing pieces of flesh and completely disfigured features. Covered in blood and grime, both his own and that of others.


    A person that by all means should be dead.


    Absolutely furious.


    And suddenly I know. Strength is simple. All you have to do is to take it.


    And so I do. And become even more.


    As if sensing my rage, this time the sensation of enlightenment is curt. Almost brutish.


    But it works nevertheless.


    With both my hands, I grab the head of the goblin that gouged my eye. I hadn''t realized before, but their heads are really soft. Like that of newborns.


    Very... smashable.


    With a grunt, my fingers dig into the side of the goblin''s head. My thumbs gouge both his eyes and soon I can feel his skull cracking.


    POP!


    Like an exploding watermelon, his head crumbles inwards and showers his surroundings with gore.


    His body falls lifelessly to the ground.


    I look around. There is still one goblin alive. The one I threw on the wall right before I leveled up.


    But he is downed. Crawling on the ground, he is looking up to me.


    My improved body screams at me and threatens to thrown me at the ground again. There is no amount of magic that can ignore what has been taken.


    But I trudge on.


    Limping slowly, I manage to reach him.


    He looks higher, at my face.


    It is the same goblin from before. The same one I spared last time. Once again, he looks at me with those huge watery eyes. He lets out some pitiful sounds and then he is pissing himself again.


    Just like last time.


    But this time, I don''t have any mercy to give.


    No. Never again.


    He and his whole race can go to hell.


    No. They WILL go. And I will be the one sending them.


    "Fuck you."


    It is the last thing he hears before my foot stomps his head.


    As I would soon be doing to all of them.

 Interlude - The Bored Archmage

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    In the royal palace of the Kingdom of Takresh, one room stood apart from all the others.


    It was a large one, atop the highest of the capital''s towers. Very close to the king''s quarters.


    The localization alone was enough to distinguish it from all the others. Even more than that, however, it was its owner that set it apart. A human that lived inside a city of beasts.


    Always surrounded by grandeur and luxury, the magnificent Archmage Boros was somewhat of a celebrity. Follower of one of the most powerful and prestigious Paths of all Terra, he was valued even by the king. Royal Archmage, he was called.


    As an old man of profound knowledge, wisdom, and power, he inspired respect and reverence from all that met him. To most, offending him was not very different from insulting the king himself.


    He was the only user of magic in Takresh, after all.


    And he knew how to use this fact in his favor.


    As a sage hailing from the Circle of Ludis itself, his magical prowess was unmatched in any of the surrounding kingdoms. Maybe even farther.


    The fact that he had chosen to bow and serve King Baglamesh should only be met with respect, not derision. At least that was what most thought.


    The few in this world who truly knew him, however, would think differently.


    Just as he did.


    "I can''t believe I have been reduced to this..."


    Currently, his famous room was shrouded in dark. His expensive furniture and beautiful fabrics were only illuminated by a mysterious blue light, as all the curtains blocked sunlight from reaching the man.


    Boros himself looked like a man that hadn''t slept in days. Weeks, maybe.


    Currently, he was looking at the sources of the blue light. Ten glowing spheres stood atop altars around him.


    If you looked closely at them, you would notice that the harder you looked, the clearer an image would form inside your head. Colors would be brought to life and then sounds would start to come from nowhere.


    This phenomenon could be achieved with 6 of the 10 spheres. The others seemed deactivated.


    Boros eyes shifted uncomfortably between these six functioning spheres as if he wanted to watch the happenings inside every scene at once.


    A beautiful blonde woman, jumping between gigantic trees with a makeshift bow in her hands.


    A wounded black man on a cave, furiously practicing a magical chant of unknown words, as if begging for the aid of a forgotten god.


    A man of alien, bluish complexion, going through long practiced martial motions with a spear.


    A rough brutish woman, over two meters tall and almost as wide. She feasted on the raw flesh of a goat while resisting the harshness of a blizzard atop a snowy mountain.


    A noble warrior, of blue eyes and golden hair. Wielding an old blade and a rusty shield, he fought against a wave of barbarians on a desolate battlefield.


    And lastly...


    A ragged man. Inside deep darkness, his low cry of pain was a constant noise on those stone walls. Blood was everywhere. His mind was taken by fever... And something else. The kind of insanity that begets brilliance. And then he started laughing.


    Boros shivered. He didn''t like that last one. He had something on him that was... Uncanny. It gave him the creeps. Maybe it was the glint he saw in the eyes of Xerxes when he harvested the man''s soul or the almost gentle touch with which the Warlock handled his Soulstone, after the deed, but Boros thought he had something special.


    It was nothing he could put his fingers on. The young man had suffered through some bloody moments, sure, but so had the other subjects. Four had already died, of course, but again, most of the remaining individuals had not taken even a fraction of the toll that this one had. He was barely recognizable as a human anymore.


    While Boros thought about these things, and other, more important matters, the laughter finally stopped.


    If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    Then, like a vicious beast, the ragged man dove for the corpse of the dirty creature known as goblin and sank his teeth on its flesh.


    "Urgh. Goblin flesh. That must be disgusting... Wait... Is that..? Has he gone through another Enlightenment?!"


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    Baffled, Boros watched with his Mana Sense as the body of the young man once again busted with overflowing mana and formed a temporary bridge with the one Universal Truth.


    Even now, it was infuriating to watch those people. He just could not get used to it.


    Enlightenments should not be such... Cheap occurrences. They were the closest of the divine any creature could get. They should be sacred moments, undertaken with grace and reverence. Moments to be remembered for one''s whole life.


    Most people worked toward them for years, sometimes decades, before achieving the desired Truth.


    Seeing those people getting them on a daily basis...


    Was terrifying, to say the least.


    "What in the name of the Sacred Truth is Xerxes Vash planning?"


    Boros hoped they all died.


    But alas, it was not in his hands.


    It all had started on that fateful day. Xerxes had taken him on a journey that just cemented the god-like reverence Boros had for the man''s capabilities.


    Across worlds, stars, moons, gaps in reality and supernova explosions, they had traveled to exotic and strangely familiar lands. From different places, they had gathered specific individuals in accordance to some hidden criteria Xerxes had.


    Back then, Boros had been confused as to why go through all that trouble just to eviscerate the souls of seemingly ordinary people - even if they were from unordinary places.


    But now...


    Now Boros understood.


    They were freaks.


    Sensing the mana around them, he could feel the true nature of their souls.


    Like black holes, they sucked all the mana, everywhere they walked. Burning brightly to any who could see the massive agglomerations of mana they brought with them everywhere they went, it was evident that the souls of these people were not normal.


    Or healthy.


    Boros was no Necromancer, to understand the inner workings of souls and their properties, but any meager Scholar would know that sucking obscene amounts of mana like those people were doing could not be healthy.


    The Archmage had already witnessed the expected effect on most of the individuals, to different degrees.


    Deep pain. Euphoria. Heatwaves. Irrational behavior. Heightened strength, endurance and resistance to pain. Headaches. Internal Bleeding.


    Insanity.


    Soul rending.


    Death.


    Two of the subjects had already died this way.


    The others had managed to channel the overflowing mana into Enlightenments, but even that had its limits.


    The comprehension and devotion needed to proceed further into a Path got deeper and deeper.


    In order to continue using the mana to form bridges with the Universal Truth, they would have to experience much more than any regular individual was capable of.


    Boros supposed that was why Xerxes had chosen those dangerous places to trap the subjects, but still...


    He didn''t think any of them would make it.


    It was just not possible.


    Xerxes had given Boros orders to free each individual according to a set of rules and them notify him once they achieved it. Or once all of them died. Whatever happened first.


    The thing was...


    The goals were too hard to accomplish for such young, inexperienced people. Even if they were little monsters.


    And even then...


    Boros didn''t understand what was the point. Even if they freed themselves, they would inevitably die, when they their souls finally exploded from overflowing mana.


    Sigh.


    Nevertheless, he had his orders.


    Even if King Baglamesh had not ordered him to aid Xerxes in his project, Boros was not confident enough to deny anything to a man like the Warlock.


    He liked living.


    Royal Archmage Boros, now reduced to a glorified watchman.


    ...


    "Oh."


    Another one died.


    "Good", he thought.