Jack walked deeper into the cave, knowing that each step he took could be his last. Luna walked alongside him, but Jack could feel the fear she felt through their bond.

“Don’t worry, Luna. They’re going to have to go through me before they can even think of harming a hair on your body. And I’m surprisingly not that easy to kill,” Jack smiled at her, as he confronted humanity’s greatest and oldest fear- of the unknown.

Luna paused in her stride, turning back to face Jack. His eyes met Luna’s large, beady ones, and then she did something that took him aback. First she shook her head, something that Jack had taught her- it was a refusal.

“Meeeeooow!” She royally proclaimed, lifting her right paw up and swiping it forward aggressively in the air. Her eyes gleamed with intent, the emotions within them clear enough- ‘Fight’.

Jack felt something in his heart stir. Luna’s petite frame held the courage of a lion, first standing up to a goblin and almost dying, then rescuing him from the jaws of death from an Orc Titan that was hundred times her size. She was no doubt afraid, but chose to be brave despite that fear.

How could Jack not be moved by that?

“Fight,” he said out loud, a bold proclamation to the one who had trapped him in this cave, as he went deeper into the cave with force behind every step. “If survival is not an option, then I will die fighting, if only to damn one more monster to hell alongside me.”

Luna broke eye contact and then nodded twice, as if she were pleased by that response. Jack could feel the fear she felt had diminished. His own taut nerves loosened, and he exhaled a deep breath he didn’t know he was holding.

So Jack took the next step forward, no longer fearing it might be last but thinking of how to make each one count instead.

Merely five minutes had passed as Jack walked down the narrow tunnels made out of a white marble like stone, without any end in sight. Jack had placed his hand on the white stone to try and determine if there was anything extraordinary about it, but he could neither feel nor sense anything special about it.

So he simply trudged forward, body poised for action and senses heightened- ready to give anything that charged at him a free trip to eternal damnation. In these narrow tunnels, where else could he even run to? Another half an hour passed without any event, and in that time Jack had noticed no special markings, no odd flora or any geological structures- just endless white rock making up the ground, the cave walls, the ceiling- everything.

Jack didn’t want to admit it, but his theory of this being some kind of system trial was falling apart, and consequently the feeling of a pervasive wrongness in the air was increasing. He only hoped he was wrong.

Finally, after another two hours of walking, Jack noticed a bend in the tunnel. Jack signaled Luna to fall back, as it was the most strategically likely place for an ambush. The bend was a sharp right, meaning that Jack couldn’t see what lay at its end.

Normally, the first thing he would do was to channel his trusted skill: Qi Shield. But with the system gone, Jack couldn’t even sense the Qi running through his body, let alone channel it.

Jack knew that if they charged headfirst at him with weapons at the front, in this narrow cave there was little he could do to fight back- especially when he was unarmed. The only real chance he had was if he could get the drop on at least one of his hypothetical enemies. It was time to put his upgraded physique to the test.

Without taking much time to prepare, Jack broke out into a sprint- one step, two step and then a leap. Jack propelled himself off the right side of the cave with a single leg, using his powerful leg strength to reach the left cave wall and take three quick steps in mid-air, using the little structural support the wall provided. He figured that the aliens didn’t expect him to make a parkour entrance, and he was ready to rain down hell upon them with a powerful flying kick.

Rather anti-climatically, Jack landed on the ground without any major event. There was no ambush lying on the other side, but perhaps something even worse.

It was a dead-end. Jack’s heart dropped to the bottom, as he realized that he was likely trapped in a tunnel with no exits. But then, why was the end of the tunnel painted black? That too, such a perfect pitch-black that seemed to absorb light from its surroundings.

Feeling Jack’s distress, Luna sped over to arrive next to him. Upon seeing Jack still alive and in one piece, she relaxed.

Jack had noticed her, but the sense of wrongness he felt since he arrived in the tunnel exploded at that moment, as he realized that the black stone wasn’t stone at all- it was moving.

“Fuck!” Jack screamed in terror, as a tidal wave of black viscous fluid exploded towards his direction. He barely had any time to react, but his body reacted instinctively before his mind could choose- grabbing Luna and turning his back towards the black fluid.

Moments later, the tunnel Jack had chosen to take sanctuary within started crumbling, and within seconds it was as if it had never existed to begin with- while Jack and Luna were nowhere to be seen.