Chapter 25: Escape

When Safo Nur woke up in an unfamiliar place, he was sure that he had been abducted once again. He just didn’t know who was the culprit this time and what was their intentions.

Not wanting to risk his and Luna’s life he began to meditate. His improvements in meditation led him to the record time of 5 minutes to reach his soul room. And that's exactly what he did before the slim man entered the room.

Safo Nur learned to hold the energy of the water from the well. Instead of releasing it in an instant blowing up and melting everything around, he practiced discharging the flame partially. He could do it using any part of his skin and even from the mouth. Sending projectiles, however, wasn’t his strong point.

The hardest part was to keep his consciousness while being constantly electrocuted. He didn’t want to kill, even the person who was torturing him for information. He did his best and waited for a perfect moment to strike.

Still, dazed, Safo Nur burned the tape all across his body by emitting a tiny amount of heat from his pores. When he was able to catch the defenseless slim man, he knew that it would be harder to escape than he initially thought. A slim man ordered his thugs to kill Safo Nur.

“Guards, kill hi…”

Safo Nur shook the body of the slim man and slammed his head against the metal floor. A slim man was extremely weak, his thin build had enough muscle to move his limbs and no more.

“Shut up, man. You want to die, don’t you?” Couple more kisses with the floor and a slim man went quiet.

“Boss, the door is stuck, just wait a little longer.” Numerous people outside of the room were banging at the door, the moment after it cooled down.

“Cooperate with me if you want to live. Show me the way to Stage 10. Tell your people to back off.” The calm voice of Safo Nur had a slight tremble due to his heart beating like a sports car engine. He tried to maintain his tranquility facade but was terrified on the inside. Luna was not helping either, she was panicking more than ever.

In order to take an upper hand, Safo started to melt the door. Thick metal first glowed red slowly getting brighter and brighter with each second. The flame pillar from Safo’s palm was directed to the center of the door. A moment later, Safo raised the temperature of his flame. The whole room became an impossible place to survive. Oxygen was burning out.

Not long after the door started to melt and a hole appeared, fresh air came gushing inward.

“You want to live or you want to die?”

Reluctantly a slim man agreed. “Alright alright, I will tell them to let you pass. Just let me go.”

“You think I’m stupid? You’re going with me. Ladies first.” By that Safo Nur popped a slim man's head out of the door, it was still hot and melty. A slim man got many burned injuries by that action, Safo held him still anyway.

“Drop your weapon. He is going to die if you do stupid things.” Safo Nur gained more and more confidence with each minute. He felt control over the situation.

Followed a slim man came a young boy of an unknown race. He clutched the neck of the boss tightly in his hand. Slowly, with caution, they moved to the teleporter.

The place was sort of a warehouse with all kinds of stuff. Countless boxes topped on each other. Rows and rows of columns of boxes made a maze, making it difficult to remember or find a way out. Fortunately, Safo Nur had his personal guide.

Safo saw lots of things unpackaged, guns and drugs, cars and planes, food, and even kid's toys. Robbing the robbers, a thought visited his mind but he hurried to shake it off. He didn’t want to make an enemy for himself. He was about to be a King, it could only damage his authority among his subjects.

After some time they reached the elevator-like device, it operated as a teleporter between Stages. Safo Nur already happened to see those while exploring the city. One should input the Stage number and permit, to reach a certain Stage.

Safo Nur felt eased, he was suspecting a slim man in all sorts of mischief.

Suddenly, a feeling or a thought or something in between. It was close to an odd feeling that people have when someone stares at them. They feel an urge to turn and search for a person who was looking. Those were the basic instincts or even a six eye, nobody knew.

The second resource of Safo Nur was a mysterious sense, they still didn’t get the grip of his abilities due to them being sealed under 5 water wells. All he knew is that he could feel if someone had murderous intentions.

It wasn’t a surprise for the sense to kick in, in the place full of thugs, but Safo turned around and stretched forward his hand with a slim body in it.

Shot from the blaster! One of the thugs failed in an attempt to shoot down the Safo from behind. Instead, he injured his boss. It was quite a shock for everybody, including Safo Nur himself. His sense was so accurate that he was able to block the thin line of a laser beam with a thin body of a slim man. He was screaming in agony, he wasn’t gravely wounded, but he still got shot, and it hurt. Chain reaction passed on to other members of the criminal team. Despite a slim man’s yellings all of them soon opened a fire to take down Safo Nur.

Safo on his turn ducked and ran in a maze of boxes and packages. His life-saving sense was turned on to the max. A slim man was in his hand as if he was some ragdoll, flying around and bumping the corners while he was dragged. With his other hand Safo charged flame pillars, he was thinking about some cool name to it but didn’t come up with anything super cool yet.

So far his pillar was approximately 5 meters long. Being among various flammable substances, plastic, and other easy-to-burn objects, was a bad condition for thugs. His flame ignited all around him, making him hard to detect and bringing huge loss to a slim man.

“From left, behind me, 11 o’clock.” His mind tried to keep up with frustrated thugs, firing laser beams all over the place. Safo knew in advance from where the laser will come but his body was not fast enough to dodge all the projectiles.

A slim man and Safo Nur failed to evade 5-6 non-lethal shots each. A beam from the plaster pierced the skin for a couple of millimeters and burned the hole on the surface.

The whole warehouse was in chaos, fire consumed everything. It took 10-15 for Safo Nur to come close to the teleporter. Immediately Safo Nur ran to the teleporter, after some bangs of a slim man’s head to the control board he obliged to put the right numbers.

Funny tickling sensation and a few shaky pushes against the mind, and teleportation was completed successfully.

“Who... are you anyway?” A slim man had a completely different look on him, he was dumbfounded by the boy. He never saw anyone foreseeing the upcoming shots.

At that point, Safo felt relieved and came up with a joke answer. “I’m his latest son.” It sounded like a mysterious puzzle in his head, but when he said those words out loud, it was the lamest phrase he ever said.

But at the very moment, he found out that it actually meant something. The expression on a slim man’s face changed, his white skin went even paler.

“No way! I … I’m sorry. I didn’t… didn't know...please.” A slim man started to plead with him to show mercy towards him and spare his life.

Safo had a million thoughts, but he didn’t show any hesitance. He understood that he hit the jackpot, somehow. First, he thought to use the situation and get some goodies from the warehouse. He might need a new ship, maybe money and weapons, but his paranoia did allow him to do so. A slim man could place a bomb in a plane or something like that, and there was a chance that everything burned to ashes already.

“Pack your belongings and get out of this planet. I will come back to wipe you all out.” It sounded great. Confident, mysterious, powerful - perfect.

A slim man almost passed out by the reply. “How is that possible? Are you serious? You can go against Lazy Air? He is the fourth demon of thirteen. Are you declaring war?”

“I have spoken, get out.” Safo Nur couldn’t even grasp the scale of his words at that moment. 'Lazy Air? His boss?'

“Safo, Safo, there you are!” Achraf came running, pushing away the people in the crowd.

100 or so people surrounded Safo Nur and a slim man in his hand. Teleport plaza was a congested place where a lot of people traveled throughout the Stages.

“We got crazy looking for you? What happened? Why are you naked again?”