“What’s going on?” Sam asks Paul, who is also looking down at the ground gnashing his teeth.

“They forced us to stay here to ensure that thing goes off. Do you know what it is?” Paul points to a device near the conical structures.

Sam shakes his head. He truly doesn’t know what it’s for but it looks like those monster processing goods his parents acquired a while ago.

“They’re nullifiers. They will force the beasts to no longer spawn here for the time being. They also can not call for help from the primary lair, basically these things will shut off the ability of this off-shoot lair.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

“You didn’t let me finish, if it runs out of energy or ability then it will explode. These devices can also be used as a bomb.”

“What?” Sam is speechless, not at just the revelation but at how stupid that sounds. Why make a device have 2 functions like that when the second function is so absolute as to make the first pointless in the event it's used.

“It’ll blow up this section, ensuring part of the lair collapses. I don’t know why they didn’t just bombard it from the air. Fucking idiotic commanders,” Paul sighs, Sam frowns.

“Well, we can’t just stand here and wait, why don’t we stop them and ask them to let us go with them?”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Why don’t we stop them?”

“How? They can just kill us right away if we get annoying. You see how many headless bodies there are around.”

“Well, if we’re going to die here anyways, then why don’t we try something?” Sam asks. The situation is dire and the more they delay, further those people get away.

A few of the people raise their voices but no one really commits, Sam tries again, “Come on guys, we need to go now, if we don’t try something then we’re all going to die here anyway. Don’t you want to try to get some revenge?”

Sam walks up to Paul, “Don’t you want to do something instead of nothing?”, but Paul just flops to the ground lifeless.

Sam walks up to someone else and shakes them. “Are you willing to die here like this?”

His words move no one, they’re all defeated as if they have already been resigned to their fate.

“Don’t you want revenge for all those people that were killed needlessly before? You have this chance to do something, they’re not far away yet… come on let’s do something.”

“You do it!” someone in the crowd yells.

“Fine, I will.”

Sam walks away from the crowd and towards the entrance, his collar emits a noise warning him about moving, yet he ignores it as people watch him walk into the entrance.

*ZZT*

They can hear the collar emitting a shock once, twice.

Someone else stands up, “I gotta do something rather than just sitting here.”

Someone else stands up too, “I can only try.”

A few other people stand up, “I gotta try to get some revenge for my friends that died outside.”

More people join them as they explain their reasoning to the crowd before nearly everyone is walking towards the entrance, their collars going off and the occasional popping sound, but hundreds of them are going there.

Sam looks back and smiles at this display, they’re only a few steps behind him and quickly catching up. He comes up to a corner and stops seeing the people stopping on the other side. There seems to be something blocking the pathway he walked through.

They’re too far so he’s unable to hear them but that’s fine as the group of people behind him catch up, many of them in pain but the first people stand before him. Many of them peek around the corner before being pulled back.

“What now?” someone asks as they all look to Sam.

“Just wait and watch, get ready to restrain them,” Sam speaks but before giving them a chance to ask him any questions he sets into action.

‘Stop’

A brief shimmer comes over the world but he doesn’t stop to admire it, he quickly sets into motion as the collar warns him.

He frowns but that’s fine, Sam walks around the people and onto the debris pile blocking the way picking up several rocks.

‘Stop Stop’.

Sam quickly throws several rocks at the people, they fly through the air.

“Do we get them to dig it out?”

“We can’t adjust–

*BANG BANG*

The rocks land in the middle of their group, they all look up at Sam before one quickly reaches for his wrist.

‘Stop’

Sam walks around the people before standing on the other side of them getting ready to throw a spear, he holds it in his hand and takes him.

‘Stop Stop’.

The world shimmers to life, the gold striped man hand touches the display but nothing happens. They notice that the spot is empty but Sam doesn’t give them a moment of respite.

He steps forward launching the spear through the air, he doesn’t aim for the person’s body.

*THUD*

The spear slices through two people’s clothing before embedding itself in a rock on the other side, the people turn around and look at Sam and open their eyes.

One of them is about to open their mouth when,

‘Stop’

Sam steps over to the other side of them before, ‘Stop Stop’

A screech comes from his mind but he pushes it back, the world comes to life again.

“Oi what are y–

“I’m over here” Sam waves at them.

“Wh–

‘Stop’

The world shimmers again, Sam takes several more steps back, this time he’s right beside the corner where all the people are waiting. He quickly grabs a spear from someone and readies himself, he’s running out of time.

‘Stop Stop’

“at are you–

*THUD*

Sam steps forward and throws the spear without looking at where it lands, a scream comes from someone but he doesn’t have to wait to see what happened as he steps around the corner in the crowd of people.

“Get ready,” Sam says as he gets into the crowd of people. They draw out their weapons and prepare themselves in various ways.

“Get back here!” a voice yells as they approach the corner.

The first person appears around the corner,

*SLICE*

No one can say anything, a sword comes out and cuts their torso without warning.

Half of their body slumps over dead, a light shimmer comes from their body as the other people come to the corner stopping, the people in the crowd grab at the people that have come to the corner when.

*BOOOOOOM*

A wave of energy pushes everyone over, Sam can feel that burning sensation on his skin as the mana field has sprung up. A large creature charges forward from the corner, it runs over many people, causing them to be crushed almost instantly.

“Push forward!’ someone yells.

Sam can feel the crowd of people push forward forcing the people in front of them to go forward. The first row of people hit the people still chasing after him.

Sam grinds his teeth and brings up his sword.

*BANG*

The sword collides with some tusks, Sam is thrown backwards while the sword itself is snapping in half.

Sam softly lands in people's arms and looks back at the creature.

“NOOO you bastards!”

The tusked creature shimmers and disappears, the field also disappears while around the corner another loud sound comes out.

*BOOM*

A huge amount of dust comes out, Sam is confused about what’s going on but he has an option.

‘Stop.’

The world shimmers and he stands up, everyone is standing still while the field has disappeared. He makes his way towards the front of the crowd where he spots what happened.

One of the golden striped people is laying on the ground, devoid of an arm. A large amount of blood comes from his neck alongside 3 other people.

Sam looks down the hallway and spots an opening where there was debris, a glow is going down the ramp as a yellow light is coming from there. There’s now an escape route but Sam is still curious as to what’s going on here.

He approaches the people holding a severed arm of the golden striped person, they’re tapping at the screen. Sam grabs the severed arm surprised it was fine and taps the screen a few times, he’s able to release his timer requirement but not the collar itself.

He does that for himself and everyone in the area, Sam returns the arm to where it was.

‘Stop Stop’

A loud screeching noise comes out of his mind, Sam touches his nose and notices some blood coming out of it, wiping the blood away before he listening to the surrounding voices.

“We can’t chase him, quickly release us.”

“I don’t know how to work it.”

“We have to chase him, we can’t let him get away but we need to be free.”

“This screen is confusing.”

Sam clears his throat causing a few people to look at him, “I’ve reset the timers so they won’t explode and we don’t have any area restrictions. I don’t know how to release it as it requires higher authority than this terminal had. I’ll chase down that guy to find out.”

“I’ll join you.”

“Me too!”

“I want to go too!”

Several people yell about wanting to go, they must have seen Sam’s display earlier, bringing a slight smile to the young man’s face.

“You can come if you want but it’ll be dangerous. There’s some people nearby that should be able to protect you with some armour, go find them and ask for Hanzel. If you want to join me, then follow.”

Sam looks through the dead people's equipment for a new sword and grabs it. As per usual, this golden striped person had a great sword, a large black sword with blue crystal specks through it. He takes it and runs down the hallway after the person.

Many footsteps follow him, while many more of them go upwards. Sam doesn’t care about that as he looks forward and through the downward ramp way that seems to go on for some time.

The yellow glow is still before them.

Sam nods at the people who have caught up to him.

“Do you know what’s going on here?” Sam asks.

“No, we were just told that we needed to tie down that area and plant that device. They didn’t tell us a thing…”

“I overheard one of them say that they’ll meet up with other squads along the pathway.”

“There has been countless creatures coming along these paths previously and now there’s none. That’s so weird.”

Sam listens to them speak, not quite sure what to make of what they say, the group are going down the ramp way that is going deeper and deeper underground; the tunnel seems to have shifted into a more straight angle as it’s going somewhere.

“So no one knows what’s down this way?”

Sam watches the yellow light ahead. It disappears from view as if it turned a corner; the light disappears as it gets further and further away.

“He’s getting away.”

Sam lets out a sigh, ‘Stop.’

The world shimmers brightly as internally he can feel his energy roil about. Something is going on with it that he cannot contain but he cannot tell if it's caused by the worm playing up or something else.

The worm screeches, ‘Sleep!’ he yells. The creature doesn’t stop making noise.

Sam hurries his steps as his head feels heavier with each passing moment, he hurries along for a few minutes until he’s able to spot the golden striped person again, he looks exhausted and bloodied.

The worm’s screams get particularly loud, ‘Stop Stop’. Sam has no choice but to stop this, he has to stop his footsteps for a moment as his head adjusts itself.

‘SLEEP!’

He yells internally, the creature finally settles down but negates all the progress made by using it in the first place as the people catch up.

“Are you ok?”

“I’m fine, we’re going the right way. Hurry.”

The group continues running down the pathway. Sam joins after them where they continue this journey for over an hour, the pathway has changed into a tunnel before changing into a tube. They don’t know where they’re going but now they’re all excited for relics.

A few of them have split off from the group to look in some doors for treasure, one came back with a shield from one of them causing more of them to split off leaving only a few running along with Sam but many of them within sight behind.

“Are we still going the right way?” Sam asks the group, still with him.

It’s only a few stoic men remaining, “Aye” one of them replies.

“How can you tell?”

“The markings on the floor and wall, they’re made from beasts over a long period, so new marks stand out. This place is strange though. It shouldn’t be this big, the beasts shouldn’t keep it so intact… it’s possible this hive has a high-class commander.”

“Wouldn’t the commanders of the operation know that?”

“They would. It might also explain why we don’t see them.”

Everyone suddenly tenses up as they’re on more alert. The small group comes up to a crossroad and stops, unable to decide on a single route. Sam looks at each path but spots nothing different about them. The light has long since disappeared.

“So what do we do? Split up?”

“We only have that option unless someone knows which way to go…”

Everyone shakes their head in their own way, while Sam looks down each pathway, seeing if he can sense anything.

“Well then that means we should split up, it’s probably a bad idea but, I have a bad feeling about what’s going on.”

Each person is silent in their own way, they look one another in the eyes before stepping forward and shaking their hands. They each know that this will probably be the last time they’ll see each other, these tunnels have traps and they have beasts.

Sam does the same with each of them when one of them stops on him, Sam raises an eyebrow but the man speaks.

“Thanks for your support in the camp and saving us from that situation, I’d rather die out here than trapped in a hole waiting to blow up.”

“I have my own reasons for doing what I did. You don’t need to thank me. You helped me as much as I helped you.”

“Don’t say that, in the camp even, you were able to stand among the crowd that contained the likes of Victor and Benny. Not many people could do that shortly after undertaking the ceremony.”

Sam looks at all the other people nodding their heads along, he’s left speechless of this outburst, it feels awkward and out of place.

He scratches the back of his neck. “It’s nothing but thanks for saying that stuff now I hope we all survive this.”

“Sure, let’s meet again.

“Let’s live and meet again!”

“To living!"

…

They break their stoic faces to express this joyful moment, even Sam cannot help but get infected by their energy and smiles with them. It quietens down after a moment as people go off in their own directions.

Sam picks one direction that no one else went through, he has a lot on his mind as he walks through. The devourer creature is happily eating food recharging the timer, the energy inside his body has settled for the moment yet he’s certain that it means something will happen soon.

It’s quite possible he’ll be reaching stage 1 soon, it’s well and truly overdue.

Most people have only heard of people reaching pre-lit 50+ in legends. If one were to look inside Sam’s body they’d be amazed to see that he has reached pre-lit 402. That’s not all either, most monsters will only purify their users mana to about 75-80% at most.

Sam has reached 94%.

One need to know that only the most legendary hero will have a mana purity above 90%, only one person in history has reached above 95%.

Sam’s mana purity so far hasn’t stopped climbing.

If he were to be officially tested again, they’d most likely dismiss all of his existing charges and reintegrate him as a new legendary hero simply due to these two statuses but they’ll never know of this because it becomes hidden after undertaking the stage 1 transformation.

The hallway continues leading on a downward slope.

*RUMBLE RUMBLE*

A distant noise is heard in the direction that Sam came from, he’s unable to see anything yet it’s a mostly dark tunnel so there’s not much to see yet he could feel the floor shifting.

He looks around, a set of doors are near him with one double set of doors with a light on top of it.

Sam frowns as he thinks about where he has seen this sort of setup before, the door slides open.

“Sam!”

Sam looks at the door and spots someone familiar, a pimply faced man.

“Benny!”

The pimply faced man turns around and runs, several new items adorn his back yet he doesn’t use any as he just runs back inside.

‘Stop’

*drip drip*

A trickle of blood comes from his nose, Sam wipes it and walks to Benny, who is stuck mid-jog. He gives him a few kicks to the groin before stopping in the doorway before him. An incredibly dark room is on the other side of the doorway but that’s not important.

‘Stop Stop’

Benny comes back into motion, he slams into Sam who is now standing before him.

“Fuck I forgot!”

“Yep now I won’t make this hard on ya, show me the shield you got.”

Benny grits his teeth and does as Sam says, he takes the shield off his back and hands it over to Sam holding back the tears in the corner of his eye.

It’s a light-weight circular shield made of a shiny metal. Sam puts his hand through the holds causing the shield to buzz to life and expand lightly.

He smiles at Benny when he opens his eyes widely and places the shield up before him.