His stomach bloated as he inhaled a massive breath of air, and slowly he exhaled. He looked around, east appeared more luminous to his eyes so he started running, sick of this place.

He was running, a grace similar to the monster in his moments. Having spent months here had forced him to learn from them. There was a limit to what he could do by himself so he observed how they fought, how they moved, and how they attacked. There was a physical difference that made it impossible to become completely graceful like these monsters. They, to him, felt like air.

He kicked the trunk sending himself up in the air. His arm swung, the war hammer rotating his body mid-air, attacking the fighter that was rushing towards him but at the last moment, a single minuted movement and his attack passed by it. It attacked, he used the weight to rotate himself further dodging it. The gravity pulled down and a spinning kick snapped its neck.

Right leg landing, he spun 180 degrees, his arm swinging as the flame burst apart as soon as it appeared, a wave of red striking the monsters rushing from behind.

He ran away with no time to waste with them. Already he could feel himself out of the breath but there was nothing he could do other than escape. He had not even moved more than a few meters and he was again attacked.

Flames appeared upon both his palms and then he burst a hole in the outer lattice of the flame and spun. The spark flooded out with him as the center. The monster quickly tried stopping but those in the back could not stop in time, making it difficult even with their unnatural movements.

He jumped and swung the hammer, and the gravity threw him towards the tree. He placed it back in the storage taking out the knives. His legs prepared for landing, compressing and then he sprang towards the next trees. One tree to another, he ricocheted in the air completely avoiding the monsters below.

His legs gave out, his torso turned, stabbing knives in the trunk and then quickly stabbed downwards. As he landed on the ground his legs gave out meanwhile noises surrounded him from all sides.

While he was trying to stand the monster were already visible, a hoard in front and more coming, he could hear them.

His lips twisted into a frown and a red-colored barrier surrounded him. They rushed at him. A spear and a sword. Stab, stab, stab, on and on. That was all he could do. They crashed upon him like sea waves, unending, uncaring. His hand became numb while his back was against the tree barely able to stand with its support. They had surrounded him from all sides, the barrier the only thing giving some space. Their weapons tried attacking but with all his life he made sure none of the weapons struck the barrier. He did not have enough energy.

His body was numb and his mind was barely thinking but it too was at its last fumes. He could not just spend the energy willy-nilly. He waited for more to gather, physically sucking the crystal with his tongue even though he knew it would achieve naught.

He barely kept his eyelids open and when he felt enough had gathered a flame appeared above his palm. It was massive. As soon as it appeared it felt as though he was in a quagmire. It was difficult to think about anything. His thoughts wandered from one thing to another. It was as though he could not even register the monsters that had surrounded him.

The monsters attack with renewed vigor when they received no pushback for a moment.

The crystal still within his mouth, a rejuvenating feeling spread into his mind. It was equivalent to throwing a few drops of water on a bonfire. It should have accomplished nothing but at that moment it allowed him enough stability to throw the watermelon-sized flame into the air. It burst apart, raining fire.

Despite being completely spent mentally and physically and a twisted grin appeared on his face as screams entered his ears.

***

Urgency bubbled within him but he could not complete it any faster. He moved his arm, the sword cutting into the flesh, he hastily rotated it, the sword cutting a chunk of flesh off instead of the whole arm. His focus was on the spell. He grinned.

He rotated, punching it into the face, barely stopping before his fist went into the needle-filled mouth. He kicked, and a knife appeared in his hand stabbing into the eye socket. Like lightning, his knife cut the tendons on both its hand, warped his arm across its neck, and hugged it.

More and more gathered. He grinned, with no strength to laugh. They attacked and he used its body as a shield. Deeming enough had gathered, he threw its body at them and jumped while pulling the trigger.

It was a sight to see from above as a torrent of fire exploded out.

He did not have any time to spectate and ran away.

***

He somehow found a place to rest. His thoughts were only on one topic, how to devise more effective and efficient attacking methods against these monsters. He looked at the morningstar that he was swinging like a pendulum when he noticed a crack in one of the spikes. With a bit of force, he tore it off. He looked at it, a hazy idea began forming within his mind.

He brought out the war hammer from storage and then hammered the spike until it was reduced to multiple smaller pieces. He hollowed out a torch-sized block of wood from the center, filled it with the shrapnels, took out another block of wood, trimmed it until it could fit in the hole, and then inscribed it with incinerate.

Tightly packing the tube, a simple magical bomb was ready. He did not know whether it would work as desired but he was not afraid of checking it out.

The rest came first, though.

He placed it down and hid behind a tree far away and triggered the spell. A sharp sound exploded as though something was cutting through the air. The area was disfigured, cut, and destroyed. Large and small cuts were visible on the moss where the shrapnels had passed through. He picked up the wood. It was burnt and broken but there were shrapnels around it. He placed another piece of wood in the distance and triggered it.

The resulting burst was directional. He tied together multiple pieced of wood and then triggered it again. This time the burst exploded out from all sides. He repeated the experiment. Inspecting the scars that were spread across the space he felt satisfied.

After creating a batch of the newer version of bombs he moved back. In the time he had been resting and experimenting the fire had spread further, claiming more area from the darkness.

***

It was not difficult to find the monsters. Getting their attention he ran, looking for a space that would be best suited for causing the explosion. It was much easier to dodge the arrows compared to the fighters as the archers had to keep chasing him, forcing them to repeatedly stop shooting. He turned towards a dead-end path, a wall of roots blocking the way forward. Placing the bomb down, he stabbed the knives into the wall, preparing to climb. As they started coming in his direction he slowly started climbing to keep them coming straight toward him. Once they were in, he sped up. Climbing atop the wall. The arrows started firing and he jumped down, triggering the bombs.

The air was torn apart. He felt comforted by the sound. He quickly took out the smaller disks waiting for the archers to come. Once they started firing he chased after them one by one, exploding the disks in front of their faces. While they would try to recover from the attack he launched the killing blow.

The fight was over and this was the first time he felt this good after a fight. He kept on improving the execution, allowing him to take out multiple groups at a time. Under the fire from the combined force of archers spanning multiple groups, his dodging ability was raised to another level as he improved the way he utilized the environment by applying what he had learned while fighting up in the air.

***

He felt exhausted even though he was in top condition. As he looked at the same pitch-black darkness he felt helpless. Nothing seemed to have changed, it seemed to be taunting him. It was like all that he had been doing was a dream. A nightmarish dream that showed no sign of stopping. Maybe it had been wrong to come in here, maybe he should have just accepted his destiny that he would die a criminal despite having performed no crime. He felt useless.

How much time had passed by, he did not know but as the cell he had been living in for the past few years started becoming blurry he knew it was not small. What had he achieved in this time? What had he even been hoping to achieve after seeing a black tower suddenly popping up inside the prison? He did not know but he regretted it.

Slap. The pain was intense. He gritted his teeth. It was not his fault. He should not have been in prison in the first place. Those who should have been locked up were enjoying themselves while he rotted in there for years. Having lost all that he had achieved. They had to pay. He punched the tree. They had to pay. But first, he needed rest.

But how would he enact his revenge? This thought slowly spread across his mind and without even knowing he was back to pondering about it. With the power that he had, he could attack them without any trace what he needed now was a way to protect himself.

He was still a human, a living breathing person. He had not forgotten that or rather this place had made sure he did not forget. If not for the magical healing this place provided he would have died at least twenty to thirty times until now. Still, if he planned it correctly he could take them out.

The only thing remaining was figuring out all those that had been involved with his arrest. He knew one of the syndicates, K. Inc.

Being the controlling force within Lahore's underworld they had been most severely affected by his operations and they had good connections within the government. It was something he had been aware of. How could they work so peacefully otherwise? It was just that he had not thought they could leverage so much power. Less than a month had passed and then everything had gone off tangent.

His plans and been leaked beforehand allowing them to prepare the stage with such skill that even he had a hard time understanding what had happened. Everything had happened too quickly and before he could even try to react he was in jail. There he got time and for the first few months, he had been using it to figure out what had happened. Immediately he faced a problem, he did not have all the information.

It had been difficult, calling in favor when they were worth nothing. Fortunately, some of his friends had been able to help him in procuring the information. The whole process had taken some months but by the end of it, he was sure that he had been played with.

The information about his operation had leaked right at the preparation stages. Those already annoyed with him decided to take the opportunity to take him out of the picture. This was the reason the operation had flowed just right, there had been resistance but just enough to not make him suspicious, there had been victories just enough that he continued onwards and then they had pulled the rug out from under his feet with one swift motion.