Hours passed as bandages were wrapped around Tenner’s leg. When he awoke, it was still outrageously bright and tears ran down his cheek. He wiped them away, turning his head sideways, with a faint hope of seeing past the tip of his nose.

It’s a doctor’s office -- bandits aren’t invincible. No one is. No one except me…

He thought he saw Molly for a second.

A black-skinned nurse in the corner of the room--dressed in a gray suit and chains which held medicinal tools--sorted potions, scalpels and scissors on a shelf in the corner. To the right of her, a doctor with a wrinkly face grabbed a massive syringe and approached Tenner.

“Ah, you’re back, Tenshot.” The doc sat beside him, straightening his white cloak. “Badly cut yourself or got attacked or attacked the wrong crowd. Whatever it was, it made you bleed faster than the CHEK could regenerate. Do you understand what happened next? There’s an important matter I’d like to get to.”

“Go ahead,” Tener said. Indeed, he’d ended up in a healing room. The doctor was annoying--how could Tenner not know how his own body functioned and failed--but he had to bear with him for a while: he’d thought of a way to get in and get to the bandit leader, but a mind bleeding to death couldn’t reasonably be asked to provide details.

“Caused a crazy stir flopping dead in front of the entrance. I have an order to ask what message you have.”

Ah, that’s exactly the detail that flew over my head. Tenner clenched his jaw. “Kill this pain and I’ll tell you,” he said.

“Fine.” The doc the syringe over his head.

“Wait, wait!” Tenner pushed the man away. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

A look that saw a phantom for the first time entered the man’s eyes: he had the same reaction to Tenner’s terrified bedazzlement as Tenner had to a syringe pointing down on him.

“Fixing... you up...” The doc mustered. “You don’t wanna rely on your CHEK to regenerate you because in the long term it drains you so I’m healing you. What else do you want?”

“No, not like that!” Tenner growled at the dumbass. “There’s a massive syringe in your hand -- that’s what I’m worried about!”

“It’s just a pain potion-- now!”

The nurse grabbed Tenner from behind, restraining him.

“Trust me, I know what I’m doing!” The doc stabbed Tenner’s knee. The syringe sliced through his skin, cracked through his bone and reached the center of the joint. A feeling of lava flooding his veins and bones made his leg twitch. Tenner released a quiet grunt.

The doctor pressed the syringe and the potion inside entered Tenner’s body.

Pain engulfed him, like being battered by seven planks at once. Then freezing coldness drowned everything out and the pain disappeared at once. The nurse let go. As goosebumps travelled across his body, Tenner ground his teeth and rubbed his forearms.

“You know what you’re doing,” he murmured, “but I’ve got no clue what’s happening.” Such disrespect would bring the doc an untimely death.

“I told you: it’s a healing potion made from four different types of potion that takes care of all sorts of injuries and pains.” The doc put the syringe on the small metal table beside Tenner then turned to the nurse. “Feeling the chill?”

“Yes…”

“Great. It should last a while as the other three do their work.” The man searched for something on the shelf. “You know, Tenshot, I’m so good at this, I could be a real doctor!”

Tenner chuckled. The laugh trailed off. His eyes widened. He hadn’t felt such a shock when the syringe appeared in front of his face. This scumbag.

“If you’re not a doctor then who are you?” Tenner kept his voice even, grabbed the empty syringe and slipped it behind himself.

“A fanatic you could say,” the doc spoke. “What, you think a real doctor would roam the slums or help bandits? That blood loss really must’ve gotten to your head…”

Tenner made sure the nurse didn’t watch, hopped off the seat and sneaked out of the spotlight--created by two hexagonal lights hanging off the ceiling--then stopped behind the man.

“Ah, finally.” The man found a tall bottle of purple liquid. “Now that you’re well, please, tell me your message. Sorry, you can’t leave, but I’ll pass it--” He turned and gasped. The bottle left his grip: as the glass shattered, Tenner stabbed him through his eye.

The nurse--who had recluded herself to cleaning the messy infirmary--jumped. Into her grip fell the doctor, bleeding on her chest. She tried holding him. His consciousness left him and he slumped to the floor.

Tenner swung. An empty bottle shattered over the back of the nurse’s head and she collapsed onto the doctor. Fuming, Tenner yanked the shelf. First, all its contents crashed down then the whole metal thing crushed the medics. Bones cracked.

That had to have taken at least two thirds of their health and trapped them with no way to die.

Tenner turned away from the sight, grinning. If that window hadn’t ever stabbed him, he wouldn’t have ever come across such evil that had to be cleaned off the face of the planet.

Most importantly, he wouldn’t have ended up in the perfect spot to infiltrate the fortress. It was all coming together.

Tenner turned the lights off with a pair of heavy smacks then searched around the room for tools. Though his wonderful axe had his trust, other weapons--except for the shittiest laserpistols--brightened his smile. The more, the better, he told himself, shoving saws, scalpels and a few mysterious potions into his jacket’s inner pocket.

Fucking bandits could’ve at least put a window in this door. He equipped his axe and faced the exit. Now I’m gonna be going in blind. His hand reached to open it--

A laugh sounded behind him.

Tenner retracted the arm, wiped his teary eyes from the potions in the air and his back faced the door.

Behind the rusty chair he’d woken up on, giggled a hooded figure. Their gray cloak, covering the entirety of their body, was torn in many places. Its neon outlines still glimmered. The ends of their limbs were hazy like they were disappearing right in front of Tenner’s eyes.

[Error: inspect blocked]

Who the fuck are you? Tenner gulped. He didn’t want to believe in his eyes, but they’d never lie to him and the CHEK-induced hallucinations were way less detailed than his.

Tenner collected himself and asked, “Nice view from there?”

The light on his CHEK rapidly blinked and grew brighter. A long, distorted bleep sounded from it. A screen appeared in his vision. It glitched as the text on it morphed.

A coherent sentence formed in the middle of the corruption.

[Indeed. I loved what I saw. Yet this is unexpected…]

“Used to people ignoring you?” Tenner asked.

[No. I’m used to them screaming then asking “Who the fuck are you?” or just a plain “What the fuck?”...]

“Well, that’s what you get from looking like a ghost.”

[Looking like a ghost?] The figure laughed. [Good one. Now, to the matter at hand. If you go through that door, you shall perish.]

***

In Tenner’s experience, the interest in listening to a story fluctuated depending on the teller’s age. If they were a kid by the Stardestructor table, it’d be a hilarious, but meaningless tale, if they were his parents' age, the story would make an insomniac fall sound asleep, and if they had wrinkles, graying hair and a longing gaze into the past, their story would be gripping. Especially if they were three hundred years old.

Leaning against the door, Tenner listened to the being, his wariness fading with every image that popped into his head.

The history of Realm 224 was as long as that of any other realm, yet its years had passed slowly, with as many oddities with every turn of fate as there were people. First, the realm prospered being a trading hub made of only Centercity. Once it grew, the poorer side started settling in the unused lands meant to be landfills. At some point, a class war began and the power flipped.

During those darkest days, when bodies scattered even Centercity’s streets, laserpistol fire knew no end, and bounty hunters completed dozens of contracts every day, human life meant nothing. But it still wanted to survive. Thousands found refuge in the farthest corners of the realm, in heaps of trash by the walls. They couldn’t survive alone and banded together to form a fortress. The same war happened again, yet with slum inhabitants and bandits. The ravaging bandit armies took over the castle and expanded it upon mountains of blood.

But being bandits, they never realized one thing.

The very life force that fueled their CHEKs remained even after a being died. And that lifeforce had a sort of consciousness. Insignificant in most cases. But when a castle was being built atop a hill of huts full of corpses, the force grew and morphed into a thing that should not be.

It had to be bullshit spiced up with an optical illusion by a person with in-depth knowledge of CHEKs. No matter all that, an itch told Tenner it was all true. He closed his eyes and drowned out the world. The whispers of his instinct flowed through him. And he shuddered.

The figure pointed at the rusty chair and Tenner followed their instructions.

“What are you getting at?” he said. “I was gonna leave this realm anyway. In fact, I don’t have much time so it’d be nice if you hurry up.”

[Oh almighty God above, I’m trying to help, you fool!]

“Why? Help me?!” I certainly deserve the utmost respect and all the help I can get, but why would this thing want to help.

[First of all, revenge is my purpose. After that, we’ll see. Maybe getting my memories back would be nice, maybe eternal peace. I remember the past and how the world was, but my own life is nothing more than fragments of different points of view…]

“Revenge is a good purpose,” Tenner said. “And it’s pretty obvious that you’re some sort of ghost made up of thousands of different dead souls. Pretty cool if you ask me. Anyway, you sorta got caught up with your backstory without telling me what I am supposed to do if I’ll die exiting through that door.”

The figure walked over to the doc’s oak wood desk and opened the drawers. In the top one was a bandit’s outfit. The figure tossed the clothes out until he reached a bag. They threw it at Tenner then reached into the second drawer and took out a few boxes of potions.

I guess these’ll be useful… if I knew what they did. Tenner put the dozen bottles into the satchel and took a blue one out. On the glass, there was an etching of a fading person. Did they realize how hard it is to understand what in the world that means?!

“You’ll tell me which to use when I need to use them?” he asked. “I’m not a doctor.”

The figure nodded then waved for Tenner to follow into another corner of the infirmary. There laid a book and a coin. The pages of the book contained all sorts of medical information and guides where humans were the weakest, and how to kill someone of a way higher level.

Tenner bagged the things before the figure could even point at them.

They walked back to the door, and in Tenner’s view, one last screen appeared.

[Trust me.]

***

If anyone had told me the damn Castle of Hate looked like this on this inside, I would’ve stabbed them through the eye with a syringe.

Clean walnut planks plastered the walls whilst a long carpet winded across the floor that, like a balcony, surrounded a five meter wide opening going to the very bottom of the castle. Tenner leaned over the railing. A bunker, dug into the top of the realm’s under-mechanisms, came into view.

Amazed, he stepped away from the edge and turned right to follow the ghastly figure. Or just... ghost. Whatever this being was called, their words flooded Tenner’s view, ordering him to keep going.

Upright sleeping capsules, all made up of a thin metal frame and a pillow, lined the wooden walls he passed. There, countless newcomers to the gang slumbered.

Three floors and there are hundreds of bandits on this one alone. They’re sleeping, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are hundreds. Doubt crept into Tenner’s mind: the thought of relying on someone made his index finger stab into his thumb. The jolt of pain reminded him that he’d trusted the bandits of Rusty Levita. What bad could a ghost do?

Tenner nodded to a new command,. drew a scalpel and swiped right. In his wake, narrow red lines appeared on the necks of the rookie bandits, and blood gushed out of them.

The ghost reached floor two, Tenner a moment later, laser-focused on their commands, which became more and more detailed every second -- the bandits on this level didn’t sleep.

The floor contained living quarters for the higher ranks along with an arsenal. Dozens of men passed Tenner, their conversation distracting them from the new face in their ranks.

“The intruder’s message” was the main topic amongst them all.

Halfway past the floor, his reddened pants attracted the attention of a couple bandits. He fought his instincts to knock them out, trusting the ghost’s orders to keep calm and walk straight.

One of the higher-up goon’s eyes widened and he blocked Tenner’s way to the stairs.

“I’ve never seen you here before,” he said, squinting. “That red leg of yours…” He laughed. “ Whatcha gotta say?”

“A lot, but I can only speak the words to one person -- once they leave my lips, I die,” Tenner said. “If you wanna hear it, we gotta talk in private.”

The hench chuckled then turned to a corridor leading to the entrance of his living quarter.

“We’ll talk in my room.”

Tenner followed him right up to the door. How could someone be so foolish as to let him walk behind their back remained a mystery to him whilst his nimble fingers cut the CHEK off the hench’s face and stabbed into his spine.

Tenner’s other hand navigated to the door handle and tossed in the hench. With his back, he slammed the door and took a deep breath. It worked. He had no clue how, but the ghost’s plan was stellar. Then a skinny bandit entered the corridor, a concerned look on his face.

“What’s going on? Is Ingot okay?” the man said. “I saw him stumble in.”

Tenner hopped forth and wrapped his hand around the figure’s shoulders.

“He’s a little tired if you know what I mean,” he said. “Trust me, you don’t wanna see.”

“What do you mean?! He never--”

The scalpel dug into the skinny man’s chin and sliced through the tongue, locking it in place.

Tenner reached the stairs and dragged the squirming bandit along. Halfway down, he unstuck the scalpel and dropped the man. They both reached the bottom of the stairs at the same time, yet one’s head had smacked into each step on the way down.

Tenner strolled into the crowd and cried out.

“Oh goodness, he fell down!”

As hundreds of eyes locked on the skinny man bleeding to death, Tenner passed the busy first floor’s lobby and descended the final stairs to reach the bottom of the Castle of Hate.

The bandits had dug through the thick layer of metal that made up the under-mechanisms' roof, and used the underground chamber for a spacious bunker, locked by a thick vault door. That’s where their leader hid, the ghost had said on the way there.

“He’s alive!” Tenner knocked on the vault door “The mysterious messenger!”

Pressure released and it started opening. Once the gap had widened enough, Tenner slipped through and sliced the neck of the foolish hench guarding it.

The inside of the bunker was the poshest place Tenner had seen. Expensive wooden furniture, engraved, and decorated with gold, filled the chamber. Stacks of bags overflowing with creditcoins covered the white floors in the corners.

Three masterminds sat around a round table, conversing.

[Bandit kings and queens live lavish for a reason. Beware...]

One of them finally noticed Tenner and sprung to her feet, grabbing a scanner. The little rectangle in the mastermind’s grip started glowing whilst the thousands of creditcoins’ lights died.

“Have a message for us?”