They had really just left Christopher sitting there, tightly restrained in his chair as both guard captain Merrem and Helle left to explore the cause of the alarm. However, this kind of gave him one more chance to do something on this loop.

Not that he was likely to escape, he was still attached with the special purplish manacles, but it should at least be worth a try.

‘Now how the hell should I get out of here.’

Christopher was fortunate that the walls were made from a more regular stone instead of the greenish stone that sapped his Soul Force. Maybe that would make the impossible possible. The door was already open so he only needed to find a way to get out of his restraints.

Christopher checked over his bindings, noticing that they had gotten rather bloody. The chafing caused by the convulsions had clearly done some damage. His wrists and hands looked horrible, but it did not seem to be a debilitating injury since he could clench his hands just fine.

Christopher’s thoughts first went back to [Soul Mark] and his Soul Bound items, expecting those to be the key to getting out of these much less secure trappings. Christopher’s feet had been free all this time, but he was not sure how that helped in breaking the purple bindings behind his back.

The manacles were resistant to infusions of Soul Force, but they did not prevent him from channeling or infusing anything else, that had been the green stone of his cell. He summoned his Adeline Dagger, which swiftly appeared in his right hand.

Now for the infusion process. He was very happy to see that his infusion of Soul Heat easily warmed up the blade, giving it a dull red glow. ‘Great, now what? How can I leverage this?’

Christopher tried everything that he could think of with his dagger and other Soul Bound items. He tried damaging the manacles with the dagger, he tried damaging the purple ring and rod that attached to his manacles, but none of it caused even a dent in the strong material. They had clearly chosen those materials wisely.

Christopher also summoned the Palladium bar and repeatedly infused it with Soul Frost and Soul Heat before touching it against the rod connecting the manacles. Even that did not seem to weaken the purple material at all after many attempts. Maybe his Soul Bound items where simply not the answer for his escape.

All of his experiments so far had only taken around twenty percent of his Soul Force reserve so far, and had only taken about five minutes. Christopher’s Soul Force would be one of his most valuable and vital assets if he managed to break out and he needed to be smart on how he spent it.

Christopher released his mana sense on his bindings, trying to discern something about the working of the material. Unsurprisingly the material did not appear to have any Soul Force. He increased his Soul Sense to full power for a moment and at this point he did notice something that he believed might be Soul Force clinging to the material at certain spots along its exterior. The Soul Sense at full power also made him dry-heave, and he was thankful not to have eaten in a while. The discovery was kind of interesting, but he had no idea how it was going to help him break out.

Christopher then moved on and tried to reinforce his muscles with his Soul Force. At least he had practiced a little in his actual cell. He could not be sure but he believed that he might have slightly powered up the muscles in his arms and wrists. But when he tried with all his power to break the manacles, there was no visible result. The only result was that his wrists hurt a lot for a good thirty seconds after.

The purple material was clearly built to last and Christopher did not have hours to waste on fruitless endeavors with the Blight most likely invading at this very moment. Not that he had gotten any evidence that the invasion was actually happening. In fact, it was eerily quiet in his room, no signs of life despite the open door leading into the hallway beyond, no guards rushing through the hall.

Christopher tried to think along a different tack. Could he perhaps get out of here without any reliance on his Soul Force? The only restraint holding him here were the manacles around his wrist, how could he leave those behind?

In a very angry and desperate move he tried to pull his right hand through the manacle, which unfortunately only managed to injure him before failing. His effort gave him some inspiration however, an idea that was absolutely stupid in its simplicity. He had seen this in media back home, but he was not sure that it would actually work in reality. This method would require quite some grit and determination though, and he was not sure that he had the stomach for this method.

His idea would require him to dislocate his own thumb so that he could then slip his hand through the manacle. ‘Am I really considering this?’ Harming himself in such a way would certainly be a challenge, going against his own instincts. Christopher figured that if he was going to do this, then he should probably start off with his left hand. At the least he would be healed either way after using [Bookmark]

Just then Christopher started hearing very distant crashing sounds, which were paired with some very slight tremors. Something was definitely going down in Lumen. The time of the invasion had maybe not deviated that far after all.

Spurred on by those sounds, it still took him a minute or two to muster up the courage to harm himself in this way, but he eventually he managed to push himself to do it. His hands were still behind his back, but he managed to press on the joint of his left thumb by applying intense pressure with his right hand.

The pain was intense, but he managed to bend his thumb inward with a flop, which was not even as painful as he had expected, mostly just a strange sensation. His left hand was freed from the manacle not long after. ‘Thank fucking God.’ He even managed to stop himself from puking.

Christopher looked at the damage now that he had his left hand in front of him, and it did not even look that bad. He carefully pressed his thumb against his leg in such a way that he could correct his action. He fought another wave of nausea as he did, but moments later his hand looked pretty normal again, although his thumb now rather hurt. ‘I can’t believe that actually worked!’ Experimentally gripping with his left hand revealed that his thumb could not exert as much gripping strength as before, but the rest of his hand was rather unaffected. ‘That should be good enough to wield my weapons for now.’

Christopher hated that he now had to do his other hand as well. He hoped that this was all going to be worth the effort.

A minute later, after rather quickly repeating the process, Christopher had gotten completely free from his bindings, allowing him to stand up and stretch with both joy and relief. This attempt had gone better than his previous attempt, his right thumb and hand at least seemed to retain their full strength and dexterity. ‘Still, this can’t be good for my health.’

All in all, he was pretty confident that it had taken him less than half an hour to get out of his trappings, a definite win in his book. Now he had to somehow get out of the Lumen Dungeon, which was not doubt its own challenge. Christopher hoped that the chaos of the invasion would make it a possibility.

He stripped of the brown and greenish prison clothing and summoned his trusty robes from his Soul onto his body. He also summoned his Adeline Dagger in his hand. He did not think that he was mentally able to use the weapon against anything but monsters in his escape, but he still felt better with his weapon there.

He considered looking for other summoned in this dungeon, but quickly decided against it for many reasons. He knew that the blue haired woman might be locked up here somewhere, but he would not know where to find her. At least he knew where to find her at the start of a potential next loop. Could there be more summoned? It certainly did not sound like there were many others from the questioning.

Christopher also did not know where to find the keys to their cell doors and manacles, and how to use those strange keys to unlock the manacles. And how was he going to make the distinction between another summoned and a hardened criminal. It seemed like a very time-consuming endeavor that might not even bare any results. And what if everything collapsed due to an Earth Slither, that could bring a very sudden death as well.

He did feel a lot of sympathy for all of the people locked up in their cells while the city became rubble around them, it seemed like a terrible and claustrophobic way to go. But releasing criminals to help with the fight would probably not be wise either, he did not want to release monsters of his own.

For all he knew there might be sympathizers to the Blight in the cells, or even Turned. He could only hope that the guards had thought to rehabilitate or release the lesser criminals locked up inside of the Lumen Dungeon. Surely, they at least were of better use in the defense of Lumen.

Christopher entered the hallway with no clue as to where he was. The hood had prevented him from getting much useful information as to his own location in relation to the rest of the Lumen Dungeon. He did know that they had moved through many checkpoints and had moved down a few floors. ‘I guess I should be trying to make my way up.’ Hopefully that would get him out of the prison soon.

He chose a random direction and found the hallway deserted. After only a minute he found what looked like a security guard checkpoint. The simple metal gateway was now unmanned, and some devices that he did not know the purpose of were left on the floor haphazardly. He left those alone and quickly moved on.

Christopher finally encountered the first guard in the hallways beyond, some way from his starting location. Christopher tried to look as if he belonged, walking purposefully. Looking at the expression of the male guard, it seemed as if he was immediately out of luck.

“Halt, don’t move a muscle.”

Christopher did not follow that order and burst into action. Not having much time to think, Christopher quickly decided to repeat his trick against Zerez Stout. Christopher quickly closed his eyes as he imbued his Adeline dagger with Soul Light.

When he opened them again a second later it was clear he had managed to catch the man by surprise, although the guard kept admirably calm despite his blindness. Christopher did not hesitate and carefully approached. He had to dodge a single swipe from the guard’s sword before Christopher managed to knock the man out cold by using the pommel of his dagger.

Christopher scratched his head, looking at the unconscious man with some guilt. ‘So much for not attacking any people. Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound.’ It was not as if he had used the sharp end of the dagger, the man should wake up eventually. He worked to liberate the man’s uniform, which was something that he somehow already had experience with. He couldn’t help but snort, his life had certainly taken a strange turn. He quickly put the uniform on himself, feeling much more inconspicuous with his new outfit. He also liberated the sword figuring that it would complement the Adeline dagger and the Endless bow. Maybe he could even find a quarterstaff soon to replace the one he had lost.

He hid the poor unclad man in a side passage, hoping that he would regain consciousness soon, although maybe not too soon. With the guard uniform he figured that his chances of getting out without any more altercations had gone up considerably.

Miraculously it actually worked. Only a few hallways later he ran into a second guard who seemed to be in a hurry. Christopher got a quick look from the Guard but she quickly resumed on her way, clearly not all that suspicious of him in his newly acquired uniform. Christopher still hurried along. He figured that he might just be unlucky enough for this second guard to stumble into the unconscious and undressed body of the first guard.

The next stairs leading up to a higher level did in fact have a manned checkpoint. The three guards stationed there did not notice him approaching at all, they werebeing busy moving some stuff around. One of them finally looked his way when he was right with them already, and he kept working as if nothing was amiss. ‘Must have thought that I was one of his mates?’

Christopher gladly took this fortune in stride and silently walked up the stairs without looking back. Nobody called out for him to stop.

Christopher finally got to observe the Dungeon on his escape, and the layout of the Dungeon was pretty straightforward. He was still underground and the large halls here were mostly made out of stone. It was all pretty utilitarian in its design, only Light Plates lining the walls on occasion. There were an increasing number of guards as he continued on his way, but it actually made him stand out less and less, he was just becoming another face among the many guards and in the chaos.

Christopher reached another level and the presence of people increased exponentially. The stone hallways also turned to the common Sternel wood on the higher floors. Guards were completely occupied with shepherding a torrent of citizens into very large bunkers. At least the bunkers appeared to be made from very thick stone. Christopher could only hope that they were built to last for the people’s sakes.

He was glad to see that there were supplies in abundance, at least outside of the bunker. As he saw the food and water, he could no longer help himself. His hunger and lack of hydration made themselves well known in that moment for they had not thought to feed them during his capture. He took a minute to take a few deep gulps from a large jug of water, and to quickly stuff himself with some of the dried food as well. A few people might have looked at him questioningly but nobody approached him.

He meanwhile heard panicked children and even saw haunted grown men shuffle into the bunkers. It was easy to forget to most had never experienced anything like an invasion. Some regular people were also stepping up in the moment, comforting people that were scared and helping to keep things organized. Christopher felt for the crying children and the people with the haunted looks. These were real people that would die if he did not find a way to turn things around. It was a sobering thought.

Christopher soon stood out again since he was the only one trying to move up, going against the current of people. Moving up became more difficult as the sea of people thickened, he hated moving against a crowd like this. A few guards looked annoyed as he went against the moving mass, but Christopher managed to get through the throng of people, fighting against the panic of being pressed by so many.

Christopher could not stop himself from helping a few people on his way, using his false identity as a guard to his benefit. a mom with her two children were squished dangerous by others, which he quickly put a stop to. He stopped a somewhat hysterical woman from hurting others around her. A man had brought his pet, a colorful bird, and it was pecking at everything and everyone around it. He continued solving some of these issues here and there on his way, no able to help himself.

Soon he saw natural light up ahead, causing him to quicken his pace. Christopher laughed and immense relief flushed through him as he stepped through the main gate and into the open air of Lumen. ‘I can’t believe that I actually escaped!’ It had been quite the day.

Christopher quickly brought himself back to earth. Why was he laughing? Terrifying monsters were roaming the streets and he would likely be fighting them very soon. He was however surprised to realize that this thought did not scare him as much as it once had.