As Xaviel wakes up in another world, he finds himself in quite different scenery. Scouring the area for quite a while made him realize that he was not where he was the day before.

The room is much smaller and looks rather unkempt than how neat Hoff’s basement is. As a result, he felt uneasy about this kind of progression. Chains are applied to his hand, but he quickly made them intangible and freed himself with his powers.

He followed his instinct from the room, leading him to a vast hall about more than 5 meters high. As he kept walking on, he finally found a light source in which he found a figure with greyed curly textured hair writing onto something. He retracts his step and hides in a nearby wall inspecting the figure.

Around the figure, he could see dozens of Giant Rats surrounding him as if he was the one controlling all of them. Their eyes glowing red, just like the ones he fought before.

NGIK NGIK NGIK

The rats suddenly screech.

(Shit! Did they find out I am here?)

GRAAGH!!

CRPPTT!!!

“AAAAH!!!!” Xaviel screams.

(The sound didn’t come from the rat around him. The sound was coming from behind me!)

He quickly unsheathes his blade and strikes at the rat’s head, killing it with a single thrust. Even though he managed to defeat it, Xaviel’s left shoulder had already been bitten.

(I can’t let my contaminated blood circulate! Even with my poison resistance getting venom through my heart is terrible news! But I don’t know where the hell is the poison. Should I just rip off my internal flesh as a countermeasure?)

Without no more time to think, Xaviel thrust his imbued knife and ripped off bits of the inner flesh.

“ARGHHH!! GUHH!!”

Xaviel instinctively covers the wound with his right hand, simultaneously trying to control his breathing. Even so, as he finally managed to calm himself down and look back to the front. The figure had already arrived at Xaviel’s distance range, or in this case, Xaviel had already entered the figure’s target range.

“Hello!!!” the figure greets with glee and an eerie voice.

Xaviel startled and reached out to the knife he had previously dropped from his right hand and swept it horizontally at the figure.

However, it seems to sustain no damage noticeable as the figure evades the attack by moving backward, away from Xaviel.

“Hey... It’s me, Hero!!! It’s your best friend! Krey! Remember me?” The figure points its face frantically.

(Hero? Is he telling me that I am a ‘Hero’? Or my name is ‘Hero’?)

“What do you mean by ‘Hero’? Explain yourself!” Xaviel points the knife at him with his left hand.

“It’s me! It’s Krey! Ever since that day! That faithful day! I had been searching for you!” The figure named Krey's eyes started to flow with droplets of tears. “It’s been so long!! So hard without you. My friend!! I am so glad!” He continued while sobbing.

(Why is he crying? What just happened? Calm down, Xaviel. You have to think this through.)

“On that day, what happened, Krey?”

“You didn’t remember? After getting the firewood to Mister… Woodyland! We separated. And then… I… I…” Krey seemed panicked and trying his very best to remember.

“I.. injected myself with the ‘vial of power’ that I found in this old labyrinth. The Grand Mylenia Labyrinth!! It grants me the power to see things unavailable to human eyes!! It showed me my hidden potential, and it gave me power!!! As of why I had managed to….” Krey paused again.

(This man... He clearly had lost his mind. Or maybe his memory is deteriorating bit by bit. Staying in this dark labyrinth for too long indeed messed with his mind. Just like ‘Michel Siffre[1].’)

“…WOWOWOWOWO What aboutt you Hero? Where have you been all this time? Where did you go after we separated?”

(There it comes. If I didn’t answer this right, things would undoubtedly turn for the worse.)

“On the day? Could you be more specific?”

“You seriously didn’t remember? The day the alarm goes EEEEEEUUUUUUUUUU!!! And then you said.. ‘Krey-boy, get Mister Wodowland to the safe-zone!!’ Don’t you remember that?”

(Shit. I didn’t even know who Mr.Wodowland was. But if it’s a very troublesome emergency. One where you should evacuate to a safe zone. There’s no way ‘Hero’ didn’t run, right? Wait...That’s it! Hero wouldn’t run. He would face the trouble head-on!!!)

“I fought alongside the guards to protect the innocent,” As Xaviel said that Krey’s worried face began to vanish.

(It seemed to work. I think he’s not frowning anymore because he is trying to understand!)

“I was injured badly. Yet, for some reason. I didn’t die,”

“Were there any survivors beside you, Hero?”

“I don’t know..”

“That’s.. very noble of you... One more final question,”

“Were you at the gate when fighting? Or somewhere else?”

(If Hero said Krey to go towards the safe zone, he must be fighting in the frontline!)

“At the gate….”

Krey covers his face, sobbing hard until it finally ends.

“Geheheh... Hehehehe….You…. LIAR!!!!!!!!!!” He screamed at the top of his lungs. “YOU ARE NOT, HERO!! IMPOSTOR!!!”

(Shit!)

“H-how could you be sure? I am your friend Krey!”

“THERE WERE NO GUARDS ON THE GATE!! EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM RETREATED TO THE SAFE ZONE!!!!”

(Damn! How am I supposed to deal with this?)

Krey’s hand stretched out as hand forming a weird pose

“Alter Bridge!!”

A blue panel emerges about 2 meters from Krey.

“My soldiers! Charge!!” Krey glared at Xaviel.

The Giant Rat that surrounds him suddenly ran towards the blue panel. The creatures that cross the panel suddenly change their appearance. The Giant Rats that cross over the panel grow tusks like an elephant and seem to multiply. Not only do they have spikes on their spine but also tusk on their faces. This would surely be trouble for Xaviel.

(The hell? How did the rats grow tusks and multiply that fast? Did that panel mutate them?)

Xaviel lets go of his left shoulder wound. He calmly breathed and began analyzing the situation. As the swarm of Tusks Rats gets closer to him, Xaviel notices a flaw in the panel’s mechanism. The sizes of these new creatures seemed to be much smaller.

(They’re much smaller, though it doesn’t change the danger level!) Xaviel then looks to his right while touching the wall. He remembered the trick that he had done before. The Lock Explosion technique that he used to open the northern door. If my blade becomes intangible to the labyrinth wall and suddenly becomes tangible. The wall itself would theoretically explode just like the door.

Swiftly, he thrust the sword at the wall right of him. The stabbed area then burst.

BRUUGH!!

Xaviel's right hand then inspects the materials of the wall.

(So it’s made of some sort of bricks... I could use this)

With no more time to waste, he lets go of his knife and shoves all the wall scraps that he can. Then, his right hand began throwing them frantically to the Tusk Rats. As the pebble-like wall scraps flew towards the rats, it was already imbued by Xaviel’s ‘Phantom Armament.’ When in direct contact, all the pebbles would go through the rat's body and only hit the inside organs, primary targetting the brain. Soon the swarms of Tusk Rats were vanquished by the imbued wall scraps that Xaviel threw at them.

“Now that’s over... Your next!” Xaviel said, pointing towards Krey.

“You underestimate me, Impostor!!” Krey said as he went for the weird pose yet again. He shouted, “Alter Bridge!!!”

The blue panel appears again but is much larger. It covers almost 10 square meters positioned horizontally. Unlike before, the panel moves vertically from up to bottom, forcibly crossing the bodies of the Tusk Rats.

“Rise !!! The Last Hero!!”

ZOAARGHH!!!!

A beast made up of the corpses of the Tusk Rats appeared from the blue panel. As it grows, it sends chills to Xaviel’s body.

(This... What the hell??)

The giant hand of the beast swiftly moved and grabbed hold of Xaviel. His left hand was stuck between the beast's fingers.

(The strength of this beast. Is no Joke; I can feel my bones on the verge of cracking. Not to mention I left my knife down there. Luckily my right hand is free. I should... )

“ARGHH!!!”

The beast having Xaviel in its grasp begins crushing him. Pain and pressure had penetrated the simple guard armor he had worn. He tries to fight back the pressure by pushing back at his hand. Though he managed to avoid the crushing motion, it doesn’t seem like a permanent soluble solution.

“Uwogg!!!” Xaviel suddenly threw up, followed by slight vertigo.

(What the hell is it now? Wait… does that mean?)

He remembers the moment he was bitten at the shoulder by the rat. He tried to separate the poisoned flesh from the clean one. However, the feeling of nausea that he felt right now. This was proof that his effort of dismissing the poisoned flesh was a failure.

(God... Things indeed got the worse turn for me.)

[1]Michel Siffre was a French scientist who went days inside a cave and suffered psychological and sensory deterioration.