Vale heard a painful screech as fire covered the creature briefly, before it flew backwards from him, snapping at empty air.

He stared at the creature and took a deep breath, a whole lot of tension leaving his body at once. Now that he could see the monster, he could put a face to things, instead of scaring himself because of things he couldn’t put a name to. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

It was a creature that stood like a bird. It had four legs that ended in long claws and a head of a disfigured mutt. It had two wings, but there were no feathers, only bones with stringy flesh. The flesh on its body resembled stones, dull and old ones.

Most of its head had been badly burnt, blackened and charred, so its skin must not have been that strong compared to his fire.

The two stared at each other; their eyes met. The monster’s eyes were a bright yellow, burning with cold intensity. Vale could see the vile hunger coming from the monster. The monster was simply hungry, and Vale was food. Yet there was something else in the monster’s eyes.

And yet it was hesitating.

Vale blinked, then he smiled as he suddenly realized. "You are weaker than me, aren’t you? You... are just so weak."

It took Vale some minutes to understand because he had been fighting people stronger than him for so long that he didn’t even know when others feared him just from his presence.

Vale smiled, clenched his fist, and then he took a step forward and blurred. The monster felt him come and turned to run, but it wasn’t fast enough.

Vale’s punch struck it solidly in the neck, and the monster’s neck snapped back as the bones broke, the corpse falling to the ground with a soft thud.

"That was... easy," Vale said. "Must have been a Greater Beast. Am I in a dungeon? Is that where I am?"

Vale sighed. "And where there’s one monster, there must be others."

No sooner had he said that than he felt the air in the room change. The walls shuddered, and part of the ground shifted. His eyes went wide as he realized that some of the rough stones on the wall and ground were not actually stones.

They were flesh and bones. Monsters.

Numerous eyes turned on him, yellow and burning with the intense insanity of hunger.

Vale smiled nervously. "I don’t believe that you quite like human meat, right? We’re dry and stringy or something like that."

The monsters didn’t seem to understand him, or they did and just didn’t care anyway. Maybe they were just that hungry.

The whole mass of monsters surged forward like a sea, fangs and claws flashing. Vale raised his two hands and sent a blast of fire spreading into the air.

At the same time, he created a small explosion at his feet, lurching himself back as he ran. He concentrated on running, ignoring the growls and howls that followed on his heels. But the monsters were not only coming from behind him; some of them were waking up now before him, the space in front of him coming alive with them, their hungry eyes finding him.

There was simply too much; their sheer numbers outweighed the individuals he could kill. And worse, they could fly.

One of them got close to him and snapped, its mouth coming close to his head. Vale had to create a spear of fire and then shove it into its head.

Damn!

More and more came, from below trying to bite his legs clean off, from above as they tried to snap his head off, and from the sides. He created technique after technique, mostly just fireballs or spears, killing those that came close.

He also empowered the fireballs he created initially for light. He added more power into them and then made them into burning balls of red light that burned anything that came too close. He made them spin around him as if he was the center of a hurricane.

He ran and ran, but he couldn’t even see the hallway anymore. Everything was now a deep darkness of fangs and claws, growls and howls. Hunger. They surrounded him, and they wanted him.

He didn’t even know where he was running. It was as if he had been dropped into a vacuum of monsters, and all that remained, all that he could see, was them. Yellow eyes and gleaming fangs.

And Vale was getting tired. He had killed monsters and was absorbing some of their essence as he ran, but it wasn’t enough. There was just too much, and he had been activating his techniques for a long time on many things at once.

"Dominion!" Vale shouted in sheer frustration. He wanted out, out of the world of monsters that surrounded him.

His technique answered like an old friend. Red light gathered around him like dawn scattered across the sky. The space around him brightened and heated. The closest monsters were caught on fire, dry heat turning them to ashes, and the blast of dry fire continued, burning a loud circle around him.

He took the shockwave and then sent it howling forward, burning a straight line into the monsters, deep enough that he could see that the hallway still remained endless.

Vale didn’t understand.

He stared blankly as something cold and terrible crept into his mind. What if—what if there was no end to the hallway? What if it was only monsters and more monsters? An endless thing set for him to burn himself dry and then be eaten.

Despair flickered in his eyes. Everything—how his Clan was ripped from his hand and the hidden worries for his most dear subordinate—it was almost too much.

But... Vale was Vale. An Athrimir, the very last of them. He had seen despair, he had lived it. What was this compared to it?

"I don’t know what brought me here, or why. But if you’re fucking with me, then I won’t give you the satisfaction of seeing me fall. I am Athrimir. I have been broken once, and I forged myself in the fire of my will. This... this too shall pass!"

His only answer was growls and roars.

Vale threw himself into the sea of monsters. His balls of red fire following before and behind him.

It was a slaughter. Vale was a hurricane of fire. He lit up the surroundings with red fire that made the air shake. Everywhere he looked, monsters burned. Techniques rose and fell. He added his binding to his fireballs, taking control of the battlefield as he appeared and disappeared, appearing where his fireballs were.

He set everything on fire, and painful screaming filled the hallway.

But... it didn’t pass. The monsters did not stop coming. They turned from a river to a sea. They swallowed everything in their madness, unconcerned that they were burning.

And Vale... Vale was getting weak.

Already his fire burned less bright and hot. He had to reduce his fireballs to just seven. Then three. His [Dominion] technique did less and less damage.

Now, only one fireball burned.

The only light that remained was that, and thousands of yellow eyes that watched him, waiting for him to fall.

Vale stood there breathing hard; each breath was followed by a dry huff. His chest was painful, his mouth dry, and he was sweating. His bloodshot eyes looked at the monsters with hatred.

Hatred that was hiding what his mind was whispering—that there would be no escape from the madness, that he would fall in an unknown land to something he didn’t even know.

Why? How? Why?

"Fuck that," Vale said as he slowly sat on the ground, sitting on the soft couch of badly burnt monsters. His lone fireball shone gently above him, its light keeping the monsters away.

"Tiber and Slya are going to be very angry when they find out how I die," he groaned. "Seriously, I’m embarrassed, but luckily they won’t find out."

The thought of that made him go silent for a while, and he stared blankly at the ground. "Am I really going to die?"

"Of course. Don’t you want to die?" a voice that was no more than a whip said. A familiar voice.

Vale blinked as he saw Tiber standing a few feet away from him with a small smile on his face. "You said that you did not want to be weak. You spoke of power, of getting it and soaring high. You spoke of dominating the Eternal Skies. But you are weak."

"I... I am weak? Am I not the strongest Errant Knight?"

Tiber chuckled. "A snake in a well. When will you spread your wings? Errant Knight—that’s still a place for ants. Little beings."

Now it was Slya who spoke. "Of course. But what is that beside real power? This world is old, and many older beings have walked here. Powers—there are powers out there that you can’t imagine. Beings of power. O Lord of the Eternal Pyre, why are you afraid of power?

"What is it that is staying your hand?"