Matthew trudged through the dark, small tunnel slowly. He glanced behind him for a while, then continued forward with stony resolve.
Every once in a while he'd encounter Hivebeasts—but did not engage, simply walking under their noses with an empty mind.
This wasn't easy however, a couple turned to him once or twice wondering if they had just felt something. His mind was a vast calm sea—with a dark storm exiled to the edges.
He focused on each step, simplifying the process to an almost mind-numbing pace. This was the best way he could see to deceive the monster's magical senses and keep moving to escape.
When he was alone, far from the sensitive monsters, Stella always grazed his mind. Her soft, shy hair, those happy green eyes and a smile so deceptive he almost believed she could be something real.
He forced his mind to remain bare, clean of all such impurities like he should have always kept it. He shouldn't have let them cram him into a legion, he should have stayed a scout and killed on his own.
Their little circle jerk of sharing spirits wouldn't last long anyway, one of them would feel repressed or discriminated against, he would call upon others that felt this way and build a small movement to challenge Parker.
The group would fall apart as it was too big to manage individuals. Parker would fall into a depression and Stella would end up as someone's toy he guessed.
What other fate did she see for herself? A servant was a servant. When everything falls apart, none of the people she played nice for would do the same, they would realise that strength determines one's fate.
Like money, with a high enough level or potency, one could bend the world to their liking and the mobs below would praise them. Cause why not? He earned that power.
It doesn't matter that people helped him get up there, he has raised himself to that level and deserves the right to use his power. Little ones like Stella would praise him and wish they could grow that strong one day.
Matthew spat onto the ground as a bitter taste pervaded his mouth, the bright moss of the tunnel's low ceiling became less abundant, darkening the path forward.
Humans would always congregate around power and influence, bending over to worship it whether twisted or not.
As long as it served them in even the smallest of ways.
He took a deep breath and cast off his thoughts, Stella was safer in these tunnels than he was and when she ended her delusion, she would escape easily.
He reached a fork in the road, the one to his left was what he wanted. A Hive beast blocked the entrance, its rough and grey body illuminated by blue veins under its chitin armour and sharp blue spike on its back.
It reared up sliding through the tighter tunnel he wanted to go into. There wouldn't be much space to avoid them if he went down there.
He thought for a moment, drawing the beast's attention, before it could react his sword stabbed into its eye. Matthew grabbed the dead beast and pulled it out of the tunnel, throwing it aside with a burst of shocking strength.
He was stronger than ever, he decided where he would go, who he would listen to and where he wanted to go with his life.
Two more Hivebeasts came across the tunnel, one squeezing out from the tighter tunnel and the other coming from behind him.
More would come, so he'd best kill them quickly.
He parried a spiked leg and kicked off the wall to quickly get around it.
The creature spun quickly to slam its heavy body into him, but he jumped over and slammed his sword behind the armor on its neck.
Wrenching the sword to the right to lacerate its throat and pulling it out while dodging the horrible beast that had finally crawled from the smaller tunnel.
He was like a whirlwind of violence to the slow, dumb beast. His sword ripped two legs from its body before burying it in the Hive beast's insect-like eyes.
Almost immediately the storm of carnage and ferocity left his body as his mind emptied, he waited for almost a minute before Hive beasts began flooding the tunnel.
Almost twenty of them filled the tunnel, making him constantly move to avoid them.
Escaping to the other tunnel, he waited for them to follow his trail of slaughter.
It led away from the smaller cave which he was aiming to enter.
When enough of them slid out the smaller tunnel, he entered and made his way through. Dropping into a low crouch, palms against the floor and on his tiptoes.
He made a couple of steps, uncomfortably crawling forward and keeping his eyes ahead of him.
Almost a minute later his blood froze.
One of the Hivebeasts crawled into the tunnel behind him. He began to crawl quickly.
The edge at which he stood to concentrate made him close his eyes and just keep moving.
He had to drown every thought—what he'd do if it caught him, or worse, if something waited ahead.
Then it was truly over.
Thankfully nothing appeared in his path, but the Hivebeast behind him kept moving faster.
His knees and fingers ached with a burning pain, his shirt clung to his sweaty body as he crawled and his hoarse breath flowed freely as Matthew didn't dare to focus on anything.
He saw the path widened and began to crawl more furiously, alerting the beast to his presence.
It's warm and disgusting breath crept over his neck like poison, it's skittering pierced his ears as it closed in on him.
He fell into the wider tunnel, quickly turning while he summoned Kinslayer. The white crystal sword pierced the Hivebeast's eye and lodged it in the small tunnel.
"There, nothing can follow through that anytime soon."
He began to run down the path ahead, not worried about encountering anything. He had to escape before they started to come in force.
He was getting close to the end of the map, where he would find the river of sand again.
A worm of doubt found his way into his heart about the map, he hadn't doubted its authenticity back then because he was so angry.
Frankly he couldn't care, he would escape one way or the other, just not with Stella.
He whirled around a corner to find something that almost sent him running back.
A Hive beast, six legged and grey with cold, blue veins of energy running under its powerful armor. Its mandibles clicked and vibrated rapidly, long lines of drool pouring from them.
Its back bristled with elongated blue spikes, shimmering like crystalline spears—far more menacing than a Hive beast. It was taller, powerful and robust, already towering over him with deadly, serrated legs.
It had a pair of black, blunt horns on its small head and two pairs of eyes instead of one. Below a large insect like eyes were smaller almost human like eyes, yellow with huge, black pupils.
It turned to him, thrumming softly as it repositioned its massive body and shook the ground with each skuttle.
It was looking at him.
His stomach turned, he swallowed his spit and raised Kinslayer. "Well, that's not good."
The massive Hive beast let out a deep and guttural howl that he felt in his bones. It didn't charge at him, instead lowering its small head.
Matthew raised an eyebrow, inching backward. Then a sparkling flush of dark glowing energy formed between its blunt horns.
Matthew gazed incredulously at the ethereal display of impossible lights. A spear formed from the dark energy, thrumming with horrible intensity.
Then with an ear-splitting pop, it shot straight at his heart with untraceable speed.