Now alone again, Cain made his way to the cliff, a sheer stone wall with no footholds. He scanned the barren surface, eyes searching desperately for anything, any crack, any ledge that could help him climb. There was nothing. Smooth, unyielding stone stretched upward, mocking him with its impossibility.
He sighed and squared his shoulders. There was only one option left: using the skill he had just gained.
He focused, centering himself. The world seemed to slow as he prepared. Then, with a sharp snap in his mind, he vanished from the ground.
Moments later, he reappeared several feet higher, hovering against the cliff face. His heart pounded as he landed lightly, steadying himself.
No time to rest.
He blinked again, skipping upward, his body dissolving into faint light and reforming higher and higher against the cliff. Each teleport was a burst of raw power, a silent leap defying the physical limits of the stone wall.
His breaths came faster. Sweat slicked his palms, but he forced himself to focus, chaining blink after blink. His muscles ached not from climbing but from the strain of repeatedly vanishing and reappearing.
Several times he miscalculated the distance and landed hard, but each time he pushed through, refusing to give in.
Bit by bit, he gained ground.
The abyss yawned below him, a constant reminder of what failure meant.
Each teleport was a desperate gamble against exhaustion and error. The stone wall seemed endless, and time lost all meaning in the void. He had no sense of how long he had been climbing, only the pounding of his heart and the burning in his limbs.
Occasionally, his foot slipped on the edge of a ledge he had blinked to, sending him plummeting before he could react. Each fall was a stomach-dropping plunge into darkness, but before he hit the bottom, he forced his will, blinking again and again to break his fall. The endless cycle wore on him, leaving him ragged but determined.
He did not know how far he had fallen or how many times he had blinked himself upward. It felt like hours or maybe days. The cliff was unrelenting, a barrier of stone and void designed to crush hope.
Still, he blinked. Step after invisible step. Pulse after pulse of energy. The only thing keeping him from surrender was the faint whisper of freedom just beyond the cliff's edge.
Cain gritted his teeth, summoning every ounce of strength to push forward. His vision blurred, muscles trembling, but he forced himself to blink again, inching closer to escape.
The abyss below him roared in silence, waiting. But Cain refused to fall. Not yet.
His magic reserves were being replenished as fast as it was being consumed and as the Blinks began to number in the hundreds, Cain couldn't help but think his Master had expected something like this to happen.
Cain blinked again, light curling around him as he reappeared higher up the cliff. The stone blurred beneath him. The void above stretched on, featureless and silent.
Another blink.
He winced as pain lanced behind his eyes. The strain was building. His muscles locked, then released. His grip faltered, but he held on long enough to vanish once more.
Higher still.
No ledges. No sky. Just stone and dark. His lungs burned, though there was no shortage of air. His thoughts were fading into rhythm. Blink. Land. Blink. Climb. Blink.
He no longer counted.
He no longer cared.
Only the next teleport mattered.
Cain blinked again, and again, the world flickering past him in flashes of gray and black.
And still, the top did not come.
Yet with a narrowed gaze he kept pushing on, vanishing into the darkness above, still climbing.
In the month since Cain Sinthorne had disappeared from his life, Abel had felt like life had never been so good. He could now openly show affection to his woman Julia and the story of how he had tried to save her and Cain from a mysterious monster had painted him as a hero among the other freshmen.
Even now, when he remembered how Julia acted, he struggled to hold back his smile and laughter.
"A sudden monster attacked us when we got to the depths of the dungeon. I-it attacked Prince Cain and I. I-If it hadn't been for Abel and Prince Cain's sacrifice, we might have all died down there.."
'Haha. What a load of bullshit~!'
'Of course there were some dumb sluts who eagerly ate that garbage up and treated him like he was a god amongst men…and he loved every moment of it.
Every day that Julia didn't spend in his bed, he had someone else lined up to take her place. Life was perfect.
Well almost perfect. The woman who had caught his eye, Jayden Dawn. She was the only one who gave him the cold shoulder and despite her Commoner upbringing, had taken the valedictorian position. She was beautiful, strong and smart and he would not be able to see himself as a man if he didn't want to see her moaning beneath him.
Her long red hair, reminiscent of a burning fire, would make for the perfect set of handlebars for him to take her from behind. Her blue eyes like sapphires, he wanted to see water and tears on her face as she squealed. Her bountiful chest and hourglass figure were like a mating call to him and if he ever found the chance, he would make sure her head was pressed into a pillow as he took what he wanted.
Licking his lips, he knew that it would only be a matter of time. She would break eventually. They all did. He just needed the right moment.
He smirked.
Life was good. No, life was perfect.
Then he heard it.
A voice behind him, half-whispered but sharp enough to cut through the air.
"Someone came out of the Twisted Grove Dungeon."
He stopped walking.
"What?" another student said nearby. Abel's ears locked onto the conversation before he even realized he had turned his head.
"I said someone exited the Twisted Grove Dungeon. Just now. People saw it. The teachers rushed down to the gate."
"No way. That place was sealed. It's been over a month."
Abel's lips parted slightly. The warmth of his daydream vanished like breath in cold air.
They were wrong. It was impossible.
But the pounding of his heart said otherwise.
He stood still for a moment longer, the echo of his fantasy already gone, replaced by a name that dug into the back of his mind.
Cain.
He swallowed once, his jaw tight.
It could not be. It should not be.
But if it was...
Then everything was about to fall apart.