Fear had left him.
Not faded. Not numbed.
Gone. As if fear were a luxury belonging only to creatures who could afford to imagine tomorrow.
Simon no longer imagined tomorrow.
He earned it, tooth by tooth, blade by blade, one heartbeat at a time.
Today—if this cavern still knew days—he faced a new kind of silence. Not peaceful. Not comforting. Heavy. The kind of silence predators made before they leapt.
He could feel the cavern watching.
Not with eyes, but with hunger.
Simon tightened his grip on Amujamu, the cursed blade pulsing faintly like a sleeping heart. His worn fingers traced its jagged edge. It hummed in his hand, feeding on the carnage he offered it daily.
The cave widened here—an enormous hollow of jagged stone, glowing veins of red fungus pulsing like arteries. Bones littered the ground, cracked and sucked clean. The air felt heavy with the stench of sulfur and blood.
This was a nest.
And he was the intruder.
The ground trembled first.
A deep rumble beneath his feet—almost like breathing earth. Cracks split the cavern floor, dust rising. Without thought, without panic, Simon leapt back just as the stone erupted in a burst of claws and armored plates.
A beast burst forth—massive, centipede-like, its segments covered in bone-like shields. Its mandibles clicked, dripping green fluid that hissed upon touching the ground.
Simon had seen burrowing beasts before.
But never one this big.
Never one this…awake.
It lunged with terrifying speed for its size. Simon dodged sideways, his bare feet skidding across rough stone. The creature twisted mid-strike, moving like a whip despite its bulk.
The cavern walls shook.
It didn't roar—no beastly cry. Only a grinding hiss, like rocks scraping bone.
Simon's mind processed in cold fragments:
Armored plates overlapping—hard exterior
Mandibles coated in corrosive fluid
Weak spot likely beneath plates, at joints
Burrows—meaning it senses vibration
He stopped moving.
The beast hesitated. Its mandibles opened, confused.
Simon lowered his breathing. Heartbeat steady. Muscles still.
Perfect stillness.
Then he struck.
A single step. A flash of steel. He slid under its body, blade slicing into the vulnerable underside. Green blood burst, splattering his face—burning immediately. He gritted his teeth, ignoring the pain, and carved deeper while running beneath the beast.
The monster convulsed violently, slamming down. A plate clipped his shoulder, cracking bone. He rolled out, face expressionless, and sprinted up its side.
One downward thrust.
Amujamu pierced into the neck-joint, freezing the flesh around the wound.
The beast screamed then, finally—an ear-splitting metallic shriek that rattled stone.
Simon pulled the blade free.
The creature dropped.
He didn't watch it die.
He was already moving on.
A shadow swooped overhead.
Something large, featherless, with wings like flayed skin. The air cracked as it dove, talons extended, jaws lined with too many teeth. A predator meant for the open sky—but stuck here, adapted to hunt in stone corridors.
Simon jumped as the beast struck where he'd stood, rock shattering beneath its weight. It charged again, wings pumping. It was faster than the burrower—sharp, agile, hungry.
He watched its muscles. Its timing.
Like a bird of prey—thick legs, wide wingspan, explosive momentum.
When it lunged again, he didn't dodge.
He stepped into it.
His body low, blade thrust upward as claws raked across his chest. The pain bloomed hot but distant. No fear. No hesitation. Only action.
The blade entered through the soft skin at its jaw.
He twisted.
Fire-like energy from Amujamu surged through the wound. Flesh froze, cracked, and burst. The beast thrashed, screeching until its skull shattered.
Blood sprayed. Bone fragments cut his cheek.
He didn't flinch.
He wiped the blade against his tattered pants and kept walking.
The next one didn't roar.
It stalked.
A long, panther-like creature, fur black as shadow, eyes like dying embers. It moved silently, tail tipped with a wicked stinger dripping poison.
Its breathing was slow. Controlled.
Intelligent predator.
Simon gripped his sword lightly—almost lazily. He didn't turn. Instead, he listened.
Pressure in the air shifted behind him.
Tail strike coming first.
He leaned left before the tail even moved. A stinger whooshed past his face, embedding into stone and dissolving it. He grabbed the tail, yanked hard, and flipped the creature over his shoulder. Its maw snapped inches from his neck.
He stabbed the stinger first—removing its advantage. Poison splashed the ground, sizzling. The beast roared in fury.
Then it vanished.
Not disappear—blurred, melting into shadow, reappearing behind him with claws ready to tear.
He didn't turn. He didn't think.
He ducked.
Claws sliced through air. His elbow drove back—crack—striking its jaw. The beast staggered, shocked, dazed. He spun, blade slicing through its throat. Blood bubbled. It fell, thrashing, then stilled.
Simon exhaled once.
Not relief.
Just a reset of breath.
He was bleeding from chest, arm, cheek. Wounds stung, muscles burned, bones ached.
He kept walking.
Clicking.
Dozens of small shapes crawled over the cavern walls—rat-like beasts with many legs, jaws unhinged, fangs like needles. Not dangerous alone.
But a swarm could strip flesh from bone.
They rushed him.
Simon didn't retreat. He planted his feet.
Blade out. Breath slow.
Slash. Turn. Slash. Step. Crush. Slice.
Not fighting in panic—fighting like solving a puzzle.
He let them climb his legs, biting into his skin. He felt every tooth. But pain was only information.
He focused on movement economy:
One motion to kill three.
One breath for five seconds.
One cut for four limbs.
When enough stacked on him, trying to overwhelm, he extended his wing—ragged, bruised, grotesque—and unleashed a pulse of demonic mana. Not rage. Not hate. Just cold, quiet pressure.
The rats burst like rotten fruit.
Blood drenched him.
He scraped the last one off his leg and crushed its skull underfoot.
Finally, the cavern fell silent again.
Bodies piled around him. Dozens. Maybe hundreds. The red fungus dimmed, almost as if it feared him now.
Simon knelt. Not out of weakness—out of calculation. He reached for one of the beasts, carved precise pieces of meat, and laid them to dry on a flat rock.
His hands moved methodically. No hesitation. No disgust.
This was survival.
He touched his chest wound. Bleeding. Burning. But shallow. He exhaled slowly, letting mana seep into it. Flesh knit closed slowly—not like a demon's rapid regeneration, but like a man refusing to die.
His wing twitched. One wing. Still one. But stronger.
He whispered to himself, voice unshaken:
"I don't fear death."
The words weren't bravado.
They were truth.
Death had become familiar. Expected. A neighbor rather than a nightmare. Fear required imagination of something worse than the present.
There was nothing worse here.
Only hunger, stone, and claws.
And he had already embraced all three.
A rumble rolled through the cavern.
Not from a monster.
Not from earth.
From above.
A crack of shifting stone. A distant wind. A vibration that felt almost like breath from another world.
He looked up.
Far above, beyond jagged stone and devouring darkness, there was—just for a moment—
A faint shimmer.
A way out? A trick of madness?
He did not smile.
He did not hope.
He stood, picked up his sword, and began walking toward the deepest tunnel. Toward more beasts, more hunger, more battle.
Because escape wasn't won by dreaming.
Escape was earned through survival so absolute the Abyss itself would finally surrender and spit him out.
And until that day—
Fear had no place in him.
Only motion. Only resolve. Only the blade.
Time blurred. Beasts came and fell.
Blood splashed, dried, spilled again.
He scratched tally marks into stone with his sword.
Hundreds?
Thousands?
Time meant nothing here.
He slept against cold walls. Ate raw demon flesh when he had to—tasteless, toxic, yet healing. The sword in his hand grew lighter—or maybe his arm just forgot what exhaustion felt like.
He whispered to himself only when the silence threatened to swallow him:
"I don't need hope.
I need breath.
And steel."
At some point, he realized something chilling:
He was no longer just surviving the Abyss.
He was learning it.
Listening to it.
And it whispered back.
Not in words.
But in hunger.
After an eternity that could've been days or years, Simon finally saw light—faint, impossibly distant, but real.
A way out.
His legs shook, steps uneven.
But he moved.
Because the Abyss had taught him one truth:
Emotion is optional.
Forward is mandatory.