The corridor stretched before me, a throat of darkness leading deeper into the ant nest. I didn't go up. I went deeper. Toward the chaos.
I looked here and there to gather information about the place. I must cause chaos. If by any minute chance the war has not started… it will be my doom.
The possibility gnawed at me. Three years of isolation had distorted my perception of time. What if my calculations were wrong? What if the war hadn't begun? What if I emerged into a peaceful world where guards were alert, where my escape would be immediately noticed, where I would be hunted down and returned to my father's tender mercies?
If I get caught it will be over. Forever. I will be taken back to the House after the war.
I couldn't let that happen. Which meant I couldn't just run. I had to ensure chaos. I had to create a distraction so massive that no one would notice one small boy slipping away in the confusion.
I must release all the prisoners here to cause chaos.
The logic was simple. A prison break on a massive scale would draw every guard, every warden, every magical surveillance system in the facility. In the panic, in the fighting, in the flood of escaping criminals, I would be just another shadow.
Since I was Aetherless noticing my presence is incredibly hard. I will take advantage of that.
My greatest weakness was now my greatest strength. In a world that saw through Aether, that tracked magical signatures, that relied on the glow of internal power to identify threats—I was invisible. A phantom in a machine built for gods.
First I need the Aetheric keys to unlock the criminals.
The cells weren't just locked with physical bars. They were sealed with different kinds of barriers. To open them, I needed the keys—not metal, but Aetheric devices that could disrupt the barriers' integrity.
I started walking. I need to find where they put the keys. I didn't have much time. Need to look fast.
The path unfolded before me, etched in perfect detail by the memory I had forged during my descent three years ago. Every turn, every stair, every branching corridor was a landmark in my mental map.
I don't want to escape now.
Escape would be easy. Follow the path up, past the guard stations, through the entrance, into the world. But easy meant capture. Easy meant failure. I needed to go toward danger, not away from it.
I glided where that routine guard came.
The corridor where the guard had made his periodic checks. The room where he emerged from. That had to be the command post, the center of operations for this section of the prison.
I crept slowly and reached a room. Inside there were keys. And there was a guard sleeping.
The door was ajar. Through the gap, I could see a small chamber lined with hooks, each holding a ring of shimmering crystals—Aetheric keys, each tuned to a specific cell or section. And in the corner, slumped in a chair, a guard snored softly, his helmet tilted over his eyes.
I crouched inside and took the keys.
Silent as the void I was, I slipped through the door, my bare feet making no sound on the stone floor. The keys were cold in my hands, humming faintly with contained energy. I gathered as many as I could carry, stuffing them into the rough prison tunic I wore.
But a small alarm that someone took the keys woke him up.
A soft chime, barely audible, emanated from the key rack as I lifted the last ring. The guard's eyes snapped open, his hand reaching for a weapon.
I didn't give him time.
I positioned myself as an athlete running for a 100m race and moved towards him in speed, my hands forming a punch.
Three years of training condensed into a single moment. My body, honed by forty-two million impacts, exploded forward. The distance vanished. My fist, channeling every ounce of kinetic energy, every muscle fiber, every gram of will, connected with the side of his helmet.
BANG!
I hit his head hard.
The impact was catastrophic. The guard's head snapped sideways with a force that lifted him from the chair. He hit the wall behind, rebounded and hit my fist again. A sickening crack echoed in the small room—the sound of his skull meeting stone, then meeting my knuckles a second time.
He fell into the ground unconscious or… dead.
I didn't check. I couldn't afford to. Dead or alive, he was out of the fight.
I turned off the alarm so that others wouldn't come. The key rack had a small control panel. I smashed it with my fist, silencing the chime.
I put him into the same chair he was sleeping before and put a cap and a mask over his face to let other guards know that he's sleeping. From a distance, in the dim light, he would look like a dozing guard. It might buy me minutes. It might buy me hours.
I closed the door.
I started moving. I looked for criminals.
The cells lined the corridors, each sealed with the opalescent barriers I knew so well. Through them, I could see shapes—huddled forms, motionless bodies, creatures that had once been men and women. They were all mentally dead. Years in this prison causes permanent damage to the brain. I was fortunate that I escaped from it in just 3 years.
These weren't prisoners anymore. They were husks. Empty vessels that breathed and ate and existed, but no longer thought, no longer hoped, no longer were. Releasing them would accomplish nothing. They would simply wander until guards rounded them up like livestock.
I needed someone functional. Someone with enough sanity left to fight, to flee, to cause the chaos I needed. I need to find a recently imprisoned criminal.
I moved deeper into the prison, following the logic of the ant nest. The newest prisoners would be closest to the surface, not yet consumed by the darkness. I began to climb, retracing the path I had memorized three years ago, but this time with purpose.
I noticed a guard doing his regular checkup of the cells.
He walked slowly, his Aether-light lantern casting a pale glow, his attention on the cells, on the prisoners, on anything but the shadow moving behind him.
He didn't notice my presence. As expected.
I swiftly slid towards him and the moment I stopped I put my hands strongly on the ground anchoring me to it and used my free right leg and hit his head hard.
The technique was perfect—a grounded kick that used my entire body as a fulcrum. My heel connected with the back of his skull, just below his helmet's rim. He crumpled instantly, his lantern clattering to the floor.
I moved his body into the empty jail, locking him inside.
One less guard. One more cell occupied. The chaos was building.
—
Half an hour later.
The prison was a labyrinth of despair. I had passed dozens of cells, each containing a shell of a human being. None responded to my presence. None even acknowledged the possibility of escape. They were beyond saving.
Then I found him.
I found one. His mental state is better than any prisoner in this jail. But his jail was fortified with the same barrier that I had. Therefore this means he is strong.
The barrier was identical to the one that had held me—the same opalescent shimmer, the same regenerative properties. That meant he was considered a high-risk prisoner. Someone powerful. Someone worth containing with the best the prison had to offer.
Through the barrier, I could see a man. Not old, not young—perhaps in his thirties. His hair was dark, matted. His clothes were rags. But his eyes… his eyes were alive. They tracked me as I approached. They held intelligence, awareness, hunger.
I need him.
I spoke- "Hello."
He didn't speak or do anything. Just watched. Waiting. Assessing.
"Do you want to escape?"
A flicker. The slightest twitch of his fingers.
"You are tired right?..."
He nodded. Just once. Barely perceptible. But it was a response. Communication. Sanity.
"I will help you escape this jail."
He stood up. Slow, stiff, his body protesting years of disuse. But he stood. He came to the barrier, his face inches from the shimmering surface, and looked at me.
I met his gaze. And I spoke the words I had prepared, the words that would bind him to me, that would make me his savior, his commander, his reason to fight.
"I am the one who will save you. The one who will destroy your endless pain. The endless cycles. The Constant Darkness. The way your brain deteriorates."
His eyes widened slightly. The words resonated. He knew the pain. He had lived it.
"Your saviour. You're everything. Look at me. Look at my face. I AM THE ONE!"
I let the silence stretch, let the words sink into his damaged psyche, let them take root. Then, the final line, the hook that would secure his loyalty.
"But remember I will save you only if you listen to EVERY one of my orders."
A long pause. Then, slowly, deliberately, he nodded again.
After saying this I prepared to punch the barrier.
The reason I said this… is because I need someone to cause chaos. I can't do it alone. I don't have any strong Aetheric abilities or flashy spells.
He was my weapon. My agent of destruction. With his power and my planning, we could tear this prison apart.
He was in this jail for a long time. To use him I must present myself as a saviour. And I did.
"Come closer to the barrier," I ordered.
He obeyed, pressing himself against the shimmering surface.
I cannot destroy the barrier in one go. I need to make a hole and pull him out.
I focused on the weak spot of the barrier. Three years of studying barriers had taught me their secrets. Every barrier had a point of maximum stress, a place where the regeneration was slightly slower, the structure slightly weaker. I found it.
I went back. Started a run up and jumped high, when I reached the barrier I punched with my full strength. The gravity, Kinetic energy of my run, muscular energy of my punch became one and-
BOOM!
I hit the barrier.
The impact was apocalyptic. My fist drove through the opalescent surface like a meteor through clouds. It was a huge hole. But it was getting regenerated fast.
I had seconds. Maybe less.
After landing I quickly put my hand in, grabbed his hand and pulled him through the hole before the barrier fully regenerated.
The barrier snapped shut behind him, the edges of the hole sealing with a final shimmer. But he was through. He was free.
He slumped on the ground. His body, unused to freedom, unused to movement, collapsed beneath him. He lay on the cold stone, breathing heavily, his eyes closed.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
A long moment. Then his eyes opened. They were clearer now, more focused. "I…. am fine." His voice was that of an adult human. Rough from disuse, but strong.
"Then stand up. We need to cause some chaos."
I grabbed his hand up. He was taller than me. I was 160cm. He was 180 or something.
He towered over me, his frame gaunt but powerful, the muscle memory of a warrior still visible beneath the prison-wasted flesh.
"Why did you save me?" He asked. The question was simple, but the weight behind it was enormous. He needed to understand. He needed a reason to trust.
"Because you were the only one who was alive," I replied. It was the truth. The pure, simple truth.
He questioned "Those Bastards killed all of the prisoners?!"
"I don't know which ' bastard ' you are talking about… But my meaning was not physically dead. The prisoners here are all mentally dead."
His face twisted—not with grief, but with a terrible, burning rage. "The Church bastards!" He spat the words like poison.
My heart skipped. "What?? Tell me more about this!"