A long, sharp blade rested in Athan’s hands. Chips scar the edges of his new sword.

  With his new sword, Athan drags it to a secluded part of the dungeon to hide himself away from any man-eaters—especially the queen man-eater.

  Now secluded away from the man-eaters, Athan examines his new sword further. Along the grip of the sword, blood had stained it. ‘This sword’s user must have been through many hardships.’ Thought Athan.

  Athan stands to his feet and raises the sword in the air with both of his hands placed on the grip. Determination was in his eyes. With his sword, he struck down as hard as he could.

  “Whoa. Looks like this might take me some getting used to.” Athan grinned.

  Still determined, Athan raised the sword once more in the air and struck down towards the ground. Each time he struck, he would stop it just before it hit the ground, trying not to cause any noise. He would repeat this process multiple times.

  ‘This and my weird regeneration ability were the only things I had now. The only things that made me of any use.’ Athan breathes heavily. ‘And, this sword was the only weapon I had that would get me out of this dungeon alive.’

  Athan understood that he was weak. He knew his body was weak; he knew he did not possess any newfound strength other than the weird generation ability. Despite that, Athan raised his sword and struck.

  After constant reps of swinging his sword, Athan fell to his butt and lay his back against the cold, rocky dungeon wall. His arms were practically numb from the constant swinging, but even with the pain, he had a slight grin on his face.

  ‘I wonder how the Brute and the rest of the group are doing.’

  With a bit of rest, Athan grabs his sword and lifts himself.

  Athan mumbles to himself.

  “I think it’s time I found a way out of this dungeon.”

  Athan rests the sword along the back of both shoulders. And he carefully starts to walk through the wide and narrow rocky paths of the dungeon.

  While walking, Athan only encounters a couple of man-eaters. Most of the ones he encountered were asleep. Man-eaters that were asleep, Athan would carefully walk up on them, not making a sound, and he would raise his sword with a piercing look in his eyes and strike the man-eater through their back…killing them cleanly.

  He would do this for each sleeping man-eater he came across.

  Eventually, Athan has killed so many sleeping man-eaters, to the point where every path he came across had none. He started to wonder where all the other man-eaters were.

  That’s when a voice echoes through the dungeon. The voice came from ahead of Athan; it was high-pitched, as if they were demanding someone.

  “Keep it moving!”

  Those were the words Athan would hear as he got closer to the voice. At each step Athan took, the voice grew louder until eventually He found himself in front of the path the voice was coming from.

  In the path ahead of him was a shadow figure pointing in a direction, demanding something to keep moving forward. From his own path, Athan approached the entrance to this path, which had curved walls. The path ran from right to left.

  Athan wanted to peek down the path, but as he did, he felt a demanding presence. Fear started to run through Athan’s body. He ran inside a small crevice behind the curved walls and just listened.

  “Humans! Keep it moving!”

  Athan suddenly realized that the voice he was hearing was familiar. It was the man-eater who was talking to the queen.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Hesitantly, Athan decides to take a small peek. Just looking outside the crevice, Athan sees a bunch of man-eaters walking down the path with ropes tied around their bodies. ‘Ropes?’

  As the man-eaters continued walking, Athan’s face tightened in fear.

  Man-eaters had people at the other end of the rope.

  Breathing heavily, Athan could only observe what was happening to the people. They were on all fours, wearing nothing but a white cloth around their waist for men, and for women, they had a white cloth around their whole body.

  Ropes were tied around their necks, and behind them was the man-eater who talked to the queen. He was forcing them to keep walking.

  Suddenly, another man-eater walks up to the demanding man-eater.

  “General, everything is almost ready. Only seven more days.”

  The General shakes his head up and down with his body.

  ‘Ah, so that’s a general man-eater? This means there are different types of man-eaters.’

  Athan sighs in fear.

  Not knowing what to do, Athan keeps himself hidden in the small crevice until the man-eaters finish walking the path. After what seemed like hours, Athan takes another small peek and sees that the path is empty.

  Athan emerges from his hiding place and cautiously approaches the path. Athan’s eyes were heavy, but he still put both of his feet onto the path, and he started to look around. The path was empty and quiet.

  ‘Tho—those people were alive!’ Athan shouted inwardly. ‘I…I should save them right? But am I really capable of doing that?’

  Unsure of what to do, Athan gripped the handle of his sword tightly and gritted his teeth.

  ‘No! Even if I'm not capable! I should still try and save them!’ With a now made-up mind, Athan walks in the direction where the man-eaters were going.

  Athan has walked a little bit, but he suddenly stops. He was pondering whether he should try to train himself as much as he could or save them right now. Athan heard one man-eater talking about having seven days.

  Trying to think about it too much, Athan decides he will train himself up as much as he can. He will fight many man-eaters to build up his fighting experience.

  Diverting from the main path towards where everyone was going, Athan takes a different route. He goes down several paths and tries to find man-eaters, specifically those alone, as they are much easier to kill. Man-eaters alone were pretty easy to kill, but when they get together in large groups, it’s almost impossible to kill them.

  Every path that Athan has found so far has had more than one man-eater in it; not being able to find a lone man-eater starts to annoy Athan. That changes, though, when he spots movement ahead of him.

  Just in front of Athan was a singular man-eater, just like Athan had been wanting.

  Without trying to draw the man-eater's attention, Athan slowly raises his sword, takes a deep breath, exhales, and, with speed, darts towards the man-eater.

  The man-eater takes notice and begins clanking his teeth rapidly. And with its six legs, it darts around the walls of the dungeon, making it hard for Athan to land a hit.

  Athan keeps his calm and focus. He observes the man-eater, and when the time comes, he swings at the man-eater, but unfortunately, he misses and only manages to get one of its front legs.

  The man-eater flies ahead of Athan, landing hard on the ground, squealing in pain. Blood oozes from where its leg was. Still, the man-eater gets back up and dashes towards Athan, leaving a bloody trail behind.

  ‘Without one of your legs, you are much slower now!’

  Athan swings and dashes toward the man-eater and swings down his sword, and misses entirely.

  The man-eater just dodges the attack and bites into Athan’s leg.

  Scared, Athan kicks the man-eater with his other leg as hard as he can, sending it flying into the dungeon walls.

  Athan screeches in pain as the man-eater takes a chunk from his leg.

  But with an unwavering look, Athan manages to hold his sword in front of him.

  ‘Alright, so now we are both slowed down. But let's see who slows down completely.’

  The man-eater gets back up on its five legs and stares at Athan with its soulless purple eyes, and a part of Athan’s leg still in its mouth. And without notice dashes at Athan again with whatever speed it has left.

  ‘I see. So you also have an unwavering look, huh?’

  Athan grips his sword, but instead of dashing towards the man-eater, he lets the man-eater close in.

  And again, when the man-eater is close enough, Athan swings.

  ‘Shit.’

  Again, for the third time, the man-eater dodges Athan’s attack.

  Even though the man-eater dodged, it wasn’t a clean one. It ends up only dodging by forcing itself onto its right side and quickly getting back up.

  Athan was exhausted, his body was fatigued, and his eyes were heavy. But so was the man-eater. The man-eater was now just struggling to keep itself up.

  Still, Athan was cautious. A limply walked towards the man-eater with his guard up. Blood was gushing out of the side of his leg.

  The man-eater was no longer moving as it had ten seconds ago. The blood that the man-eater was losing finally caught up to it.

  Athan walked up to the man-eater. And with a serious look, he lifted his sword in the air.

  “It looks like it was you…who ran out of speed first.”

  And he strikes the man-eater in the back, killing it.