His neck was finally free. The elation that came with that put whatever his arm had gone through to shame. Stretching. It would be the first action he did when he was released from the immobilized effect on his body. Though his back was still suffering. A pesky splinter that pointed upward had been constantly poking and scratching the lower part of his back. All because of the fact that the journey on the cart continued, just that instead of climbing the rocky hill, they descended now. Luckily his feet were straight, so the same situation as the neck didn’t repeat itself.

  The sudden change to a colder atmosphere evoked his goosebumps to come out. They were going down, but no longer on the same rocky hill, it seemed. The road was much smoother here.

  About ten minutes in, the howling wind screeched and pushed into him from the right side, shoving him into a body on his left. Well, if that bouncy and hill-like terrain, which were touching and pushing up against his shoulder, were what he thought they were, then he had to say sorry. It wasn’t his fault that the posture turned out to be like this.

  The culprit was that strong gust of wind. But that sorry didn’t mean anything, really, especially for his shoulder, as it didn’t mind the current posture. It did nothing, not having to go through the unpleasantness as its arm, neck, and back cousins, and now it got the massage? Life was indeed unfair!

  So they went underground. He could tell that much. The thrust of the wind was similar to the time when his poppa took him to a large cave near the entrance of the Marble Mountains. Zalanir didn’t want to go there at first, because a popular tourist destination like that was bound to be crowded. Unless the crowd were observers who screamed and clapped during a tennis match, he usually detested a big gathering. Not like it was nerves or anything, just that being inside one who vied for the same thing would just take too much time to do anything. It was like being in a line waiting to get an order. Unless the quality was absolutely top-notched, he would rather choose somewhere else to save time.

  But inside the cave was a different story. The air was so cool and fresh back there, and the paths were big enough that he just wanted to stay there and explore. And whenever he got inside a chamber, right before he took the first step in, the wind would greet him with such a force that resembled a raging storm. It was as if the earth itself was breathing, and where he stood was right under its nose. The airflow there was just a beast.

  They were definitely inside a cave now. Likely the lair that he had heard of from the cultists. Even without his eyes, he could still paint a picture of them trekking through the valley back then, cutting through the forest before going up a rocky hill and now entering an underground hideout, all while he lay motionlessly on a cart. If only the situation weren’t one with the cultists but a tourist guide instead, and with his eyes open, then he could have been enjoying a four-star exploration service without worrying about when he would be able to move again.

  Zalanir caught some whispers on the way, but they were far away and muffled that he couldn’t get the whole sentences. Still, some words kept on repeating themselves, such as ritual, enforcers, hunters, and, to his surprise, Eiselen. The name of the cultist boss whom he killed was muttered by different groups, so perhaps the fate of her demise had been unraveled? It had been half a month since then already, so the fact that she hadn’t returned must've suggested something. Hopefully, Hiina or other enforcers didn’t screw up and make it known, or else he would be in quite a trouble.

  His body fell off into the ground on his head without any prior notice. Whether it was intentional or not, he didn’t know, but his head just clipped a rock or something hard on the fall, which hurt like hell. Then, his body got shoved in a direction by lots of kicks.

  One bastard was kicking him in the belly. Three. Zalanir’s count stopped at that before something pulled his collar and dragged him on the ground. He could tell the skin on the back of his head had been torn apart. It was already painful enough, but the sensation magnified when a stone got stuck there right at the peeled off area, continuously poking into the wound and injecting constant pain and numbness.

  Now he understood the helpless feeling of a fish getting struck on the head until death in the market, or an octopus seeing its tentacles butchered one by one by a chef. What a humiliation. He had thought about climbing his way to the top of the echelon of a grade one at a time, but what kind of top dog got humiliated like this?

  Power. He had to get stronger. Zalanir redirected the pain into rage. He would kill every single one of these bastards once he was free.

  But freedom was a luxury, one that he didn’t have at the moment. He felt his body being lifted into the air, and before he could register what was going on, his right shoulder slammed onto something hard, and he fell flat on his head. Light hadn’t been with him since being captured, but somehow darkness still kept on invading his sights, as his consciousness slowly faded away.

  The sound of words woke him up. They came from the left, low volume. Four voices. No, five. All male. Instinctively, Zalanir edged his body toward the talking, even though he had no trouble listening to the talk, and it worked! Flabbergasted, he moved his fingers and lifted an arm up. Still clunky and obstructed, but they moved. The vexing paralysis had finally run out of its juice.

  A flickering, blurry red line entered his vision for the first time in what seemed like forever. He had to squint his eyes a dozen times in order to adjust to the new no-darkness situation, which made tears flooding his eye sockets. Reflection only, not direct light, so at least his eyes had time to settle.

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  Torchlight. Didn’t take him long to figure that out. Dim only. Not enough to fight off the darkness. Mosses invaded the floor and the wall in bulk, forming face towel-sized patches here and there. Shadows lunged through the five black bars and crawled up on the wall nearby. Well, technically everything was nearby, since there were just three walls and himself behind those bars. He cursed whoever designed this, because the width wasn’t enough to even let him lie straight. Though the length would do. The gap between the bars seemed big enough for him to poke his foot out. At least up until the calf, perhaps.

  Zalanir dragged his still paralyzed body up and rested against the wall. Creak, creak. Oh, not sturdy. Wood instead of stone. Dark gray color though. Not really a typical shade for woods. The back of his head was still pumping out pain, which he did his best to ignore for now.

  “You’re up and running?” The croaky voice changed its tone. Zalanir was still listening to their discussion, but the mundane topic of bragging about their hunting spoils didn’t interest him that much, so he just filtered them out. This sudden shift in tone and intent made Zalanir think that perhaps the voice was addressing him? It was confirmed pretty much instantly, so it saved him a bit of questioning.

  “Hey newcomer. Still dizzy? Eat the mosses. They are the best neutralizers.” One of the two crisp voices also seemed to target him.

  “Are you perhaps … talking to me? Who are you? Where is this place?” Zalanir lifted his fingers slowly toward the mosses right on his hip and pared off a small batch using his index finger. Greasy, but warm.

  “There you are. You got ambushed by the Swamp Cult, correct?” Continued the crisp voice.

  “If you are talking about these barefoot bastards, yes.” Zalanir sniffed the mosses but dropped them right after. They reeked. No way he would eat them.

  “Figured. I don’t know what they are up to, but you are certainly not the last one they caught,” this time, the croaky voice chimed in.

  “How long have you been here?” Zalanir asked.

  “Days. Probably close to a month now. Hey Gota. How long?”

  “Twenty-two,” the crisp voice answered curtly.

  “Say, how strong are these cultists? I heard that the prophet is a mid C-grade, but what about the others?” Zalanir shifted the topic. He was inside their lair now, so he had to know what he was dealing with here.

  “There are two other peak D-grade bosses directly under the prophet. Logically, they would be the two strongest fighters besides the true leader of the cult. Maybe they have already evolved. Just my guess,” a male, baritenor voice gave the answer. A rare tone that Zalanir hadn’t heard for a long time, even back to his time on Earth. The music industry had just been swarmed mostly with tenors or baritones. Freddie Mercury was the last notable singer with this tone that he could recall.

  “I actually overheard that one of them had been missing for a while. The female one, that is,” said the croaky voice.

  “How come you know that?”

  “I just happen to have a good ear, haha.”

  “Uhm, who are you? Where am I?” A female voice on Zalanir’s right butted in.

  “Oh, looks like another one has come to her senses. Cultists … mosses …”

  She must’ve been one of those in the same cart with him, considering her surprise and tendency of asking similar questions. Zalanir pulled back from the conversation when they basically just went through basic information that he had already heard of.

  And as he expected, the mosses were indeed bad. The woman ate them and coughed and cursed like her life was about to end, which made the whole group burst into laughs. Stupid, but it helped. The mood wasn’t as bad for the prisoners.

  Eiselen was dead. He could confirm that, given he was the one delivering the killing blow. So that left the prophet and someone else who was likely a C-grade at this point. The image of the man with a dense beard holding onto the long, big flail crossed his mind. If he recalled correctly, the other cultists did call that man boss when he spied on them right after leaving the bat cave for the first time. That man indeed gave off the vibe of someone with power.

  The Gymer had mentioned that these cultists were rather weak if not for their summons — Zalanir agreed with that assessment about all the lackeys — but the bosses had to be the exceptions. After all, Eiselen, even in her weakened state, had almost killed him with that lightning attack, so he had no doubt that the other boss was just as strong. If he turned out not to be the Flail Man, then it really spoke to the depth and power of these enemies that Zalanir had made.

  His fingers were almost back to normal now, but not his biceps and shoulders, and especially not his legs. Though he had time, or at least he thought so, considering that the cultists hadn’t just outright killed him.

  Zalanir took the time to adjust his position. He wanted to just lie straight and poke his feet out through the gap in these bars, but he had to refill his resources, as well as mend his wounds. With his back straight against the wall, and legs crossed in front, he entered meditation. Good. Sound Sense allowed him to listen to the talk still. This skill just shone in this kind of situation.

  He could tell the torn off wound in the back of his head was healing, as the pain started to ease and went away. He was surprised that normal meditation still worked inside the prisons. Didn’t it make potential breaks easier to pull off if the prisoners had a way to refill their resources? He had thought that there would be some kind of restriction or imposing mechanism from the cultists to prevent that from happening.

  That particular doubt got cleared when the woman to his right asked for the escape, which earned her quite a big laugh from the other hunters — yeah, thanks to the woman’s unending questions, and perhaps her meek voice that these men disclosed that they were all hunters in this area. A bit of unfair treatment, as Zalanir did ask the same question right when he just woke up, but whatever. Men being more open in front of the feminine side was a tale as old as time.

  Apparently, there was a formation expert in the cultist ranks who was responsible for warding off this place. These hunters had tried to break off — both solo and in parties — but no one was able to. Even their strongest combined attacks couldn’t break a single bar, let alone the whole door to escape. Zalanir wasn’t sure how strong these hunters were, so he actually broke off from meditation and cast a quick charged Sonic Lance, which ended up doing nothing as these bars just brushed off his strongest attack without even budging an inch.

  This is gonna be a pain to deal with. Zalanir murmured to himself. Especially when he couldn’t cast Hurukele Whirlwind now that his staff was gone.