Chapter 58
The raw Essence of the Realm Opening Pills flooded Arran's body like a river of fire, pain filling every fiber of his being . Yet although his face twisted in agony, there was a near-maniacal grin, too .
Finally, he would be free again .
He stood in front of the door, waiting for the raw Essence to build up inside his body . Finally, when he thought there was enough, he unleashed it at the door .
The burst of power hit the door with a thunderous crash, but to his surprise, it held up against the attack, although there was now a large crack in the door .
Essence coursing through his veins like fire, Arran had no patience to spare . Again he attacked, then again . He battered the door with raw Essence, attacking it relentlessly, his mind only focused on escaping .
Finally, after a dozen attacks, the cracked door held no longer . Yet another blast of raw Essence hit it, and this time, the Essence ripped straight through it, shattering the door in its hinges .
Arran took a moment to savor the achievement, even as his body was racked with pain . At last, he was free .
He stepped through the hole in the ruined door, cautious despite his eagerness to escape, and found himself surrounded by darkness . With a thought, he created an orb of Fire to illuminate his surroundings . Now, he could see that he was in a vast hallway, dozens of doors like the one he had just broken through on either side .
On one end of the hallway was a large wooden door, reinforced with steel bars . On the other, there was only darkness .
After a moment's thought, he headed toward the wooden door at the end of the hallway, as it seemed the most likely exit .
He found the door unlocked, and when he opened it he saw a narrow spiral staircase behind it, hewn from stone and uncomfortably steep . Impatient to leave, he was about to head up, but then, he shook his head .
Behind each of the doors in the hallway behind him, there would be another cell like the one that had held him . If there were people inside, perhaps they could tell him where he was, or even help him escape .
He turned back at once, heading to the nearest door in the hallway . Up close, he saw that it was barred with two thick iron beams, both fastened in place with large locks .
Arran easily destroyed the locks with two blasts of raw Essence, then removed the bars . It was clear that the doors were made to keep people in, not out .
Cautious despite the pain urging him on, he stepped into the cell, using an orb of Fire to light his way .
At once, he could see that the cell was identical to his own — large and circular, with the floor, walls, and ceiling all made from the same smooth stone . The only difference was that in this cell, the walls bore deep scars from what must have been hundreds of powerful magic attacks .
When Arran turned his attention to the interior of the cell, he saw that a body lay at its center . Emaciated and unmoving, it was the body of a man, clad in a simple gray robe . Arran approached the body with some caution, until he was sure that the man was as dead as he seemed . From the look of it, the man must have starved to death .
Arran hurriedly left the cell, then moved to the next one . Again, he found an emaciated body, this one belonging to a woman . She, too, seemed to have been left to starve .
A feeling of nausea cut through the pain caused by the Essence inside Arran's body . Not because of the corpses — by now, he had seen enough death to have become numb to it — but because he realized how horrible their deaths must have been, locked in a dark cell without food, slowly waiting to die .
To Arran's mind, this was far crueler than mere murder . He understood having to kill, but he could not understand locking someone up only to leave them to die this miserably .
He shook his head in revulsion, he moved on to the next door . Perhaps someone was still alive in one of these cells, and if so, Arran would not let them die — not like this, at least .
Once more he found a cell that was identical to the other ones, and once more he found a man's emaciated body inside . He was about to leave when suddenly, a whisper sounded .
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