Under The Veil of Night

Although the labyrinth seemed complex, it was rather simple. There were only two way in and out, one at the left and the other one at the right. When someone came inside, they were faced with the wall and have to pick either right or left. Without any light, it would be a total darkness for them.

On the prison above, the people were startled when the light went off suddenly.

"What happens?" it was quite dark over there since there was only one small window not far from their head.

"I’m not sure."

"The light suddenly off."

The big guy on the center stood up slowly. He reached the door and pushed it open. To his surprise, the door opened rather easily.

"The door is open!"

"Yes!"

"Let’s go!"

In that moment, they ran outside happily. Being held in this place was something that they didn’t want to happen. Contrary to their excitement, the big guy stayed still in his place. He turned around to look at the place where Kanae previously sat down. As his eyes adjusted his eyesight to the darkness, he could see that she was no longer there.

"Hey, what are you waiting for? Let’s get out!" a man called for the big guy.

"I’ll go out later," the big guy answered.

"Why? The door won’t open for long, right?" the man called again.

However, the big guy ignored the man. He closed the door and sat down again while the others were already busy fighting with the officers to pursue their freedom. His eyes landed on the nearby entrance to the underworld prison.

’If he’s not fast enough, they’ll come out anytime.’

He didn’t want to risk getting killed by those powerful guys. As someone who had heard about them a lot, he didn’t want to risk his life for something like that, especially because he knew that he would be released in a matter of days.

BANG!

The big guy closed his eyes. ’They’re here.’

SLASH! BANG!

Kanae evaded the attack in the darkness as she frowned. The prisoners in this place moved faster than what she thought, taking her time longer in the dark corridor. Moving her feet again, she reached the last stairs. From the cameras, she knew that the most dangerous prisoners were held at the lowest part, so she directly came here.

Lightly opening the door, she encountered another pure darkness once again. There was nothing that she could see from the view in front of her. It was a total darkness once again.

Her body tensed up as she sensed danger. Her right hand moved and parried the sudden attack from the front.

CLANG!

’How heavy,’ Kanae thought to herself as she positioned herself again. The person’s presence was extremely low that she would have gotten herself killed if not for her excellent reflex. In addition, that was quite a heavy blow directed right to her head.

Her opponent was hidden inside the darkness, concealing his presence with remarkable ability. Relying on her sense, she noticed that the person before her already attacked again. Jumping to the back, she landed right near the wall.

’Oh no.’

CRASH!

The weapon from the man crashed heavily to the wall, making loud screeching and crashing sound. Kanae managed to roll to the side, evading the attack from the man.

’It’s a spear,’ from the range and the attack so far, she deduced that the weapon should be a spear, a long one at that. Since the range was quite long, she had to shorten the distance to be extremely close with the person in order to attack him. Unfortunately, his constant attack didn’t allow her to do that.

The person before her attacked her feet, making her jumped around constantly. Seeing how he could sense the position of her feet correctly, she knew that she didn’t do a good job in erasing her presence. Should she train herself to erase her presence more?

CLANG!

The spear suddenly moved from below to up, Kanae quickly used her small sword to block the trajectory while moved to the back, evading the lethal blow. This battle in the darkness completely drained her mental energy.

The spears kept on coming towards her. On the other hand, she didn’t have any chance to counterattack. The person kept on pressing forward to the point that Kanae felt exhausted.

In the end, she took a different measure. When the spear was thrust towards her head, she evaded it and used her left hand to capture the spear. Her palm burned at the speed the spear moved.

Sensing the spear was blocked, the man pulled it back forcibly. Kanae used the momentum to move towards the man and made her attack towards him.

CLANG!

’Ah, his reaction is faster.’

Kanae quickly lowered her body and rolled on the ground to avoid the man. It was quite successful and at the same time, a little failure. Her attack could only lightly wound the hidden person in the dark.

She readied her stance again, but the person before her stopped attacking. She frowned, thinking about what she should do.

"This is the first time I meet someone who manages to injure me after a long time," the person suddenly spoke up. "I believe you’re not a guard in this prison, am I right?"

"Ah, yes. My name is Rei, I’m Master Rudy’s Third Disciple."

"Oh? That old man finally takes someone else again as his disciple?" the tone of the person before her was full of approval. "You’re not half bad. Within a few more years, you will be able to beat me with your skill."

"Many thanks for your compliment, Senior," Kanae replied. She couldn’t see this person, but she knew that he was standing in front of her.

The man shifted his body position. "Follow after me to the other room. You should be able to sense my presence and movement."

Although the man said that, he didn’t make any attempt to make it easier for Kanae to sense him. Still, with her keen sense, she knew that the man was walking away.

Full of curiosity, Kanae followed after him towards the other part of the cell that she didn’t know.