There was a massive swelling in his shoulder. It made it difficult for him to use his arm. This, in of itself, would not have been much of a problem, he had gone through much worse, but the sudden addition of archers made it very problematic. In the close combat fights, he could defend himself or control the attacks he took but it was not possible with the archers constantly harassing him. It had been a whole new level of difficulty. The constant barrage of arrows had forced him to cast one spell after another to quickly kill the monster. The archers had clawed themselves to the tree trunks and with his damaged shoulder it was impossible to climb up to them, requiring him to further expend his energy.

Thankfully, he found the resting space quite quickly. 

Unable to perform any strenuous activities he shifted his focus toward the spells. The time seemed to pass in a blink as he kept testing his ideas for days upon days. Just like before, he noticed how he had not felt a single pang of thirst and hunger. He shrugged his shoulders and continued tweaking the spells. What did it even amount to when he could go from a near-dead state to completely healthy within a blink of an eye or him being able to cast spells. It was advantageous for him and that was all that mattered.

His eyes felt heavy and a constant wave of pain swept through his head. Again he closed his eyes, focusing inwards. He suddenly felt something, it appeared in his perception without any warning. Setting his focus on it he could feel it being dragged somewhere. He tried stopping it, affecting it but all in vain. It was sucked into a path that was now familiar. Opening his eyes he let out a sigh, dispersing the bright shield that covered him from all sides. Stretching his legs and then he lay down on the moss-covered ground.

Should he contact his friends once he got out? He pondered upon it and in the end decided against it. He did not even know who had been included in the plot against him and after going through this ordeal he was confident to deal with them on his own. These powers that he got in here were more promising. Only requiring the energy to be cast which he had in ample amount in the form of the crystals. If he could get his hand on some material to create IEDs the damage he could inflict was something they could never imagine.

A manic grin covered his face. He had been jailed on the false charges of terrorism, he would have to make sure they understood what actual terrorism was like. It would be good, ridding the country of some filth while he quenched the fire within. But the foremost on his list was gathering information about them. One of his juniors had been keeping him up to date about them and there had been nothing good that he had heard from him.

Know thy self, know thy enemies. A thousand battles, a thousand victories. If he did not understand the weapon that his enemies used, how could he be expected to counter them? It was with this premise that he had started dabbling in the dangerous field of IEDs. The deeper he dived the more it had affected how he dealt with the terrorists and the bombings.

Those had been tough times. He had been unable to make head or tail of the situation he had put himself in. The bomb blasts kept occurring killing tens, injuring hundreds, and causing massive monitory damage. For the first month, all he could do was watch as the civilians and the police force were killed by the bombs. All that he had been able to do was collect the flesh that had splashed all around the area, pulling any people that had been crushed under the debris or the hardest of them all, watching as the humans, young and old, men and women, all healthy just a few moments ago became disable or nearly dead. The feeling of being unable to do anything had been crushing.

Innocents that had no connection whatsoever in whatever games those in power were playing, seeing them at those times was the turning point of his life. It was at that time that he, with utmost sincerity, wanted to help those people, something that had in the end put him behind the bars. Still, at that time he had started learning how the IEDs were manufactured and how they worked to have a better chance to counter the activities.

He would make them regret it. His eyes closed by themselves and he went to sleep, this idea swirling in his head.

***

Time passed. His body slowly recovered. His experiment faced a bottleneck. He had understood how the energy moved in the path that connected the reservoir and the barrier. What he still had been unable to grasp was where the reservoir itself was. No matter what he tried, every time the energy suddenly appeared within his perception. Furthermore, how it was pulled into the path was also another thing he could not understand.

He kept going. Just like back in the days when he was learning about the IEDs by himself. Deactivating those that had been recovered from the terrorists, creating new ones. Learning the material that was required to make them. Keep an eye out for the purchase of those materials. He had gone from knowing nothing to having the ability to deactivate bombs. All it required was patience, smart work along with the hard work and the rest would be solved with the passage of time.

Facing the bottleneck he diverged onto other experiments. The ability to control the amount of energy that was provided to a spell. For example, if “Spark” cost 1 point of energy he wanted to control that one point. Being able to make it 0.1 or 10 whenever he wanted. Connecting with the spell module his senses were sent into an alien world. He just kept tweaking and adjusting the module hoping it would result in the desired results. It was inelegant, but this was the only way when there were no answers already written in a book or a video. He just kept recasting the spell one after another until his energy level lowered or he started developing a headache. Any result that piqued his interest he repeated a bunch of times to save it in his memory.

Days passed and then a month. A flame appeared upon his palm. It was significantly smaller than the regular size. As he looked at the fruit of his hard work he could not help but smile. He had delayed going out became he had felt close to achieving the result. Now having achieved it, he prostrated while mumbling thanks.

In this isolated place where the only collaborative activity he took part in was fighting monsters that were out to kill him, only his connection with God kept him sane. Being holed up, and completely isolated for more than a month ate away at him. To push back the constant negativity he kept pushing himself harder and harder, allowing his mind not a moment to fall towards the negativity. Still, when he was forced to recover the energy those thoughts broke the dam within his mind and tried to overflow his mind. So he started using this time for completing his prayers, focusing upon God instead of the darkness within.

We are closer to him than his jugular vein. He had been hearing things along this vein since he was a child but had never really considered it. Now that he was alone with no conversations for months he started talking, acting as though he was conversing with God. In that isolating and darkest of the period, it provided him relief. It had become soothing for him, as he talked away the pain within his heart.

***

He slowly moved the blockade from the entrance. Looking around, finding nothing, he moved out. It felt strange, as though it had been a lifetime since he was last here. Torchlit, he moved. His focus was upon the sounds, waiting for that hum.

He jumped up parallel to the tree. The arrows missed him. Knives kept stabbing into the tree. The torch had to be thrown. Darkness came and along with it another set of hums. He moved even higher but barely escaped from another volley of arrows. 

It took a while to readjust to the darkness and during this period he kept running while the archers fired at him and the fighters chased after him. 

As he ran, he left behind a trail of sparks. Their small sizes allowed them to keep drifting in the air. They kept on increasing as time passed slowly pushing back the absolute darkness that covered the area. It looked as though red-colored fireflies covered the sky.

He became exhausted but by now he was able to see somewhat. Adding in the abilities that were starting to come back, he started his counterattack.

The archers were still the priority but they took ages to get rid of so taking lessons from the last fight he targeted the fighters. Now that he could somewhat see his efficiency went through the roof.

Using the trees as shields he attacked the fighter. Cutting off its arm, he grabbed it by the throat and positioned it in front of himself. Arrows slammed into the monster, their tips penetrating through.

He ran, archers, sniping at him with ferocity. Zigzagging through the trees he threw the monster towards the one in front of him and jumped. He stabbed with the sword, penetrating both bodies in one single thrust. Letting the momentum carry him forward he rolled, avoiding both volleys.

The danger posed by the archers was mostly due to the environment. It allowed them to take shots from up close but made it difficult for him to reach them. Crawling on the massive trunks they move in the forest with the mobility of a fish inside the ocean. The environment was not only advantageous for them though as he became better at using his surroundings to shield himself. As he cut off the neck of the last monster his hope to quickly end the fight rekindled.

There was a learning curve that was steeper than what he had encountered before. It was after a long while that he got wounded in every fight adding to the time it took for him to recover his desire to quickly end fights was engulfed in the darkness.

A drastic change appeared in his fighting style. He approached each fight with even greater patience, letting go of opportunities if there was a chance of getting wounded. This allowed him to save drastically more time than before because he got wounded less and less.

Dull pain could be felt for a long while. He hesitated, this was the last archer that he was chasing after and he could take a long rest afterward. He came down after avoiding the arrow and ran in its direction from the ground. Instantly he felt better as the pain lessened from the shoulders. He avoided the arrow leisurely running behind a tree. He stopped there to stretch his arm. A set of hums rang out. His body jumped aside. He cursed at the unexpected situation.

Another hum and a single arrow graze tore through the surface of his leg. His heart skipped a beat and he ran. Without a care for the pain, he hounded after the remaining archer while the new group attacked from behind. The fighter attacked from the get-go causing him much trouble. Climbing the tree, he chased after the monster. As he watched it crawling he felt jealous at their ability to move so perfectly in this environment.

He jumped towards a tree, throwing a knife mid-air as the monster too jumped. He deflected the arrow. The blow nearly caused him to miss his target. His attack struck. Even his arms and shoulders screamed from pain but he continued increasing his speed quickly reaching the monster. The flame struck the monster before he could even get near it. The flame exploded, all the sparks converging towards the monster. it quickly disintegrated putting out the flames as the body vanished.