Meanwhile Antares had found his way to the building where his ‘training’ would take place, he slowly approached the door of the building; the stigma of those from the dark web was that they were cruel and uncultured people who lived in the world of shadows because of their own twisted nature.

This sort of stigma had caused most people to associate those from the black market of the deep web to be devils among devils who existed to create chaos in the world, with the ultimate destruction of law and order as their only and final goal.

Of course, Antares wasn’t so easily dissuaded, he continued to walk towards the door confidently in small yet confident steps.

Only a few moments later he was in front of the door, just as he was about to knock it swung open suddenly only for him to be pulled inside quickly.

Bang!

The door shut as quickly as it had opened, he was now in a pitch-black room surrounded by nothingness. ‘I didn’t even see the person who grabbed me.’ He thought cautiously as he put his guard up, whoever it was had moved too fast for his eyes to capture even their afterimage in the moment they had pulled him into the room.

“So, lad, are you here for training?” An eerie voice suddenly came from seemingly nowhere, it seemed as if the voice was coming from all directions as he couldn’t point out exactly where it was coming from.

With no other choice Antares simply nodded, he had the feeling that he was being watched even in the darkness – even if he couldn’t see his own hand he was certain that whoever was observing him could see him as clear as day.

The uncomfortable feeling of being stalked crossed his body, it made his skin crawl, it was like he was being stalked by a predator in the shadows. Subconsciously, beads of sweat had begun to fall run down his forehead as a faint killing intent filled the room.

“Perfect…”

Wshhhhh!

A sudden gust of wind took him off his feet, he could feel his body close to hitting the ground and yet he could do nothing to stop it so he subconsciously closed his eyes and yet the impact he was expecting never came.

His closed eyes opened only for him to realise that he was still standing, it was as if he’d never moved in the first place; the dark room was the same and yet everything that had just happened was like an illusion.

“Oh? Not bad kid, you managed to break out of the illusion made by my killing intent in a little under a minute – I can work with you.” The eerie voice said from the darkness, despite its praise Antares felt a shiver spread through his body at the words, he had the chilling feeling that whatever happened next was far worse than anything he had experienced in life up till now.

“Don’t worry kid, someone paid good money for me to train you – they’ll get their moneys worth by the time I’m done with you.”

Antares felt a sense of dread wash over him as he heard movement in the darkness before the lights in the room were suddenly turned on. Surprisingly, he was standing in the middle of a massive gymnasium-like room – surrounded by wooden puppets with eerie red smiles painted on their wooden faces.

“Now, for the first hour of training all you have to do is survive; good luck!”

Click.

It was only when he heard the click at the end did he realise that the person who had been speaking to him wasn’t even in the room with him at all, they had been speaking to him through speakers and cameras all along.

‘Just the killing intent in his voice caused me to fall into an illusion? Who is this guy?’ He questioned internally as he eyed the puppets, the creepy red smile caused a sense of fear to fill him as he stared at them.

He tried to take a step forward only for the tens of, maybe hundreds of, puppets to take a step forward alongside him – he took a step back as a test only to see that they didn’t react to this at all.

Antares smiled bitterly as he looked at them, the only way forward was for him to move forward; ‘Even if I want to escape, there’s no way I can do it surrounded by all of these..’

He sighed and unwillingly raised his arms to enter a basic combat stance – he looked at their red faces that seemed to be mocking him and raged began to bubble within him, he didn’t know why but it felt as if they were laughing at him for his cowardice.

The rage gradually built up until he could take it no longer, “Die you motherfuckers!” He roared before rushing into a group of them, punches flew as flesh hit wood and wood splintered – his fists grew red as he was wounded by his own punches but that didn’t stop him.

For every punch or kick he would return the favour with two or three more, gradually the numbers of the puppets began to reduce until there were only ten remaining and yet at this point he could barely stand.

His entire body was covered in blood, a red pool had formed at his feet – it was only through sheer willpower that he had remained standing at this point.

Click.

Feedback from the speakers suddenly turning on came as a shock to him, he ignored it but from the moment the speakers were activated the puppets had stopped moving.

A few moments passed in silence as Antares began to wonder what was going on.

“What the fuck kid?!” He heard the voice exclaim, it had lost its eeriness and was instead replaced by sheer shock and confusion.

“Didn’t I tell you to survive?! I didn’t tell you to fucking destroy my puppets!” He shouted, there was anger laced in his words but Antares could hear that he was more shocked than anything, he gave himself a sly smile for being able to outperform the expectations of even someone from the dark web before he finally gave into his fatigue.

“What the- Don’t fucking collapse on me now kid! Who the fuck paid me to train this monster?!” Were the last words he heard before passing out on the ground with a satisfied smile on his face.