I listened closely as the explosions went off, counting them to myself in a whisper.

"One."

…

"Two."

"Three."

"Four."

With that I sprinted out from the cramped tunnel, rushing full speed towards the spear at the center of the room.

Broken carapace and golden blood littered the room, but not nearly enough. The bugs still filled much of the room, rushing towards me rapidly in an attempt to halt my advance. I didn't slow down as they bit into my back, nor when one of them began to tear into my right eye.

I watched where I ran with my good eye, careful to not trip on the blood or exposed roots, until after what felt like hours, but was probably seconds, my hand gripped onto the spear.

I was covered in cuts and blood, and the bugs had long begun to swarm me.

I tried to push what was happening from my mind, to rely on my pain reduction, to just let it happen.

But despite everything, despite my plan, despite my immortality, despite my desires.

I really didn't want to die like this.

Bugs tore into my flesh, ripping it, tearing it when I felt the spear respond to my wish, and then all at once the bugs stopped moving, and the ever-increasing dull pain all but stopped.

I waited several moments, and then hesitantly looked up.

Roots crisscrossed throughout the room like wires through the air, and each and every beatle had been impaled through their center.

I starred slack-jawed for several seconds before I broke out into laughter.

This was it! This is what I'd been looking for this entire time!

My search had finally paid off.

With a smile I probably shouldn't of had given my numerous injuries, I quickly began to bandage my wounds and assess the damage to my body, most of which was superficial. All except for my eye and left pinky which were now blinded and missing respectively.

But that didn't matter, all of it would be fixed upon a revival.

After I'd bandaged myself, I forced myself to climb up onto the stone and grab onto the spear. Only now did I actually have time to admire it.

Its shaft was made of thousands of twisting roots that stretched about five feet from the blade, which was the shape of a cross and shone a light green.

It was beautiful, and could very well be the thing that got me back to my world.

Now I just needed to go up to the surface.

Not a second after I thought that the ground above my head split open as roots and plants pushed aside the dirt and began to lift me to the surface.

With a smile I was brought to the surface where I was prepared to kill off the remaining beatles, but instead hundreds of soldiers stood throughout the field. They wore shimmering armor covered in gold embroidery and engraved with complicated designs.

Not a single one was covered in the golden blood of the beatles, nor did they have any wounds. All of their eyes turned to me.

…

....

"Hey, how's it going?"

The soldiers nearest to me moved to grab me, but before their hands could touch me the plants beneath his feet wrapped around him and pulled him to the ground.

"Now, now. No touching."

I brushed the dirt off my bloodied clothes and walked atop the binded solider towards the largest mass of people.

"Sorry about the late introduction. I wasn't expecting to meet this many people so soon. My name is Marcus Keane, and I've been lost in this wilderness for some time now."

I mentally prodded the plants to release the soldier behind me, and it worked well enough, with the vines and roots releasing their hold on the man's body and slithering back to their places amongst the field.

The newly released soldier scampered back towards the mass of soldiers, giving me a wide berth the whole way there.

"I'd like to speak to the man in charge. Please bring him out."

The soldiers eyed me warily. They were on edge, clearly unsure if they should actually follow my request, but in the end it didn't matter, because several moments later a tall man wielding a longsword approached me.

He had pure golden hair and wore a cloak as white as snow. His boots were made of fine leather and everything about him screamed he was of the upper class.

A smaller man quickly stepped out from beside the man and quickly took up a militaristic stance before proudly exclaiming, "You are in the presence of Emperor Edward, first of his name, sole worshiper of the forgotten god and leader of the Nation of Baal. Lower your head, now, and show your respects."

…

…

I disregarded the short man and turned towards the emperor. Speaking to me through a proxy was a power play on his part, one I didn't intend to play into.

"So you're the only worshiper of a god? How'd you manage that?"

The smaller man moved to answer the question, but before he could the emperor held up his hand to stop him.

"It seems you've not heard of me. Nobody who has would've asked me such a question. Which is why I'm going to momentarily overlook your rudeness and allow your head to remain upon your shoulders."

"Oh lucky me."

The emperor raised an eyebrow at my comment, "I like your spear. It's elegant, powerful and moreover, I've been searching these fields for it for some time. Hand it over. If you do, I will forgive all your rudeness thus far and reward you for the weapon fairly."

I studied the man for a moment and chuckled slightly, "So you're this kind of leader huh. I can respect this approach, I truly can, but something I can't understand is how you're so willing to just throw away your men's lives like this."

His eyes narrowed. "Was that a threat?"

"No, it was a simple observation. You're clearly aware of what this thing can do, but you only seem to be putting up a front of caution for the sake of your men. You yourself, aren't afraid of it in the slightest. Or where your men are standing."

I raised the spear upwards and grinned.

Many people find working from the shadows to be the best method to accomplish their goals. Whether that be to lie and deceive, or to conceal themselves in plain sight, it doesn't really matter, but most of the time I'd find myself amongst the likes of these people. Afterall I am an excellent liar.

But honestly, this isn't the place for that kind of mindset. This world is violence incarnate; I mean my only employee most likely got eaten alive by beatles not thirty minutes ago. My mindset needs some adjusting when dealing with people like this. Especially nobles.

There's an old story that claims a truly great king should only need to show violence once to win the hearts of his people. It involves a king personally executing a dirty tax collector in front of his citizens. The details aren't too important, but the message is. The point of the story is that a single act of violence can completely warp a populace's opinion of you, whether that be for the better or worse.

But I'm not their king. I'm just a man who makes deals with demons. Whether that be literally or figuratively.

So I leveled my spear towards the man.

The emperor cocked his head to the side, "Do you want to die old man? There are easier ways. Forget the reward, that bridge had burned. Just hand over the spear and I can ensure your live to see the night. Otherwise, this will turn bad for you."

I looked deep into the man's eyes, and they didn't waver in the slightest as he spoke, but I could tell almost immediately that he was lying. Not about the threat, he fully intended to harm me if I didn't cooperate. He was lying about letting me go after I handed over my spear.

Call it an intuition. Or maybe I'm just mentally inserting myself in his place, because I sure as hell wouldn't let someone like me live after robbing them.

Someone who crawled into hell and came back with its treasures? There was a chance such a feat could be repeated, and humans are spiteful little things. The odds of me forgiving and forgetting were far too slim, and the odds of me retaliating in the future not slim enough.

So I didn't wait for him to give the order to his men, I simply let the spear know my will and the ground began to shake as thousands of plants moved to tear into the men, but before even the first soldier could be killed dark smoke began to emanate off my body as the emperor pointed his longsword towards me and uttered a single word.

"Wither."

With that one word the smoke began to come off me in large plumes and the plants throughout the field began to kill the soldiers.