We walked in the darkness for days on end, hunger and thirst tormented us, despite this Sigfreed continued to collapse the wall behind us, leaving us only forwards as our direction.

Three days later we stumbled on a small cavern within the underground caves. This cavern had a high room with crystals embedded in the walls to illuminate the room, within this room stood only a statue of a weeping angel, her wings sprawling wide.

On the wings of the angel were red lines like veins spreading, as we observed these lines glowed less and less until the once brightly glowing wings were reduced to little more than dots.

“My God! Each of those dots and veins represented other branches of our family, every bastard son, every daughter… we are the only ones left.”

Sigfreed freed himself to look at the wings of the angel now lacking in luster, as the shimmer faded so did the hope in his eyes.

“Just take the two rings on the angel’s finger. That's what we are here for.” After taking the rings both my sister and I placed them on our fingers.

Then we were struck with a load of information within our minds. It would seem both rings were dimensional holdings, and not like the common dimensional rings which only contained the space of a large duffel bag but these were as big as a room, but it would seem both of our rings were filled with different items, my ring contained one thousand gold coins, some meat, a common knife, and a map however my sister being as lucky as she always was, her ring contained two thousand gold coins, magic crystals, a map, and a magic sword which could focus magic.

“This cave is just one of our five emergency warehouses which were secretly built, it was created to help a group of us to retreat and reorganize… never did we expect it to be our last hope.”

Sigfreed thought as his face grew dimmer and dimmer with the full comprehension of the situation we were in. To prevent detection Sigfreed had activated a series of anti-detection runes within the cavern.

We had to stay underground for a month waiting for things to blow off, it seems the only way to tell the time in the underground cavern was by the cycles of recharge that each crystal lighting the cave would experience.

During this month, we dwelled in the cold darkness of the cave, me and my sister along with Sigfreed, the face of my mother as the sword that protruded her abdomen was etched into my mind each night.

The rage that built deep within me each time I thought of that banquet only grew.

Many nights while sleeping on the cold cave floors I would see my sister jump from her sleep screaming, it was obvious she was even more shaken up than I was, after a while, she didn't speak as much anymore.

During the lighting cycle of the magic crystals she would meditate, and I would watch as the lightning element engulfed her and sparked the air, the anger evident as she meditated.

I was less shaken up than she was, that was until the fourteenth day underground when the wings of the angel had finally been reduced to only three dots.

It was now official, we were alone in this world.

Forced into this underground dark world, alone and cut off from the world like the unwanted apples in a basket thrown aside to rot and be forgotten the thought was infuriating, and the darkness and loneliness even more insipid.

At that moment I snapped, my rage that I had been holding in all along overflowed, the rocks around my body levitated and began falling towards the ceiling, my sister was even more surprised to see me floating while these phenomena took place.

She was well aware of my magical ineptitude, so for her to see such a magical situation widened her eyes.

The rocks crashed against the ceiling, while dust and debris floated about, with each crash the cavern would shake once more, throwing Sigfreed off balance as he and my sister made their way towards me.

I had spent so much time inside my mother’s womb all alone, in the darkness, and now to be forced back into the darkness from where I came, forced to watch my mother and father die, all because I was too weak.

It was in this moment of fear and rage I vowed to myself.

I will never again be weak regardless of talent or aptitude. I will defend my sister, and destroy this kingdom that dared to plan against the Dimachaerus family. -

Before my thoughts could align I felt a sharp pain in the back of my neck, then another darkness fell.

When I awoke I was in my sister’s lap, her tears fell on my face as she cried,

“Brother, don’t be sad anymore, We are fine, I am happy… just to have you.”

She wiped her tears as she spoke, forcing a smile between her tears. This was her impression of being happy, it was a pitiful expression, her eyes still watery. However she was still my big sister so she had to always be a pillar of strength for her little brother.

She patted my head until sleep stole me away once more.

Before long another month has passed I had tried to spend the time finding something constructive to do within this cold abyss, I had grown used to the darkness of the cave, the only thing that kept us was the glowing of the crystals within the cavern, I was intrigued by them, so much so I decided to study them.

These crystals at first glance weren’t much to look at however after prolonged focus they intrigued me enough to keep me busy for the month.

Using my magic sight these crystals seem to first simply absorb low levels of magic within the earth and then release it later as light, however, there was a lot more to this process than met the eye, within each crystal was a miniature network of magical veins that seemed to light up certain pathways as the magic flowed through the crystal.

Being as bored as I was I took a small chunk off one to examine even more closely, at first I tried to force my pure mana within the chuck of ‘light crystal’ as Uncle Sig would call it, however, it seems just increasing the mana wouldn’t change the light output of the crystal.

After that failure I tried to force my gravity magic into the crystal however instead of releasing light or different colors of light like I had originally presumed would happen it began to have a fuzzy look, similar to an object that was out of focus, I was disappointed.

I then decide to use my mana to attempt to force the pathways wider, this took a lot of my raw mana. I had to spend hours resting at a time just to slightly alter each pathway, at first I wanted to see what wider pathways would allow, it appeared that the light which was emitted before had now turned into beams of light that flew out more focused rather than a glow.

This time when I attempted to flow my gravity magic into the crystal, this caused a beam to be released, a beam that was not made of light but rather a distortion of light, at first the beam was a mystery, when aimed at tiny insects they would disappear and reappear when outside the beam’s reach, when aimed at rocks nothing seemed to happen.

It was not until I got frustrated and decided to aim the beam at my hand that I understood the true nature of what I had created. When the beam was aimed at my own palm, I was now able to see the layer of muscle that laid beneath my skin, and when I forced as much mana as my young body could muster through the stone I created, I could strip my hand down to bones, albeit only for a few seconds at a time.

I had to sit and consider what I remembered from my previous life. I remember that gravity can bend light to some degree depending on how strong it is, but my magic was far too weak to have such an effect, so it must be some unique natural magic sequence within the crystals themselves, I pondered.

I decided to make another copy of my dubiously named “X-ray Crystal” and then store both of them within my dimensional ring. My sister, unlike myself who spent a month looking at crystals had spent the last two months meditating and absorbing the shadow element that seems to strive in such a dark environment.

Her shadow element grew in leaps and bounds over the past two months so much so that before we knew it she glowed in a bright light briefly lighting the entire cavern, she had now unlocked her seventh circle meanwhile I was still on my fifth circle.

I had no such luck in my meditations, being tormented by the image of my mother being impaled stunted my growth, instead of trying to break through to the next circle I spent most of my time refining the few I already have.

The gains were slight, a few more meters on my range, and a slight mana increase, as far as my self-assessment went anyway. The only major increase came to my overall physical strength thanks to my gravity chains around myself that had now become second nature.

In this cavern there was not much to be feared, it was protected by anti-detection runes, and was hard enough to keep out monsters. Despite this, some nights we could hear scraping against the barrier.

Now and then we would have small numbers of terrier badgers slide through the cracks and try to attack us. These terrier badgers were tiny creatures about half the size of the average human, with sharp silver fingernails and a nose equally as sharp and a horn similar to that of a unicorn.

The badger's eyes were always bright red, within the darkness of the cavern they stood out creepily, the badgers were not magically inclined, however, when they slashed with their claws it always took a sword to block their attacks.

One night, based on the light crystal’s recharge cycle at least, we were thrown out of our slumber when we heard a series of thumbs. When my sister and I awoke we saw Sigfreed with a sword in hand surrounded by an army of terrier badgers.

It seems that a group of them had finally decided to attack us all at once. Within the group of badgers, stood one, in particular, he stood twice as tall as the rest with claws and arms twice as large, the real shocker however was the horn on his head, it was the size of a two-handed sword that was equally as sharp around all it’s edges and it glowed a bright shade of crimson.

Sigfreed was visibly exhausted, around him laid the body of at least half a dozen terrier badgers already. The slight lull in the battle was broken when the Leader looking badger raised his hand pointing towards Sigfreed and then roared fiercely.

The smaller badgers in a group jumped at uncle Sig with claws and horns aimed, in an instant a flash of light was seen illuminating the cavern, the Badgers who were adapt to the darkness of caves and tunnels were instantly blinded, in that same moment my sister appeared behind the badgers and swung her sword, the lightning trailed as it swung through the air, those that did not die instantly were left paralyzed or split open buy, enough so that I was able to slip between the survivors with my ordinary knife and slice each of their throats in one swoop.

“Are you ok Uncle?” Asked Trisha, watching his ragged breathing.

“We still have that monster over there to take down.” Sigfreed gulped as he looked at the huge glowing red horn.

The Leader terrier shot off in Trisha’s direction swinging his horn like an enraged beast with a burst of speed.

Uncle Sig looked as though he teleported to intercept the beast before it could make contact with Trisha’s back, however, the shear impact of the horn connecting to his sword sent Sigfreed flying into the wall, when he collided he spat up blood as the shock of the impact ran through his body.

My sister using her shadow magic slipped into the nothingness of the already dark cavern however the beast swung his horn in a random area of the cavern, when he swung his horn a red blast was emitted and trailed off into the open area, Trisha was shocked at the creature's ability to discern her location so quickly, she raised her sword to block the blast.

Trisha was pushed back a few steps by the blast, taking advantage of the distracted creature I pulled out my dagger and shot off, in a second I appeared at the back of the creature and swung down my dagger when the simple dagger made contact with the skin of the creature, it went into his skin only an inch or so before -

‘Snap’... my dagger broke. I was struck by surprise, the creature still enraged swung the back of its arm at me behind him. I was sent halfway across the room rolling and then pasted firmly into the wall.

Hitting my head and holding my arm I saw the creature's deep red eyes charge towards me once more.

A small flash of lightning erupted between us before he made contact, the creature stopped abruptly to look at my sister behind him. He fired another blast from his horn, but Trisha gracefully dodged the blast this time and rolled forward to meet the creature’s horn with her magical sword that glowed in a purple hue non stop.

They exchanged a few blows, but Trisha was sent flying back each time they collided, she was visibly exhausted. The entire time I was against the wall, finally the shock wore off and I focused my magic,

“Trisha! come closer to me!” without a question she dodged the creature and came closer to me. I cast my gravity mitigation on her, instantly she felt the difference, she moved even faster assaulting the creature from all sides, the creature was discombobulated by the attacks, being slashed so often it started bleeding from all sides.

Trisha jumped up in mid-air ready to swing down her sword, in that instant I switched from my gravity mitigation to gravity amplification. The creature who had only raised one hand to block the attack was struck with a force he had not expected, his hand was cut cleanly through by the sword which buzzed with electricity, it continued until the sword had cut his head in half and sliced his body open as well.

Trisha landed gracefully, her back turned to the creature who was now spraying out blood, she stepped in my direction, when she stepped off however she felt a sharp sensation in her mind.

The moment she glanced behind her she saw the claws of the dying creature was already too close to dodge.

‘Shing!’

The sound of metals clashing echoed in the cavern as Sigfreed threw his sword to meet the claws of the creature. Trisha in a split second swung her sword once more to fully decapitate the creature.

The aftermath of the fight was a cavern filled with dead terrier badgers, most of which was buried, however, I decided to remove the horn from the Leader badger, and to my surprise when I filled it with my mana it glowed red until eventually, a red blast erupted from it viciously.

After spending another week or so trying to use other badger horns, countless amounts, to file down the Leader's horn it was now shaped like a katana and equally as sharp. Its sleek black look along with lines running horizontally gave it a very nice feel, the sharpness of this sword was not to be underestimated; it could slice through rock effortlessly, furthermore injecting it with mana while it was drenched in blood allowed it to repair itself from minor defects.

After losing my toothpick of a knife this sword was a well-needed upgrade.

Eventually, our food and water supplies had finally run thin and we were forced to return to the surface. After seven days of walking we finally arrived at a door, Uncle Sig had to use his elite warrior's strength to hit the door multiple times before he fell through and the sunlight attacked our eyes.

We raised our hands and took a deep breath finally feeling some fresh air enter our lungs after two months in the dusty cavern.