An explosive boom went off as Aurel shattered the layered rubble in his way, shooting out of the throne room. He spun midair, his eyes quickly taking in his new surroundings. With a thud, he landed with exceptional grace.

  'Still inside.'

  Aurel looked around the rubble-filled space and frowned. He had thought his healing chamber had been the only underground structure. But the space above the throne room also had a ceiling.

  And although many parts of the ceiling had collapsed, he still could not see the sky. His immediate surroundings were littered with rubble and collapsed pillars, blocking his view. Finding a path out of the mess would be a nightmare without a sense of direction.

  Aurel turned his hand around and looked at his knuckles with a thoughtful expression on his face. That move had not been without its disadvantages. Without his full power and peak strength, he felt the sting of that punch. He was already healing, but not as quickly as before.

  The pain still lingered.

  Aurel was a lot of things, but being a masochist was not one of them. He had a strong will, but he was not a fool. He needed to find another way out. Naturally, the brute-force method was not off the table.

  Picking a random direction, Aurel moved with an agility that left afterimages in his wake. It was another of his techniques, one that granted the user ghost-like speed. It was silent, calculated, and minimalistic.

  Aurel expertly manoeuvred around the rubble, slipping in and out of narrow openings he spotted. His eyes darted around as he searched for signs of light. Anything that might be a clue to the outside world.

  Unfortunately for him, he met a rubble-filled dead end. Not discouraged, he chose another route and took off. He got lucky this time around. The path he had taken extended farther than the previous one. Soon, he found an opening letting in streams of light — moonlight.

  Compared to the congested area he had come from, this section of the ruins had less rubble. Coming to an abrupt halt, Aurel assessed the stability of the collapsed structures that led to the opening in the ceiling. Stability wasn't actually the problem. The opening was too small for his frame.

  Approaching the steep heap of collapsed stones and pillars, Aurel carefully climbed towards the opening. He nearly stumbled a couple of times when he stepped on weakly positioned rubble.

  Aurel came to stand directly under the small opening, his face bathed in moonlight. For a moment, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes to feel the light of the moon

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  'It feels like just yesterday.'

  He was well aware that a year or more had passed since he had been put into forced slumber. But to him, it felt like it had only been a few days. His sense of time was already the place.

  Snapping out of the moment, Aural was ready to step out. Momentarily glancing back down, he leapt off the inclined pillar and landed in a relatively free space on the stone floor.

  With his current weakness, spells would be of little help. As for techniques, that would require movement of body parts and specialised circulation of essence. He had wanted to avoid unnecessary injuries.

  But since this was the remaining obstacle in his path, he might as well go through with it. The thickness of the stone ceiling was about 300-350 mm. That might as well have been a piece of paper.

  A deafening crack, accompanied by the shattering and collapsing of stones, rippled through the cold night air. When Aurel landed under the night sky, he revealed a small smile, ignoring his bruised and stinging knuckles.

  However, that rare smile quickly disappeared when he realised where he was — nowhere. The ruins were the remains of a castle built in the middle of a clearing. Outside that clearing, trees formed a vast forest.

  And the night was quiet — too quiet. Unnatural, even.

  There were no distant cries of night creatures, no chirps, buzzes or thrills from insects. The worst, however, was the dense fog that buried most of the forest, revealing only tall enough tree crowns.

  And he had no clue where he was. He was still at a loss as to why his caretaker moved his capsule from the depths of his castle to this remote location. Aurel looked at the sky, staring at the moon before focusing on the stars.

  "The alignments are different." He recognised none of the constellations. "Sebastian didn't dare take me across the ocean, did he?"

  He was sceptical. For one, those intruders used weapons from his kingdom. They could not be found just anywhere. The possibility existed, but it was almost negligible. Second, no location was more secure than his kingdom. Finally, those greedy bastards would not give weapons like that away.

  But then Aurel recalled the journal in his possession and reconsidered. Maybe Sebastian did move him across the ocean. Had things been that bad for his people during his absence?

  Aurel shook off his thoughts and focused on his current predicament — his location. Something must have happened to force Sebastian to move his healing capsule. The reasons could wait. For now, he needed a way out of this unnatural environment.

  Exploring the ruins of the castle, Aurel hoped to find something that could point out his current location. Unfortunately for him, all he found were rubble, broken glasses, and decayed beams.

  Disappointed, he stepped away from the castle ruins and touched down on soil for the first time in a while, intending to look around instead.

  Despite the unnatural atmosphere, the night air was cool. It would have been a peaceful night if not for the peculiarity in the air. At first light, he would explore the surroundings to find a way out.

  But then, when he turned the corner, he immediately spotted something he never thought he would see in a strange land.

  "How is this in a place like this?"