The thugs charged.

Finde dodged a sword slash, then a hammer strike.
A kick to the stomach sent him stumbling back a couple of meters.

He had been trained to kill the monsters of Morvian,
not living beings from this universe.

For a brief moment he didn't know how to react.

An arrow whistled past his ear.
They weren't joking.
They were trying to kill him.

Three daggers shot toward him.

Finde leaped into the air, spun around, and avoided them all.
The moment he landed, a hammer grazed his face.
Another axe tried to cut off his legs.

He retreated until he felt the gray wall against his back.

He stopped.

He looked at them one by one.
“Just remember one thing...”

His voice was icy.

“You asked for this.”

He lunged forward.
A straight punch to the first man's face.
A pirouette in midair.
Two simultaneous kicks against two opponents.

Three down.

An axe swept across his chest.
Finde struck the brute who had wielded it.
A punch to the ribs.
So powerful that it hurled him into five other thugs.

The fight truly erupted.

Then... an unsettling feeling.
A strike pulsing with energy.

Ori! Finde thought.

He bent backward.
An axe whistled past his nose,
burying itself in the wall.

The same brute charged him.
A devastating shoulder tackle slammed him against the stone.

Cracks spread across the rock.

Before he could recover, a punch to the ribs blasted him straight through the wall.
Finde was hurled into the next room,
among chained prisoners and tables covered with stones.

He was alive only because, at the very last instant, he had channeled Ori.

The prisoners screamed,
desperately trying to flee.

Finde landed on a table,
jumped down,
grabbed the prisoners' chain locks, and tore them apart.

“Go! Get out of here!”

He lifted the table.
It was incredibly heavy.

With a circular motion, he swung it like a battering ram,
slamming it into the brute who had just entered.

The impact lifted him off the ground and hurled him into other tables,
stones,
and prisoners.

Damn it.

He had to be careful not to kill innocent people.

More thugs rushed him.
Finde took them down within seconds.

The brute got back to his feet.
He ripped a table, still chained to three prisoners, and hurled it at Finde.

He avoided it by a hair, spinning around himself.

He didn't even have time to regain his balance.
An enormous hand wrapped around his throat and lifted him off the ground.

It was the brute again.

Finde was suffocating.
His jaw was trembling.
His vision was fading.

He gathered every ounce of strength.

He swung his legs, built up momentum,
and drove a kick straight into the giant's temple.

The brute staggered backward, grunting.

Finde collapsed to the floor, gasping for air.
An arrow forced him to roll aside.
The thug with the crossbow was still there, hidden in the rear.

Two more thugs attacked him together.
A dodge,
a punch to the first man's face,
a backward leap to avoid another arrow.

Damn that bastard with the crossbow... I have to take him out.

But the brute crashed into him from behind.

He tackled him.
Lifted him up.
Pinned him in front of himself like a human shield.

“Kill this little brat!”
the giant roared.

The bolt was fired.

Finde tightened his abdomen, pulled up his legs,
and with a powerful thrust of his hips, raised himself just enough for the bolt to pass beneath him.

The arrow struck the brute in the side.

A scream.

The grip loosened.
Finde crashed to the ground.

He was still coughing when he saw him.
The prisoner in the pink kimono.

Silent.
Grotesque.
A mask covered his face.

He was standing behind the crossbowman.
He picked up a stone.

CRACK!!

The crossbowman collapsed like a sack of meat.

Finde stared at him, stunned.
The prisoner remained there, motionless, the stone still in his hand.

The invisible eyes behind the mask were fixed on him,
impossible to read.

Are you a friend... or an enemy? Finde wondered.

He had no time to dwell on it.

The enemies were charging.