It was a long fall down.
William was so unimaginably far from the world that was above ground that even a cave-diving expert would say for certain he was doomed. The only thing he was surrounded by was clean-cut rocks and pure darkness. And, he discovered he was down there a long, long time after he fell.
He had only just woken up from his unconsciousness and was disoriented, bleeding and sore all over.
But then, what truly woke him up, startling him out of his dazed state, was a sword landing unnaturally in front of him, almost piercing his hand as it struck the ground.
"What the—where am I?!" William yelled.
He was scared, confused and startled all at the same time. And, what was worse was that there was no sound at all, so he was on the floor listening to nothing but his heavy huffing and puffing.
"How did I end up here—OUCH!"
William tried to stand up but failed, falling on his right leg.
As it was apparent, his left leg was completely mangled. He noticed it and then found it strange how he didn't die on impact from a fall this big, but he just considered it to be a stroke of luck. Now, amidst his fear of the unknown, he needed to find a way out of there. A reliable way out, too.
With plenty of effort involved, he grabbed the sword from the ground and looked for any possible chance of survival in this deep, dark pit.
After a few minutes, he determined he needed to crawl. He looked above him and saw endless darkness while hearing nothing but his heavy breathing.
But, things looked rough.
On the stone walls that surrounded him, he could barely see words etched into them. Words like evil, sinister, daemons, forbidden and a name, or what seemed like a name, "Mara."
Just that word itself gave the air a sort of sinister chill.
"I don't want to be here a second longer. I need to leave. I'll find the others, reunite with Sarah, and, especially, have my revenge on the ones who killed my mother. I'll tear out my heart if I have to if it means that I would be able to see the pain on their faces..."
"But, to get out of here, I need to take it slow. Carefully, and slowly…"
Blood dripped down William's face and covered his naked body. He was also stained with ink from his last battle, and it was starting to cause a painful reaction on the surface of his skin, because of the extraordinary characteristics of the Mana that created it.
He crawled, despite all this. Grit was splattered all over his face, and even though he sweated while being hindered by the chill breeze, he did not stop.
The stone ground that scratched his skin, the countless bones in his way, and the external and internal pain he suffered with…
Despite all that, he made it to a large stone door after a day and a half of crawling. This was a commendable feat that shattered and rebuilt his tenacity, making his mind stronger than ever before.
"Ha… ha…"
"A door… but there are steps leading to it in front of me. And, to be honest, there are too many of them." William said.
"…I guess I'll just have to create some support for my leg."
He got onto his back and summoned Mana from his body. From that experience of wielding the Power of Law, William finally got a true grasp on how to handle the intangible power all around that anybody and everybody needed in this world to survive.
He could now fluidly turn Mana directly into Golden Ink, which he used to form a flexible bandage and wrap around his leg. For now, he could only vaguely influence its state of matter, but with enough training, perhaps he could even form a proper sword with Golden Ink.
However, even with such precise control, he would still be heavens away from the man who wore golden armour, who tore his way deep underground and decimated a Demonic Creature with a single slash.
He even suspected that he still wouldn't even be able to scratch the level of that bastard Chief General within the next ten years, and even Brewer's level seemed to be a near-impossible goal for him too. The only cool thing he had about him right now was his transformed state and his wings.
"Ugh… I might develop an inferiority complex at this point…"
Now with the bandage around his leg, he could at least stand up and limp around, although it still hurt badly. He took it one step at a time, climbing the stairs with the same tenacity he used to crawl.
And then, when he eventually made it to the giant doors, he wasted no time and opened them, leading into a massive stone chamber.
This stone chamber was abnormal, however, and even more abnormal than the writings on the stone walls that he saw beforehand. This place looked pristine, in tip-top condition, and seemed to have been constructed entirely with stone by the most masterful architects and artisans.
A long, stone bridge expanded itself ahead, and beneath it were even deeper caverns.
Each stone brick that laid the foundation of the bridge was exquisitely carved out and carefully placed in an exact spot. Meanwhile, on either side of the bridge were perfect statues of five people, three men and two women. They seemed to have been wearing the most magnificent robes, gowns and dresses during the time this was sculpted. They were like kings and queens.
"Woah…"
William limped to the centre of this stone chamber of majesty and found himself standing before an even larger statue than the five. The largest one, carved in the image of an ugly, three-headed demon holding a small, empty stone tablet.
On the tablet, mystic words suddenly began to appear, surprising William.
"…Here lies a statue of the "Baleful Catastrophe", one of the Three Catastrophes that once ravaged the lands…"
"…Mara, the Forbidden."
"He has been sealed away for 3756 years, and counting."
William stared at the three-headed demon.
"So this… this is what a daemon looks like? I'm sure daemons didn't exist back on Earth… does this mean this place existed in the Desolate Lands? Oh, wait, of course! Earth merged with other lands and other worlds, so of course places from other worlds would exist here too!"
"No wonder the skies, the sun and the moon look like that now… and that explains why Vatein and the area around it has turned somewhat into a desert wasteland than what it used to be."
"But anyway, this means that horrifying creatures like that now exist in real life, and not just in novels."
"This one is especially terrifying, because it's called a Catastrophe, one of the Three Catastrophes, at that. I wonder what sort of carnage it caused before it was sealed away."
William began to look around the statue, noticing five tall obelisks surrounding it that were devoted to one person each. But, before he could get to see the names written on each one, a scaly hand grabbed his neck from behind, making him drop his sword.
"Aha. So, the human snuck into this place, huh? Unnecessarily curious rats, they all are."
The way this mysterious person spoke reminded him of a snake's hiss, and the scaly, green tail that wrapped around him only confirmed what William was thinking.
He was in the hands of a serpentine, in other terms, a Naga.