CHAPTER 109: CH 109: RETRIVING THE POWER- PART 2

The illusion had grown bold.

Guards in shining armor marched toward Fenrir as he stepped deeper into the heart of the fake city.

Their faces were calm, composed—eerily so.

"Halt. Outsiders are not permitted beyond this point. Proceed and you will be cut down."

The lead guard said, drawing his blade.

Fenrir didn’t stop.

He cracked his knuckles, the sound echoing through the illusion-painted streets.

"Try it."

He said, voice low and brimming with menace.

The guards rushed forward.

Fenrir moved faster.

He vanished from their sight, reappearing behind the nearest soldier with a thunderous punch that sent the man flying into a market stall.

Before the others could react, his sword was already drawn. It cut through armor like paper, dropping three more guards in a single sweeping arc.

Blood sprayed into the air—red against the illusion’s golden hues.

They fell like dolls.

Hollow. Fragile. Meaningless.

Fenrir didn’t care.

He kept moving, step by bloody step, not bothering to slow down as more guards came at him in waves.

His blade whirled like a storm, and his fists shattered bones. Blood coated his body, staining his skin and clothes, but he didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop.

He had returned.

With every strike, every kill, Fenrir felt it—the resurgence of someone he had buried long ago.

The cold, relentless version of himself who had survived by treating enemies like stepping stones. The one who had seen power not as a tool but as a weapon to dominate everything.

His present and his past overlapped in a haze of violence.

For a brief moment, he wasn’t Fenrir Black, the boy trying to navigate a tower of madness.

He was the creature of war he used to be.

A godless force.

But then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the illusion shattered.

The city faded. Its streets crumbled. The false people blinked out of existence. The blood on Fenrir’s body remained, but everything else was gone.

Even the guards he had been fighting—illusions all along—were nothing but empty echoes.

Worse, the pull of his power vanished too.

The thread that had drawn him to this place was gone—cut off.

His system pinged, trying to locate it again, but came up empty.

"Target unavailable."

It informed him.

Fenrir’s eyes narrowed.

"Coward. You run from me?"

He spat, directing his voice at the air, at the power that had fled.

There was no response. Not even a ripple of mana in the air.

"You hide in the shadows like a rat? I should’ve known you’d be afraid."

Again, silence.

Fenrir stood alone in the middle of broken ruins, surrounded by nothing but debris and fading echoes of battle.

He clicked his tongue and sheathed his sword, though his hands were still shaking with the need for combat.

"Fine. If you won’t come to me... I’ll tear this place apart until you crawl back out. You can’t hide from me forever."

He said, voice low and cold.

Still no answer.

Just the wind.

Fenrir raised a hand and summoned his dungeon gate. The air tore open, and a deep violet portal appeared, swirling with quiet power. From within, five small shapes shot out like lightning.

Five hamsters.

Cute. Fuzzy. Adorable.

And deadly.

They landed on the ground and immediately began sniffing the air and twitching their whiskers.

Their tiny forms trembled with power, each more dangerous than any of the fake guards Fenrir had just cut down.

Last to emerge was Nedrax.

The once-gluttonous, now-sentient lizard beast stepped through the portal with a satisfied grunt.

His eyes scanned the ruins lazily until they fell on Fenrir, and then he gave a respectful nod.

"Search the entire area. The power I came for is hiding. I want every stone overturned, every illusion shattered. Find it."

Fenrir ordered, his voice sharp again.

The hamsters scattered in a flash, tearing off in different directions, each one a whirlwind of destruction in miniature form.

Nedrax gave a short hiss and followed them, claws clicking against the stone as he sniffed the ground with precision.

Fenrir stood still for a moment, watching them go.

His hands finally stopped shaking.

"Let’s see how long you can hide."

He muttered to no one in particular.

The quiet city offered no answer.

But something deep beneath its surface shuddered.

Nedrax sniffed the air and let out a guttural chuckle, his thick tail slapping the ground as he spun around in a slow circle.

"Ahhh, the air of the tower. Tastes like tension and violence. It’s good to be back."

His slit-pupil eyes gleamed with excitement.

Nearby, the five hamsters twitched in unison. Each of them scanned the area with narrowed eyes and flattened ears.

Their soft fur bristled, not in fear—but surprise. The energy here was different. Wrong.

Not the stagnant air of a dead ruin, but something warped and alive beneath the surface.

"This place... It’s watching us."

Murmured one of them, ears flicking.

Fenrir stood at the center of the ruins, arms folded.

"Let it watch. Our goal is simple. Destroy everything. These ruins? Flatten them. Rip up every brick, every tile, every hidden chamber. If there’s even a crack wide enough to hide a bug, I want it reduced to dust."

His eyes swept across the group.

Nedrax threw back his head and laughed, a booming sound that echoed across the city’s hollow remains.

"That’s what I’ve been waiting to hear! I’ve been itching to cut loose. I swear, if I had to stay in that boring dungeon one more week, I was going to eat my own tail!"

He lunged forward, claws flashing. His first swipe split a stone pillar in half. The second crushed a staircase.

With gleeful violence, he hurled himself into the nearest building and brought the structure down in a cloud of dust and crumbling stone.

The hamsters didn’t wait for a second order.

In a coordinated flurry, they split up and began their destruction.

One smashed through walls with unnatural strength. Another burrowed beneath the foundations, collapsing buildings from below.

Sparks, cracks, and distant booms echoed through the hollow city as the group worked with single-minded focus.

Then, a soft plink of metal on stone.

A small figure emerged from the dungeon gate with a clatter of tools and a slight huff.

Grizzle, the forge imp, blinked at the chaos around him, adjusting the tiny goggles perched on his soot-stained face.

"Ooh...Look at this place... What a waste of good materials."

He muttered, eyes wide.

He bent down, picking up a fractured bit of old metal. His fingers danced over it, tracing the etchings and runes with something close to reverence.

Fenrir noticed and tilted his head.

"If you see anything you like, take it. Whatever you think might be useful, it’s yours."

Grizzle looked up at him, stunned.

"Really?"

"Really."

A slow grin crept over the imp’s face.

"Boss, you’re gonna regret giving me permission like that."

He pulled out a satchel nearly twice his size and began scooping up pieces of rubble with wild enthusiasm, already mumbling plans for new tools and upgrades.

Fenrir turned back toward the horizon, letting the wind blow against his blood-dried coat.

Sooner or later, his power would reveal itself.

And when it did—he’d be ready.