Chapter 25: It Was Him!

The old prisoner paused, as if not understanding what Abner was asking of him. "Paths?"

"Yes. Those paths you were describing saying that once someone enters them, they would get lost and dizzy and be trapped there until 'they' come and capture them." Abner patiently repeated what the old prisoner had said prior.

"Hmm...OH!! Those paths!" The old prisoner exclaimed as his eyes brightened up in realization and gave a laugh.

"Yes. Please tell me more about them."

"Sss...There's not much I know about them. All I know is that there are different tunnels all over this prison leading to who-knows-where with only the person-in-charge knowing how to navigate them, and of course his trusted aids. Some of them leads to the outside while some of them leads to dead ends." The old prisoner explained at length as he tried his best to remember more details about the paths.

'These paths seems to have been made to prevent intruders and prisoners alike from escaping.' Abner thought to himself. 'As well as to prevent them from easily entering this underground prison.'

Clang. Clang. Clang! Grind.

"Yup. Seems like the guards are coming in," the old prisoner remarked as he stared, well at least tried to, at the stone stairs leading upwards as if he could see the door leading to the outside world which he of course couldn't.

Scrunching his eyebrows together, Abner abruptly turned to look at the stairs as well, with piercing cold eyes that showed a hint of urgency as well as tranquility.

Then turning to look at Ash who was also looking at him, their gazes interlocked. Communicating with their eyes, they understood what the other wanted to say without verbalizing anything.

They had to hurry and find Arlo so they can get out.

Rushing towards the inner part of the prison, Abner had suddenly halted abruptly.

The voice of the old prisoner echoed within the prison hall as it sounded out, carried by the air currents into Abner's ears,

"He should be in the paths as well." Nonchalantly. It was nonchalantly said as if it were only a side thought that he had suddenly remembered out of the blue.

Hearing this, Abner was a bit confused, however, he also felt like he understood what the old prisoner was telling him.

In the paths...He...is referring to Arlo, right?

Holding this suspicion---maybe a fact---in his heart. Abner and Ash moved quickly and swiftly toward the end of this long hall.

Just as their backs started getting distant, the wall leading to this underground prison opened to give way for the guards to enter.

The guards stepped onto the stone stairs and reached the old prisoner's cell in what seemed like almost a flash. When they were about to walk past the old prisoner's cell and go deeper into the prison hall, the old prisoner suddenly spoke, as if to help Abner and Ash earn more time to do what they came to do.

"Hiya fellow comrades!"

This made the guards' foot pause. All turning to look at him with intense and disdainful eyes, the one in the lead sneered.

"Who's your comrade! None of us are a part of your flimsy gang, you odious old man!"

He spat.

Despite this direct insult to his face, the old prisoner kept the light smile on his face, never letting it fade even in the slightest.

Looking at that never-changing, ever-present smile on that old man's face irritated the guard, the smile seemingly mocking him and his words.

In a fit of anger, the guard yelled, "Don't look so happy, you stinky old man, the captain has already decided your death date. Just wait in fear and misery until the day of your public execution!" Then adding, "Your friends will be joining you in the future so you won't be lonely! HahaHA!!" He laughed with relish at the thought of it, and similarly, his fellow guard companions also joined in his laughter at the old prisoner's and his members' soon-to-be fate.

At this, the old man's smile twitched a little, arched down, and turned into a frown.

The guard continued, taking joy in the old man's frowning expression, "And don't think I don't know what you're doing. You're buying time for those little friends of yours who infiltrated. Don't worry, they won't be able to escape nor will they be able to rescue you."

The old man remained silent, not refuting or correcting the fact that the ones who infiltrated this place weren't his friends, or even people he knew.

The guard pointed a finger at the old man, his eyes full of mocking laughter, "Old man, you better watch out and carefully think before doing any action and before saying even a little word, cause if what you do or say displeases me even a little bit... I'm going to come in and beat the crap out of you!" He said that as if to frighten him but he had meant it, and to show that he was serious, he grabbed the jail bars and shook them as a warning.

Deciding that it was enough as a small reminder, the guard released the bars and spoke out his last words before heading into the hall once again to go after the intruders with the other guards following closely behind him.

"As long as I don't beat you to death, it's something I promise I am free to do."

Meanwhile, Abner and Ash had already reached the end of the long hall, only to encounter a fork road.

At the supposed end of the hall, the cave-like ceiling caved in somewhat

'Could these be the "paths" the old man was talking about?'

Thinking like so, pulling Ash with him, Abner without hesitation entered one of the two paths laid out in front of them. He didn't have to take time to consider which path to take, because no matter how long he stands there looking at the two options, there won't be any clue as to which one he should choose.

Besides, he was almost out of time. The guards will catch them if they linger there for too long.

Running down the path he picked randomly, Abner and Ash were swift on their feet as they did their best to find Arlo in this maze-like passage.

It seemed true that prisoners could be kept in these paths. Along the way, Abner noticed how there were squarely caved in hollows caged in by iron bars.

Passing them countless times, Abner still could not find the cell Arlo was imprisoned in. Coming to a stop, Abner halted in his tracks.

Just mindlessly searching for him is useless, Abner thought to himself, I need to start carefully thinking this through even if this is a maze I know nothing about.

Finally calming down, Abner took time to map out the area they have covered so far in his head.

"We went right...then straight...then a left then a right...a dead end...ran another way...then ran straight for some distance before turning right...then..." Abner muttered to himself as he concentrated on that mental image of the routes they took and slowly forming them into a map in his mind.

Suddenly, while in the middle of his thoughts, Abner heard the sound of faint running footsteps. Snapping his head in the direction of the sound, Abner listened carefully, no sign of panic or fear on his emotionless face.

"You think you can do this?" Suddenly, Abner shot a question at Ash.

Although the question was confusing and it was unknown what Abner was asking of Ash, however, it seemed like Ash did indeed understand what Abner was implying. For he replied with,...

"Yes." A straight and one-worded answer accompanied with a firm nod.

Right as this exchange of words and action ended, thundering pairs of footsteps sounded as they drew near, bouncing off of the walls and echoing in the empty tunnel space. Reaching the eardrums of both Abner and Ash loudly.

This loud vibration came to a stop when the guards that were chasing after them saw them. Halting some distance away from them, the one in the lead---the rude and easily irritable man who had promised to beat up the old man---stepped forward and looked directly, arrogantly, at Abner and Ash.

"No where to run now, ay?" He said smugly as he looked at Abner and Ash with contempt.

"Think you can rescue that old fart? In your dreams! Taking just you two down will be a piece of cake," he mocked them and jutted his thumb at men, pointing out the big difference in their numbers.

Not bothering to correct the guy's misunderstanding of their real purpose for coming here, Abner scanned briefly over the opponents on the other side. In his opinion, it really was a piece of cake.

And Ash thought so as well.

Not even bothering to tell the guy finish talking, Ash rushed up to the group of uniformed men and put his large hand over one of the men's face, slamming the back of the man's head brutally against the rock wall.

Pools of blood streamed out. The unconscious man slid down the rough wall, body weak and boneless.

This sudden, unexpected attack stunned the group of guards into a frozen-shocked state. It was so violent and oppressive, some of them felt their legs turning into jelly. One even fell on his butt in fear.

Snapping out of his blank mind and pulling himself together, the leader gritted his teeth and shouted at the men behind him, "Get your **(could be anything, it's all up to your imagination)** together! I want you to beat the crap out of them!" He raised his hand and pointed his finger at Ash then Abner.

Although hesitant, the whole group of men, including the one who fell on his butt, took in a deep breath, gathered their pretentious courage, and dashed at Abner and Ash in two separate groups.

As they advanced, they started to feel somewhat brave, thinking that there were so many of them, they were bound to get overwhelmed eventually. Having this mindset, the men attacked Abner daringly with conceit.

However, they were sorely mistaken.

At the beginning of the fight, they felt like they had the upper hand with Abner only dodging and blocking but not counterattacking. They grew incompetent, thinking that it was because Abner was too busy trying to not get hit that he couldn't fight back. In reality, it was actually because Abner wanted to lower their guards.

Although it's true that defeating these weak men was as easy as eating a cookie, Abner did not want to waste a lot of energy fighting these unimportant underlings when he could put his energy to other better uses, like finding Arlo for example.

So taking them all out at once was time efficient and conserved energy.

Nodding his head mentally as he agreed with his own idea, Abner was about to make his move when out of the blue, another person showed up!

! ! !

It was like a tornado of blood had gone through this area, in just mere minutes, the sudden arrival of a stranger swept away all the puny underlings---all dying by a slice to the throat, concise and accurate, this is what's truly called efficient and energy conservative.

Only four survived the passing disaster: Abner, Ash, the leader guy, and...the tornado itself.

"Huck!" The guy gulped with an exclamation and freaked out. No longer wanting to stay in this place, he hurriedly escaped from here. None of the others stopped him, they couldn't care about that guy in the slightest.

"Huff," the stranger breathed out a sigh as he looked at his masterpiece---nay, it cannot be considered a masterpiece in this red-haired stranger's eyes, at most it can be called a commonplace artwork.

The stranger turned around to face Abner after he had enough of viewing the bloodied mess on the rock floor, his hair which was slightly darker than the color of red swayed with his movement, the dim lighting in the tunnel made it so that his face couldn't be seen. Only a mouth carrying a smirk could be sought out.

Leisurely sauntering toward Abner, the shadow on his face retreated with every step forward he took.

Reaching to the front of Abner, the red-haired stranger did not say a word as he openly observed Abner.

A while later, the red-haired stranger finally opened his lips and spoke with a playful and amused voice, "Consider this my repayment for wronging your friend."

Huh?

His words were confusing, but Abner's expression did not change as he stared at the other's face.

Even though Abner's face did not show the confusion he felt in his heart, the stranger knew that the other party would not understand what he was saying.

Twirling the dagger he had used to kill all those men in his hand by the handle, he added, to clear the confusion, "Your little thief friend that was accused of killing that stinky official."

With this hint, Abner had a light bulb moment. He understood what the red-haired stranger meant and why he "helped" them.

"It was you..." Abner said with stern but calm eyes, "...you are the killer that assassinated the official."

"Correct. Bingo! You reached the right answer but too bad you don't get a prize!" the killer laughed. Then he suddenly threw the dagger in his hands high into the air without looking, yet not hitting the cave ceiling, and clapped his free hands.

Just as he was about to finish his fourth successive clap, the dagger reached its highest point and started to drop down.

Without using his eyes, the red-haired killer completed his set of applause and reached up to grab the dagger, accurately grasping the handle. Pulling his arm down and swinging it out, he pointed the dagger at Abner without any malicious intent.

Seeing as how Abner did not even flinch at his sudden, random action, he retrieved the dagger and returned his arm to his side. His heart jumped a little in exhilaration.

"Come with me," he smiled as he extended his pointer finger out and hooked it at Abner and Ash. "I'll show you an easy way to rescue your wrongly imprisoned friend as my apologies."

His smile was not kind.