Growing anxiety- Training! Training! Training!

It was an underground cave, its inside as large as a football field.

A stream of freshwater was running through the cave, vanishing into the cracks further down the cave where no man could go. The walls were black and hundreds of pointy rocks were hanging overhead. There was a sweaty humidity in the air that one could smell, even in the chill of night.

And, on one side of the roof, there was a hole through which a pillar of sunlight was coming in. The entrance. The only one.

"Ugh!" an exhausted grunt, followed by a deep breath.

On the bank of the stream, in the cave's darkness, was Kai, standing on the tips of his fingers. His legs were up, his chest bare, and his hair short. Sweat had drenched him already, dripping down from his chin like an eternal rivulet.

"10001!" Kai grunted, going down and then pushing himself up. "10002…!"

The rocky, wet ground expanded in his eyes as he went down. In another moment, it widened as his fingers pulsated with power, pushing him up.

But that wasn't all.

Swish! Swish!!

10 large boulders were revolving around him. 5 were within a radius of 10 meters, 3 were in a radius of 20 meters, and 2 were at 27 and 30 meters, respectively.

With Kai as the center, it felt like he had become the Sun, and the boulders were planets, some revolving clockwise and some anti-clockwise.

But that wasn't all, either.

Plop!!!

Over the balls of his dirty feet hovered even larger globules of water, the waters inside them churning as if serpents were dancing and slithering on their surfaces. No matter if Kai came down or went up, the globules of water never touched his soles and maintained a gap of a few inches.

"10100!"

"10500!"

"20000!"

"30000!"

"50000!"

Hours went by, but neither did Kai stop nor did the boulders and water globules stop hovering around him. Their speed of revolution, however, kept changing from high to slow.

"Hundred…" Kai's entire body trembled, all his strength, all his will, his everything concentrated on those fingers. "… thousand!"

Crack!!!

The bones cracked and Kai fell on the ground with a thud, his face twitching with the piled up pain and tiredness.

The boulders and water globules… still hovered as if they were independent of Kai's thoughts.

"Huff! Huff!" Kai panted hard, his scarred chest rising and falling like mount Everest taking form and vanishing. "So… hungry…"

About the cracked bones, he cared little. They would heal in an hour at most, he knew. Working out like this lets him go beyond his capabilities every single time. And doing anything else or less sounded incredibly pointless to him.

Kai felt as if his throat was getting pricked by hundreds of needles from the inside.

A fist-sized globule of water lifted from the stream, running down 10 feet behind his head, and dropped in his mouth.

Gulp!

After wetting his throat and spirit, Kai sat up in a meditative posture and closed his eyes.

Hisss!

Blood flames seeped out of his mouth and covered his entire figure in a red veil. With every breath, more blood flames kept coming out as if red dragons were coiling in his surroundings.

10 minutes… 20 minutes… 30 minutes…

31 minutes…

35 minutes…

"Cough! Cough!" Kai's Selfless Breathing broke into a fit of cough. For the first time, the boulders paused at their locations. "35… Fuck!"

After half an hour of rest, Kai once again attempted, but the time of usage never exceeded 35 minutes.

Kai shook his head and stood up.

Thud!

The boulders fell, the earth trembling as they contacted the rocky floor. Each of those black stones weighed at least 40-50 kg. Next, the water globules fell over him, too.

The amount of water in those two balls was enough to make it count as a nice, cold bath. As the water ran down from his head to toe, it cleaned the sweat and dirt off him, along with tiredness.

Hunger persisted, though.

Snap! Snap! Snap!

Kai snapped three times and all the wetness over him and on his trousers evaporated, his skin gaining a smooth, reddish tone.

It was then Kai looked toward a dark corner.

Slowly, he walked toward the darkness and saw a black, tattered cloak rippling there noiselessly. "Have you not had enough?" Kai asked, grinning. "Leave it."

A black, hooded creature glided out of the darkness, its breath rattling. It was around 2.3 meters tall. The moment it left the darkness, a cold surrounded Kai. The cold of Despair.

Alas! This Despair could not even make him frown.

Kai eyed the Dementor floating around him and then looked back at the darkness. His grin widened.

As he walked forward, the darkness ran away. Two creatures were lying listlessly there, their eyes dead, and their hearts hollow.

One was a mouse-like Pokemon, with yellow fur and two brown stripes. The other was a small, pale-green Pokemon with dark-green buds around its neck. On top of its head was a large, green leaf that was longer than its body.

Pikachu and Chikorita!

Kai crouched and put both his palms on their heads.

After 5 minutes, he took off his hands and shook his head, annoyed. "They don't know either," he mumbled aloud. "The Troopers don't know… the Captains don't know… And the fucking Commanders don't come out of the headquarters…"

Kai squeezed his eyes as anxiety and anger bubbled in his heart.

But hunger came first.

In no time, Kai kindled a fire and put the skinned meat over it to roast. Two Pokemon could barely fill his rumbling stomach, but it would do for now.

As the smell of burning flesh entered Kai's nostrils, his gaze landed on the pillar of sunlight seeping into the cave. He licked his lips.

"It's time…" Kai told himself, his eyes narrowing. "I can't pay the rat forever. I must know what's going on."

Kai clenched and unclenched his fingers, finding them healed. He feasted on Pikachu and Chikorita, then, devouring their flesh in just a few minutes.

As the evening approached, Kai had donned himself in armor made of several Pokemon's hide sewn together. Over his head was the skull of a Yautja, and six daggers were stuck to his back with no means.

Kai's breathing quickened, but a shield did find his feet. It was a different one and resembled the shell of some water-based Pokemon. When Kai stepped into it, the shield floated up toward the hole.

"3 years…" Kai mumbled, closing in toward the entrance. "3 years have passed by… but no one's coming to kill me or even scout me. What's going on?!"

Indeed.

It's been over 3 years since Kai had returned from the Samurai's Hut to Island X. At that time, he had only Blood in his mind.

Kill as many as possible, as soon as possible, and then go back to that Dimension.

But no Company-sized force came to challenge him or kill him.

1 month passed. 2 months passed, and then 3 months flew by.

But other than occasionally stumbling upon a small team of Pokemon, Knights, or Creatures from the Wizarding world, Kai encountered no movement from the enemy.

It was like Island X was an enormous beast that had gone into hibernation.

Then there was the weather. The fucking weather.

When Kai had gone to the Samurai's Hut, it had been only a week since his arrival at Island X. Only later did he find out how treacherous and erratic the weather was on Island X.

It changed almost every week!

If it was that only, then Kai wouldn't have cared much. However, he found that even the weakest Trooper-ranked Pokemon became stronger by many times in the right weather.

As time kept passing by, Kai's thrill of going back ultimately died. With that, he remembered the words spoken by the Samurai about Island X, making him anxious.

So, in the coming months, Kai tried to infiltrate the Death Eaters' headquarters again.

Alas! All soldiers had tightly holed themselves up so tightly that Kai couldn't even find a single wizard strolling out of the ranks.

By the end of the year, Kai had become so agitated because of this silence that he just… gave up. Instead, he decided to see for how long this silence would last… for how long the enemy would keep itself from acting out.

Meanwhile, he began training as if he was possessed. Over 2 years of crazy training, had brought Kai's Selfless Breathing's duration to 35 minutes. It was only a 5-minute increase, true. But Kai knew how crucial these 5 minutes were. It meant that he was progressing, at least.

Kai reached the hole and paused. "Smarty," he called out. "Anyone's in the range?"

[

No.

]

Kai nodded to himself, taking a deep breath. "Let's scout the entire fucking Island X, then," he spat, his gaze hard. "I don't know why… but, I am just getting a bad feeling…"