I took my first steps down the staircase, feeling the air grow heavy around me with each step. The echo of my steps seemed eerie and slightly off, as if coming from everywhere at the same time.

  The small corridor got darker and darker. I could see fine, even without a light source until now, but now I was slowly seeing less and less. I could only see 5 feet before me. The stone walls seemed infinite, with no ending in sight.

  After what felt like hours, I was growing tired of the monotonous descent into madness. Leaning my ears against the walls, I tried to listen for any sounds other than my own, but there were none. Frustrated, I hit the wall. To my surprise, it actually cracked.

  “Only the entrance is reinforced… But why? What is down here that needs that kind of protective measure?”

  Continuing down the staircase, I saw something that sent a shiver down my spine. Up ahead, the stone wall was cracked, the same pattern that my punch created.

  Cold sweat ran down my back, and I started sprinting back, hoping my suspicions were wrong. As I passed the original spot I punched the wall at, I kept running. Soon, I saw it. My intuition was right. Further up the stairs, there was another crack in the wall. I was certain it had not been there before.

  “Is this some kind of twisted loop, or is someone toying with me? What is happening?”

  I sat down to think about how to proceed. I could not just keep going further down, because that was obviously not taking me anywhere.

  “If neither up nor down is the right way, then what’s left for me to do? Either I force my way through the wall until I find something, or the solution requires me not to move at all…”

  I closed my eyes and sat down, sensing the ambient mana.

  “That is weird… There is no mana here. How is that possible? Is that why it is so dark down here?”

  I opened my eyes and stood back up. Igniting a small flame on my fingertip, I did my best to ignore the pain. I gritted my teeth and looked around. With the light from the flame, I could see some things I did not notice before.

  Everything seemed just a bit off. Thanks to my enhanced body, my senses were anything but ordinary. The stone did not look the same way it did outside the tunnel. My shadow was a little too slow, not quite keeping up with my movements. My mana pain was agonizing, but not the searing, burning pain I was supposed to feel. It was just pain. Dull pain everywhere.

  “Is this some kind of mind attack? What is happening…?”

  I tried to sense the ambient mana again, concentrating harder on feeling what was around me.

  All around me, there was something. Some kind of presence, just outside my field of view.

  I increased the amount of mana shielding my brain, increasing my protection, but further lowering my power. The world around me was swaying, phasing in and out of existence.

  “I am dreaming!”

  Sending all my mana into my brain, the endless staircase crumbled into nothingness, revealing the real world. On my head, there was an enormous insect-like creature, nearly half my size.. A long, straw-like mouth was lodged in my neck. I could feel it sucking my blood, injecting venom into my spine. I grabbed the ugly thing and ripped it out, pain radiating through my body, but with my brain completely protected, I barely felt anything. Crushing the bug in my hand, I threw it against the wall. I stood up and saw I was at the entrance of the staircase. There was no stone wall blocking my way out of here, and no ominous darkness down the stairs.

  “What is it with me and parasites? Am I that tasty or what?” Mumbling to myself, I went down the stairs again. After half a day of walking down the never ending stairs, I finally reached the bottom.

  “God, I hate stairs, never again! Fuck them. My legs are so sore, aghhhh!.”

  After venting my frustration, I looked around. I was standing in a gargantuan room with walls of what seemed like marble and obsidian pillars that supported the curved ivory ceiling. At the end of the huge room, there was another door, identical to the one I woke up behind. Infront, there were two obsidian statues. One held a sword and shield in its hands, the other one had a spear.

  Walking up to them, I was stunned by their height. Standing tall at what must have been 30 feet, they gave off an imposing aura, as if the world would tremble if they decided to move. I inspected the marble walls. They were without a single blemish, as if just polished. I could see my reflection on the wall.

  As I turned away from the wall and back to the statues, my reflection did not do the same. It was staring at me with hungry eyes.

  I did not notice this, still inspecting the statues. In front of the door, between the 2 statues, there was an obsidian circle cut into the marble. As I stood on it, the hall started shaking, a low vibration coming from beyond the door. The statues started cracking, breaking down and revealing what’s inside.

  They…. were empty.

  Confused, I waited for something to happen. The remains of what once were these enormous statues lay on the ground, now no more than obsidian dust and shards.

  A few moments later, the shards started moving again, floating upwards and reassembling the statues. I watched in awe as they reappeared before me, as if nothing happened. Then, the door behind them opened and revealed what lay beyond.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Rainbow colored crystals filled the room. In the middle, there was a glass coffin, shining in the same rainbow colors as the crystals. And there, in front of the glass coffin, stood a young man.

  His tall statue and handsome face shined brighter than any of the crystals could. His crimson hair and eyes gave off a fiery aura, ready to incinerate the world. An inscription was on the glass coffin.

  "Recovered Soul from ???. Placed in cloned body of Prince Firon for safety"

  A copy of myself was staring at me, but there was no confusion in its eyes.

  “Who are you?” We asked at the same time, our voices overlapping perfectly. I shifted into a fighting stance, and so did it.

  “Answer me! Who are you?” I asked, my eyes narrowing.

  “I am *redacted*. You are Project 00001: Ultimate Vessel. How is it that you are alive? I thought Doctor Phoenix discontinued your project. What is your business with me?” It answered with an almost robotic voice.

  “My business with you? I don’t even know what happened. Some kind of magical body stealing parasite took my body, expelled my soul and then I awoke down here in a foreign, magically engineered body of a dead prince in a long-lost civilization, so don’t ask me what my fucking business is with you, because I DON’T FUCKING KNOW.”

  I was surprised by my sudden outburst. All of my pent up frustration was leaking out right now. Trying to calm my emotions, I listened for its response.

  “That is indeed puzzling. How long has it been? Analyzing….. Finished. It has been 2400 years. Doctor Phoenix has failed to wake me up on the agreed upon date. Every inhabitant of Umbrathal has vanished without a trace.”

  “Umbrathal? Is that the name of this place? And I still don't know why you look exactly the same as me.”

  “Yes, this civilization was once called Umbrathal. This body is a clone of the original body you are inhabiting. I am the same as you, a lost soul seeking refuge. But I need more mana for what I have planned. Surrender this body that you stole and leave.”

  “Surrender the body? I can’t just leave. And even if I could, I would never. I would die!”

  “You will die regardless, intruder. Engaging in combat mode.” Before I could answer, the clone jumped forward and coated its fist in roaring flames, trying to remove my head from my shoulders with a massive uppercut.

  I sidestepped its attack with relative ease. His magic was way stronger than anything I could imagine right now, but his body was slower and weaker than mine, by far. I had felt my body growing stronger every day by absorbing the large amounts of mana down here. I was already at least twice as strong as the day I awoke.

  Its face showed no emotions as it continued its mechanical assault on me, each strike and kick calculated and perfectly executed. But I was just too fast, too durable. I dodged and weaved every attack, and even the ones I could not dodge did not do a lot of damage, even in my 10% form.

  “Stop attacking me! I won’t kill you because I need answers, but I can still hurt you.”

  “Calculating… probability of winning… 1.7%. Initiating back-up measures” It stopped attacking and stood still. For a moment, nothing happened, until its body suddenly inflated, its skin expanding and its flesh ripping under enormous stress.

  Before I even knew what happened, it exploded its own body and flung me against the wall with the explosion. My head smashed into the wall and I heard a crack, before my vision turned black and I fainted.

  —

  I awoke to a destroyed room. The crystals all annihilated, the grey remnants broken on the floor, and the door ripped out of its hinges. The marble room was unscathed, as if nothing happened.

  My head was spinning, dull pain making every thought I had hurt. I felt horrible. My ears were still ringing from the explosion, but there was something else as well.

  “…rror…. reCa…br…ting…”

  “Damn, I must have hit my head pretty hard… I can still hear that thing’s voice.” I searched my head for injuries, but surprisingly, there were none.

  I stood up and found that all my senses were strangely enhanced. No, my mana flow was optimized, perfectly reinforcing my senses naturally, without any mana cost.

  “Weird, what happened? Did I hit my head so hard that my mana flow rearranged itself?” I could read my mana better. Everything was smoother, as natural as breathing for me.

  I walked out of the destroyed room, leaving behind the mess of broken crystals and destroyed stone.

  As I left the room, my body automatically dodged a huge obsidian spear from behind before I could even react. One of the statues had attacked me. Its long spear whistled past my left shoulder as I jumped back to gain some distance.

  “What… How did I dodge that? That was not me…”

  Before I could continue to ponder over what happened, a familiar voice rings inside my head again.

  “Dodge left, swipe incoming.”

  I froze. The voice was clearer this time. This couldn’t just be a hallucination anymore.

  In that second of doubt, the statue’s spear crashed into my side, obliterating my hand that tried to block the spear in the last second with a violent cracking sound.

  I gritted my teeth, confused and scared. Did I have another parasite in my head? Really? That is the third one, fuck! At least this one tried to help me, for now.

  I looked down at my hand, but it was already healing itself at a speed visible to the naked eye. I was not even using my healing magic on my hand at the moment.

  “Damage to hand severe. Healing with optimal efficiency. Mana reserves 10%, critically low.”

  I jump forward onto the statue’s spear and start running up the spear. As I closed in on the statue’s head, I readied my fist, trying to force the small flame I could conjure to appear, to increase the amount of damage I could do by even a tiny bit.

  “Detecting inefficient mana usage. Optimizing… Finished.”

  Violent flames engulfed my fist. Instead of the small ember I was expecting, a raging inferno had ignited on my hand, the very air swaying from the heat.

  “What? I didn’t…”

  As I struck the statue’s head, its helmet broke and its head violently jerked back, a crack appearing on its face.

  I created more distance between us, as suddenly the second statue also came to life, charging at me with its shield as protection.

  I braced myself for the impact, grabbing the statue’s shield and pulling.

  I roared, as I exhausted every bit of strength I could fathom in my 10% form, and lifted the statue over my head. Throwing it against the wall, its shield shattered, but the statue stood up, heavily injured.

  Both threw themselves at me from opposite directions, trying to finish me in a pincer attack.

  I ducked and heard a loud crash above me as both statues smashed into each other, finishing them off.

  Exhausted, I collapsed to the floor, breathing heavily, my forehead dripping with sweat.

  “Combat efficiency 37%. Exhaustion levels to high and mana reserves to low. Entering recovery mode.”

  “What are you talking about? Recovery mode?”

  Before I could even finish that thought, my vision turned black again, and I fainted, again.