"…"

Kiernan looked at the camera at the far corner of the floor and quickly moved to the corner of his cell, out of the view of the camera.

It was very dark on the floor, so the camera wouldn't even be able to see him, but he didn't want to risk it.

In case the camera had thermal vision.

He pulled out a stack of papers from his inventory, went through every note about the prison he managed to gather, and then tossed them back inside.

"Come out…"

Kiernan put his entire arm inside the inventory, pulled out a paper slip, and then tossed it into the air.

The paper slip suddenly turned into a man—looking just like Kiernan in his fake appearance—it was impossible to see the difference between them.

This was one of the items he acquired in the lottery—Explosive Paper Slip Figurine.

'The collar will definitely alert the control room if I just take it out, which is why I need to ensure that it stays on.'

Kiernan thought, and then he took a deep breath.

He neared the collar's lock with the key, slid it into place, and turned it with a click.

The green light at the back of the collar turned red, and it clicked open.

"!!!"

Kiernan reacted quickly and put the collar around the figurine's neck and clicked it shut.

The red light turned green.

The figure then laid back down on the ice-cold bed, crossed his legs, and put his arms under his head as if he were about to sleep.

…

Downed Prison, Level 12, Control Room.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

An alarm went off.

There was a tall gray wall with numbers etched from one to a few hundred, and every light was green except one.

"Number 208 went red!"

A prison guard shouted.

He had the same red and black uniform as other prison guards, but he had a tall black top hat perched atop his head.

"Who the hell is it?"

Another prison guard, sitting before hundreds of monitors, went through the files and found the mysterious number 208.

"Captain Jack of level 8. I think he came to the prison just today. Could it be that they gave him a malfunctioning collar?"

He said.

"Check the cameras."

As he was told, he found the level eight camera, and turned it manually to show Kiernan's cell, where it was pretty dark.

"Use the thermal."

He immediately used it, and he didn't really see any heat signal inside the cell but saw something blue lying in the bed.

"There is not much of a heat, but there is someone in the cell."

"It is the frozen floor. I am not surprised that there is barely any heat signal. Does he have a collar around at least?"

He zoomed in on the camera and managed to catch a glimpse of the collar.

"There is…"

As they were starting to get confused, the alarm went off, and the green light returned back to the wall.

"It's back to normal? The hell?"

"I think we need to do a maintenance check tomorrow. At the same time, we should go check on number 208's collar just to be sure that there isn't anything wrong with it."

"Yeah, let's do that, but tomorrow. It is too late to do that shit. Especially since we would need to wake up guards from above to come with us, and they hate when we wake them up."

"I think there is something wrong with the system. Even earlier today the elevators were moving on their own even though there was no one inside!"

"I remember that… It was so strange."

…

In level 8, Kiernan stayed hunched by the corner.

He was checking the time on his wristwatch, which he also hid in his inventory, and saw that thirty minutes had passed since he took off the collar.

No one was coming.

'It worked…'

Kiernan's eyes turned serious.

It was time, and there was no turning back.

Fen panted with his tongue lolling out of his mouth, as he looked excited to be leaving this place.

In that moment, Kiernan took a deep breath and started sinking into the ground—into the black smoke underneath him.

He turned into the smoke and slithered out of the cell, making his way to the elevator that would take him to the ninth level.

Instead of heading straight up to Julian, he was planning to start his escape by going straight down!

The black smoke blended perfectly in the darkness and thus stayed hidden from the cameras.

As soon as Kiernan entered the elevator in his black smoke form, he shrouded the camera at the corner with his black smoke.

He then shifted back into his human form and rubbed the back of his head.

In that moment, Fen also ran inside, and then Kiernan pressed the button, heading down to the ninth floor.

It was the floor where Martial Legends were…

…

Level 12, Control Room.

"Again!"

A prison guard smacked the monitor that was showing a blacked-out camera.

"What is it now?"

The other prison guard asked while he was brewing himself some hot black coffee.

"One of the elevator cameras isn't working. It turned off out of nowhere. I think we definitely need to do full system maintenance tomorrow. This whole place is breaking apart!"

…

The elevator's doors opened, and a bright floor opened before them.

It was so bright, as if every light was on full blast, illuminating every nook and cranny of the room.

Kiernan had to squint his eyes in order to see and saw several box-like cages on the floor, with individuals sleeping inside.

'Shit… It's bright as hell here. I might be discovered in my smoke form.'

Kiernan turned serious, and then, his leg muscles bulged as he took a sprinting stance.

With a snap of thigh muscles, he exploded into a run and dashed through the floor with speed that was invisible to the naked eye.

He was even too fast for the cameras!

While running, Kiernan's senses warned him of something, and he side-glanced at one of the cages, where a person followed him with his gaze.

The person looked directly at him. A dark-eyed man.

"…"

Kiernan met his gaze, then turned away, and arrived at the elevator, where he immediately blacked it out with his smoke.

"Huff…"

He pressed on the button and descended straight down to the tenth floor—a floor of the Martial Emperors.

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