Chapter 110: Stalker

Kael inspected the weapon to see what it was capable of first.

He didn’t let the excitement of “a tower weapon” make him stupid. Not here. Not in a building full of red dots.

He held the axe at a slight angle and watched the faint blue contouring shimmer along its edge, then forced himself to breathe and do the one thing that kept him alive more often than any rune ever had.

Information first.

“[Inspect]”

***

[Flame-Imbued Axe]

Item Rarity: Rare

Equip Condition: 16 STR – 12 DEX

Category: Weapon – One-Handed Axe

Durability: 94%

***

Passive – [Ember Edge]

Each strike carries residual fire mana, causing inflicted wounds to retain heat briefly after impact.

Passive – [Smoldering Edge]

Heat generated by this weapon increases the longer it is actively wielded and swung.

After 60 seconds of sustained use, the temperature stabilizes at a smoldering threshold.

+10% Resistance to Fire.

+10% Resistance to Cold.

Lore:

This axe was once a mundane emergency tool. Prolonged exposure to high-temperature mana caused structural alteration and assimilation into the Tower’s system.

Its evolution was incidental, the result of survival rather than intent.

The mana embedded within it is stable, but shallow. Its fire affinity is consistent, though limited in depth.

“Oh, this looks pretty decent.” He thought.

His eyes ran over the lines twice, not because he struggled to read, but because he didn’t trust “decent” to stay decent once the tower got involved.

Rare gear on the first floor was already a luxury. Rare gear that was also fire-aligned in a place that had been cooked by something upstairs felt like a setup.

The passives on the weapon weren’t something grand, but at the same time, they weren’t simple.

They weren’t flashy. They didn’t scream “legendary.” But they were practical, and practical was what mattered when you were counting how many seconds it took to either kill something or die to it.

“The Ember edge allows the weapon to cause fire damage, and the Smoldering Edge ramps it up. In a prolonged fight, this could be very good for culling enemies. Groups of them… groups of goblins,” Kael looked up.”

The thought came with a sharp clarity.

Goblins were fast, nasty, and usually loud enough to draw more goblins.

If he could drop them quickly and leave burning wounds behind, the panic would spread. Fire did that.

Fire made creatures make mistakes.

He held the weapon with his left hand, and it felt a bit awkward.

The grip was right, the balance was fine, but his body wasn’t used to it. His left wrist protested the unfamiliar angle, and his shoulder felt like it didn’t want to commit.

He was right-handed, but in his right hand was the Rune Gauntlet.

That was the problem. His right hand was his rune hand.

His right hand was his lifeline. And now he had a weapon that begged to be swung properly.

“Hmm, might as well…” Kael switched hands and held the axe firmly in the gauntleted hand.

Metal met metal in a way that made him briefly tense.

He half expected the rune sockets to flare, or the axe to reject the grip, or some ridiculous system warning to pop up about “incompatible equipment.”

Nothing happened immediately. The axe simply sat in his palm as it belonged there.

“Perhaps the system isn’t bothering with double Equips since it has yet to ’register’ the Rune Gauntlet as a proper weapon…’

The idea was solid, based on facts. But that didn’t mean it was true, nor if it was wrong. Kael simply lacked information to confirm if what he suspected could stick.

He gave the weapon a few swings and noticed that the edge of the weapon began turning red.

At first, it was subtle, like a faint blush under dark metal. Then it deepened. The edge didn’t glow like a torch; it glowed like heated iron, controlled and contained.

It was smoldering.

He could feel the warmth travel through the handle and into the gauntlet’s palm socket area. Not burning. Not painful. Just a steady rising heat that made his instincts whisper: this thing wants to be used.

“Good, good,” Kael muttered as he began his trek going up.

He moved carefully, keeping his footsteps measured.

The building was a skeleton. Every floor felt like it could betray him. The stairwell was half intact, and the concrete steps were chipped, with exposed rebar jutting out like teeth. As he climbed, dust stirred with each step, drifting into his nose and coating his tongue with that dry, bitter taste of old ruin.

After a few floors, he noticed that the fire damage from the lower floors had extended to two more floors above, then simply stopped.

The transition was eerie. Below, everything was charcoal and ash. Above, things were merely broken. Not clean. Not safe. Just not burned to nothing. The air changed, too. Less smoke, more stale office rot, and old paper turning to mush.

But that didn’t mean the building was intact from then on; the whole thing looked like a scaffold instead of a structured building.

It felt like walking through ribs. Beams and supports and half walls, with the sky visible through gaps where offices used to be. Wind slipped through, carrying the noise of gales of wind and birds of prey that didn’t belong in a city, and more like a jungle.

It had too few walls and too many beams. As if something had struck the building and left only its internal structure holding it up. It made the building feel exposed, like he was climbing inside a carcass that had been picked clean.

Kael’s eyes flicked to the mini-map again and again. He didn’t like that the red dots were close and clustered. He didn’t like the way some of them shifted, not wandering, but moving with purpose.

A few of them, in fact, were coming down the stairs to inspect the noise Kael created when he was breaking open the metal door.

So they had heard him. Of course, they had.

And they were doing the most dangerous thing possible for him right now.

They were coming to him instead of waiting like some stupid dungeon mob. These goblins were hunters.

But Kael didn’t panic. Not after what he went through, not after the tunnel system, the hatchlings and the enraged Basilisk Mother.

For these guys, and with his new stats, all he had to do was take the opportunity and deliver the first blow. Everything after that would solve itself… somehow.

“[Presence]” Kael muttered and his whole world muffled.

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