Chapter 132: Long Night

’Shit. If I remove the heft, I can regain the 98% synergy, and might be able to shoot fire like a flame thrower from both hands, but I’ll lose out on impact. Also, it’ll be small and almost irrelevant until close range.’

He weighed it quickly. Blowtorch output was useful. Silent. Controlled. Good for crafting and certain fights. But the Atrax fight had taught him something brutally clear. Impact mattered. Shock mattered. Breaking brittle shell mattered. If he took Heft out of the system completely, he’d be trading survival punches for pretty flames.

Kael sighed. Even with his runes, he couldn’t use them freely. There was a law behind the use of each rune, and he had to respect it.

That realization settled into him like an old rule being accepted. Runes weren’t spells you owned.

They were personalities you negotiated with.

Some combinations cooperated. Some combinations fought. And if you forced them together anyway, the Tower didn’t care if you meant well. It would just let you explode.

Runes of equal rarity and power will compete heavily for the user’s resources. While rarer and legendary runes like Anchor will always supersede and apply their effect first. And basic runes like Fire will only use the ’coded’ energy that went past all the former runes and translate them.

The main runes were the Ruler, supporting rare runes were the Scribes, and the basic runes were the Herald

. The ruler ordered, the scribe translated, and the herald only spoke what he was given.

The metaphor wasn’t poetic for Kael. It was useful. It let him think in hierarchy, in sequencing. It meant that if he wanted a stable output, he had to respect the chain of command. Anchor first. Support second. Fire last. Anything else was chaos.

Kael couldn’t help but feel saddened that he couldn’t use [Excise] now. But that didn’t mean he lost anything, in fact…

He pulled Excise back out of the left palm slot, not wasting time sulking. Sulking didn’t improve synergy. Heft stayed where it was on the right. Anchor stayed. Fire stayed. The left gauntlet remained a conductor and a fist, nothing more.

Kael swung a fist against the wall. It wasn’t powerful, nor was it hard, and it was with his left arm.

He chose a section of wall that was already rundown, already weak, because he wasn’t trying to demolish his room. He was testing the expression. He wanted to see if the runes would still behave when the output came from a gauntlet that didn’t directly host them.

The wall cracked from the force of the impact and spiderwebbed outward as if struck by a battering ram. Heat flared through the fracture line like the wall itself had briefly become kindling. The flame didn’t linger. It flashed, then died. But the message was clear. The left arm could express the right arm’s runic chain through the link. It wasn’t a release spell. It was a runic punch.

Kael realized his mistake the moment the building reacted. Footsteps thudded in the hallway. Voices rose. Doors creaked open. Someone shouted something incoherent, and another answered. Even in a base, people lived in paranoia. A loud impact meant a threat. And a threat could be an attack.

Kael coughed as dust fell from the ceiling.

Fine particles drifted down in a slow rain, and he waved them away with his hand, annoyed more than worried. The cough wasn’t from fear. It was from irritation at his own lack of discretion. He’d been so focused on function, he forgot where he was.

’Seems like it kept the exact same power, the chain transferred the manna properly, even if all the runes are on the right gauntlet, the left one still expresses it as if it had the runes on it. good.”

He flexed his left hand, feeling the gauntlet’s internal warmth settle. The link worked. That was the critical proof. He didn’t need Excise on the left. He needed the left to be a second output point for the existing chain. A second fist. A second hammer.

“The boss is back!” someone shouted.

The sound cut through the commotion like a bell. It changed the hallway’s tone immediately. People stopped panicking and started adjusting themselves. That was the effect a leader had, even a rotten one.

Kael heard and peeked out of the window.

Looking down, he saw the boss, wearing what looked like a leather vest. And new armored pants.

Kael’s eyes narrowed slightly as he took in the gear. The vest looked patched but sturdy, something made from decent hide. The pants had clear reinforcement, likely scavenged or crafted from materials the boss didn’t have yesterday. The boss walked like he’d been hit and enjoyed it. That grin was too wide for someone who came back clean.

Ludwig didn’t know where he got them, but seeing the wounds all over the boss, along with the many cuts, yet the wide grin on his face… “He got a good haul, must have lucked into an event.”

Kael didn’t show greed nor jealousy; after all, he created his own armor and weapons. And he can use them however he likes.

He didn’t care about the boss’s loot in the way other clan members would. Kael’s pride came from making, not finding. Still, he noted it. Luck events meant the floor was shifting again. It meant opportunities and dangers were changing shape without warning.

“Everyone!” the boss’s words echoed loudly, “Tonight we rest. Tomorrow there will be blood. You all know the snakes are treacherous pieces of shit. So, make sure you don’t attack them even if they taunt you, and if possible, try to intercept an attack or two from them. They’ll be doing the same for us when the fight against the basilisk starts.” The boss said.

His voice carried through the courtyard with practiced authority. People gathered, some eager, some fearful, some pretending to be eager to hide the fear. The boss wasn’t wrong. The contract was flawed, and everyone knew it. The only question was who would exploit it first.

’At least he recognized the issue with the contract. But is that enough… just getting the snakes to get debuffed doesn’t mean you can beat the basilisk…’

Kael’s mind stayed practical. A debuff didn’t kill a basilisk. It just made the other side weaker while they still died the same way. The boss sounded confident because leaders were supposed to sound confident. Confidence didn’t change mandibles.

“We’ll stockpile at the Imp tomorrow. For now, everyone, go to your quarters and rest. Guard,s we’re counting on you to keep our gate closed and our sleep unbothered.”

The order was direct, and everyone nodded. Tomorrow was a big day, a big raid. And probably a day when many would not return, all for the greed of man.

Kael pulled back from the window and looked at his gauntlets again. The chain lay between them like a secret. Tomorrow would be blood, sure. For everyone else, it would be blood for loot.

For Kael, it would be blood for positioning, for control, for getting closer to that Epic Darkness Rune and closer to leaving this floor alive.

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