Chapter 140: Bait and Switch

The boss understood immediately what he needed to do.

He realized that Kael used himself as bait, drawing the aggro, then immediately removed himself from the battle. That brief moment gave them ample time to deal a good few hits.

That was a good opportunity to take advantage of. A good tank was always the backbone of a raid party, and Kael was doing that job perfectly.

The Sun Clan surged forward like a tide that had been held back by fear. Weapons rose. Boots scraped.

A few men hesitated for half a heartbeat, then forced themselves in because the boss was watching and because shame was sometimes stronger than survival instinct.

The people with stone weapons immediately switched to makeshift spears and metal made weapons. Not the best, by far, but very useful here. After all, they saw the uselessness of stone weapons. If goblin weapons were useful, they wouldn’t have become Basilisk snack and excrement.

Kael, half invisible, watched their angles and distances through the dull haze of Presence. Spears made sense. They were trying to keep range, trying not to get within jaw distance. The issue was obvious. Their points were crude. Their hands were trembling. And the basilisk’s scales did not care about courage.

Stabs that barely dug an inch deep, slashes that bounced off, and dagger stabs that did little.

Steel scraped on scale with a noise like nails on stone. Sparks jumped. A dagger skittered off and nearly hit another climber’s foot.

One spear finally found a seam between plates and sunk shallow, drawing a thin line of greenish blood that immediately made the attacker flinch back like he’d touched acid.

However, it was still damage.

Damage mattered because it altered behavior. Monsters that were never hurt fought one way. Monsters that felt pain fought another. Kael didn’t need them to pierce deep. He needed them to keep the basilisk occupied while he found his openings.

This wasn’t a blitz, nor was it a full-scale raid. They needed to preserve their stamina and their lives. Once they make the time, the other team will walk in. And that’s when things will start changing. For now, they needed to remain alive and strong.

Just when the Basilisk was feeling threatened. It turned its head to find the one who caused it most pain, its eyes landing directly on the Boss.

The boss had struck with confidence, stepping in closer than the others, and the basilisk punished bravery by recognizing it. Its eye narrowed, and the head shifted toward him, jaw opening slightly, the way a predator did right before committing to a kill.

“Damn,” the boss said as the basilisk turned its attention toward him.

The word was almost casual, but his body wasn’t. His stance tightened, weapon lifted defensively, and Kael could see the boss’s mind calculating distance and timing in a way the others weren’t. The boss wasn’t stupid. He was just willing to gamble with other people’s lives.

Yet before it could even attack, a rattling blow of power shook the basilisk entirely, eliciting a howl of pain, or more likely anger.

Kael had removed [Presence] and struck at the creature with its gauntlet.

He reappeared at the basilisk’s flank like a glitch, close enough that the heat from its body washed over him. He drove his gauntleted fist into its ribs again with a compact motion, using the chain’s tension to stabilize his shoulder. The impact carried Heft’s cruel weight, and the sound of it was wrong, like striking a thick metal drum.

The fire did little upon contact, but the weight of the fist still made the creature cringe, perhaps even burrow if scales could bruise.

The basilisk’s body shuddered. A ripple traveled through muscle, and for the first time, it didn’t look like a god of the cave. It looked like an animal that had been hit. The flame licked harmlessly across scale and died, but the concussive force made its ribs flex inward a fraction.

The basilisk switched its attention immediately toward Kael, making sure this time that it was leaning a bit more to the left, the side where Kael’s gauntlet connected with its ribs.

The head swung back, eye snapping to him again, and Kael felt that same focused hate return. The creature didn’t forgive. It didn’t get distracted for long. It prioritized him like a debt.

’It’s feeling the pain. There is hope,’ Kael thought, but his hope was very slim… Almost fleeting.

Hope was a dangerous word. He let it exist only as a tiny measurement. Pain was possible. That meant cracks were possible. That meant a kill was theoretically possible. The rest of the theory was whether they would all live long enough to reach that possibility.

Two attacks, and the small bar on his vision had already dropped by two-tenths.

He could feel the drain now, not just see it. A subtle hollowness behind the sternum, a slight weakness in the elbow that wasn’t physical fatigue but something deeper. Internal Energy didn’t scream the way mana did. It just vanished and left you with less.

Though the majority of that energy was wasted in the ranged attack that he used first. He knew well that he alone could not beat it.

That was the cold truth. Even if his punches could crack scale, he couldn’t do it forever. He didn’t have the pool. He didn’t have the room. He didn’t have the luxury of taking one clean hit in exchange.

[Presence] was also consuming energy. And if he kept using it on and off, he’ll soon tap out.

He felt it like a leak. Every second he stayed blurred, a thin tax was paid. If he overused it, he’d become visible at the worst possible moment, with nothing left in the tank to compensate. There was no room for error here.

’Gotta save at least a bit to leave this place if things turn to shit,’ Kael thought as the beast was about to lunge at him.

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