Chapter 147: Smoke and Mirrors

The pain in Kael’s arms was enough to make a grown man cry. But the closing jaws in front of him were more than enough to make that same man suck it up and dodge as if his life depended on it.

And in this case, it did so and a half.

The notification still burned behind his eyes like an insult. Crippled. Both arms broken. The kind of wording that sounded clean and simple until you lived inside it.

His forearms weren’t just hurting; they were useless, weight dangling from shoulders that screamed every time his body shifted.

Pain pulsed up into his skull in hot waves, every heartbeat a hammer strike. Yet the Basilisk’s maw was right there, wet breath and rotten heat washing over him as teeth snapped shut with a sound like stone grinding against stone.

Fear didn’t even get time to be an emotion.

It became a function.

Move or die.

Kael hurled himself back with as much power as he could. The retreat was ugly. Not a clean dodge, not a practiced roll. Just raw distance gained by throwing his body away from death. Pebbles skipped across the floor under his boots. Dust puffed up and clung to sweat on his skin. He felt the wind of the Basilisk’s bite graze him, a fraction too close, the kind of near miss that made you taste bile even if you didn’t puke.

His arms hung loosely in front of him as he made distance. The broken limbs swung like dead meat, and every jolt sent fresh agony through him. He couldn’t brace. Couldn’t guard. Couldn’t even raise a hand properly without feeling something grind wrong inside.

Sweat slid into his eyes, stinging, and he blinked it away while forcing his legs to keep him moving. The world narrowed into two things. The ground under his feet and the jaws behind him.

“Presence,” Kael called out as he disappeared from sight.

The rune answered like a reluctant mercy. The world’s attention slid off him, and for a split second, the relief was so sharp it almost felt like peace. Almost. The Basilisk immediately reacted to the loss, lashing and snapping at empty air, enraged by the sensation of prey vanishing from its certainty.

“Everyone, back out! We’re not fighting anymore!” The boss gave the command.

Kael heard it faintly through the ringing in his head, the voice of someone trying to stop a disaster from turning into an execution.

The Sun Clan’s leader knew what the smoke had been meant to do. He knew what it would have cost them if they kept swinging blindly. Better to retreat and live than to satisfy someone else’s plan.

The Snakes looked infuriated with what just happened. Their plan didn’t work, and Kael was the heart of it.

Kael couldn’t see their faces clearly through [Presence], but he could feel their anger in the way they moved. Too sharp. Too sudden.

Men who had rehearsed a win and watched it get ripped away didn’t walk calmly. They twitched. They gestured. They started looking for a throat to squeeze.

If the Basilisk had done more harm to them, killed a few members, they could have come in, swooped the kill on the weakened basilisk, and taken out the remaining Sun Clan after a while.

Yet one member caused their whole plan to go astray, not only that, the Basilisk was still too healthy for their group to deal with alone, unless they sacrificed a great majority of their members if they attempted the battle.

Clean. Efficient. Cowardly.

It wasn’t even clever in a respectable way. It was the kind of clever you used when you were afraid to fight fair.

“WHY ARE YOU BACKING OUT! YOUR TIME ISN’T DONE YET!”

The shout came from Petrov’s side, loud enough to carry through the remaining haze and chaos.

Kael pictured his face without seeing it, the kind of outrage that only existed when a man believed rules applied to everyone else but him.

“Fucker!” Iori said, “Nothing in the contract says we can’t bail out. I’m not sacrificing my members for your sake, you son of a bitch.” Iori led the group as they walked out first.

Kael’s jaw clenched. Iori wasn’t helping Kael. He was helping himself. But the fact that he said it out loud, in front of witnesses, mattered.

Petrov had tried to corner the Sun Clan with rules and timing. Iori simply refused to die for Petrov’s ambition.

“Find that motherfucker!” Petrov howled at his members to find Kael. But he was away from line of sight, with his back to a nearby wall.

Kael pressed himself into the stone, using the wall’s cold surface as a reference point. His breathing was ragged, shallow, controlled only because panic would burn energy faster. [Presence] wasn’t free. It was a drain, and he could already feel the internal reservoir thinning like water poured out too quickly.

“Shit,” Kael cursed as he realized he was almost out of Internal Energy. A minute, perhaps two at best, before he’s fully out.

The awareness hit hard. If [Presence] dropped while his arms were still broken, he’d be a limping target with no guard and no weapon control.

The Basilisk would find him. The Snakes would find him. The Tower would probably find a way to laugh about it.

“Inventory, healing potion,” he muttered.

The vial slipped from useless fingers the instant it appeared. Glass hit stone with a sound that made Kael’s heart jump, because any noise felt like it could betray him. The bottle rolled slightly, stopping between his boots like a cruel joke. He couldn’t pick it up with his hands. He couldn’t even crouch comfortably without his arms moving wrong.

He knelt down, placed the vial between his feet, and used his teeth to remove the seal.

His jaw ached as he bit down on the stopper. He pulled hard, lips stretching, teeth scraping glass, and for a moment he tasted blood and thought he’d cracked a tooth. The seal popped free, and he spat it out quickly before it could choke him.

He then held the potion with his mouth up, dripping a bit and drinking the most in an awkward position.

The liquid tasted sharp and medicinal, like bitter herbs and concentrated mana. It ran down his chin because his posture was wrong, and he didn’t have a free hand to wipe it away. He swallowed anyway, forcing it down as fast as he could because time was the real enemy here.

Once the potion got into his system, his broken arms snapped back into position.

The healing wasn’t gentle. It was a brutal correction. Bone shifted. Tendons pulled. Something popped into place with a sick internal click.

Kael hissed through clenched teeth as the pain flared for one last moment, then dropped away into a dull afterburn. He flexed his fingers and felt sensation return properly, not just as numb pressure, but as control.

Kael spat the bottle and looked around, it was him and the Basilisk left.

The creature was searching for him, and if he stayed there long enough, he would be found out.

The Basilisk’s head swung side to side through the clearing smoke, tongue flicking, nostrils flaring. Its movement was restless, irritated, like a predator that knew prey existed but hated that it couldn’t see it. Kael didn’t wait for the animal to get lucky.

Kael flexed his fingers once and twice, making sure everything was working properly, then he placed the runes he removed back in their spots.

Once he was geared up again, he stood up and sprinted forward.

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