Chapter 148: Together in Death

“I think I see him!” one of the archers who was squinting and trying to locate Kael said once Kael was in the open.

“Shit, he’s translucent again.”

The archers’ voices carried panic now, because panic always arrived when prey refused to behave.

Kael’s stealth wasn’t perfect invisibility. It was enough to confuse aim, enough to make distance hard to judge, and that was all he needed.

“Arrow him down!” Petrov said.

“It will nerf us!” one of the members said.

Petrov smiled, “His name wasn’t in the contract!”

The sentence was pure poison.

Kael felt it land like a knife, because it meant Petrov had already prepared the loophole. Kael wasn’t protected by the contract’s ally list. The Snakes could shoot him, and the Tower would not punish them with nerfs.

Petrov wanted him trapped in legality while dying.

Iori, who was next to Petrov and retreating, took a glance at him, then at Kael.

But instead of coming to Kael’s help, he simply snorted and led his team up the slope.

Iori’s indifference was its own statement. Kael didn’t belong to anyone. Not truly. He was a convenient tool when useful, and disposable when inconvenient. That was the Tower’s social reality. Kael hated how familiar it felt. It was the same back home.

“See, not even the Sun Clan are his allies, take the fucker out, for wasting our plan.”

“Don’t think this is over,” Iori said as he left with his group.

“Sons of a bitch,” Kael cursed inwardly, “Fine, you want to kill me. Let’s all fucking die then,” Kael said as he removed Presence.

Doing so immediately alerted the Basilisk to his location and also revealed Kael’s location to the archers.

The air felt heavier the moment he dropped stealth, like stepping into a spotlight. The Basilisk’s eyes snapped to him again with that same murderous certainty. Archers gained clarity at the same time. Kael chose it anyway, because at this point, survival meant forcing chaos onto everyone else.

Instead of dodging, Kael placed both arms up in front of his face and rushed forward, toward the Snakes on the slope.

It was a suicidal looking charge, and that was the point. He wanted them to hesitate. He wanted their formation to break. He wanted them to do something foolish before they could decide to do something smarter, and that was running.

The Basilisk howled as it noticed Kael and ran after him.

The sound was enormous, a bellow that made the cave walls vibrate. Heavy footsteps followed, stone cracking under the creature’s weight. Kael felt the ground shake through his boots and kept running anyway, using the Basilisk as a moving disaster that would punish anyone in its path.

“FUCK KILL HIM FAST!” Petrov howled.

But Kael simply ran up forward. Two arrows shot toward him, one hit the gauntlets and bounced off, and the second one hit his flank.

“Got him!” an archer said.

The arrow impact stung, but not in the way an arrow should. It was more like being slapped hard than being pierced. Kael didn’t slow. He didn’t even stagger. As a matter of fact, the arrow that was supposed to dig in and stay stuck inside Kael simply bounced off.

Leaving a hole in his tracksuit that revealed something very similar to what the Basilisk’s skin looked like.

Kael smiled; the basilisk leather armor he wore was paying dividends.

He felt the grin stretch across his face and hated that it felt good. The armor wasn’t stylish. It was crude. It was survival made into clothing, and right now, it turned Petrov’s “smart” plan into wasted effort.

The archer shot again, only for the arrows to completely bounce off. The stone-headed arrows were unable to pierce through the hide he wore and broke, and even the iron-tipped arrows were useless as they simply failed to penetrate and bounced off.

The useless clatter of arrowheads hitting stone was almost comedic, except it was happening in a cave with a Basilisk charging behind him. Petrov’s men hesitated again, not because they cared about collateral, but because their certainty had been cracked. When certainty cracks, people run.

[You have been attacked by members of the Snake Clan.]

[You will not be marked as a red player for retaliating against the Snake Clan.]

Kael smiled at the notification as it could justify what he was about to do next.

The message was permission. Clean, explicit permission. The Tower, the contract, whatever rules governed this mess, had just handed Kael a knife and told him it was legal to use it. Petrov had tried to hide behind rules. The rules had just betrayed him.

He was already at the bottom slope with the basilisk hot on his tail.

He opened one palm forward, “Eat shit.” He said.

“DUCK!” Petrov howled as Ludwig released a powerful explosion of fire that shot into the ground and exploded.

The blast came fast, heat and pressure slamming outward. Kael felt it rattle his shoulder from the impact, but he burned two members of the Snake clan in the process. Flesh cooked. Cloth ignited. Screams rose in a sudden, ugly chorus. The smoke from burning bodies mixed with the cave’s dust in a way that made breathing taste like iron and char.

They were huddled up on the slope, and when they saw their members burning and no notice of the contract failing, they understood that Kael could kill them without drawbacks.

That realization changed everything. Petrov’s men didn’t look like hunters anymore. They looked like prey that had just realized the teeth belonged to someone else now.

The Snakes, realizing they became red players, decided to take the best course of action albite a bit too late.

Run.

They ran up the slope fast, faster than Even Kael could anticipate. He couldn’t blame them. Because the basilisk that was following him would have a good time hunting the whole group if they lined up nicely for him on the slope.

“Presence!” Kael muttered the moment the snakes ran up with Petrov leading him.

Stealth wrapped around him again just as chaos reached its peak. The Basilisk’s attention snapped uncertainly, searching. Having lost its main prey, it turned its eyes to the second best. The runners up the slope. And Kael used that moment to slip into the mess like a ghost with intent.

The whole plan went to shit. The hunt, the chase, the fight, everything went to absolute shit.

Kael’s regret for losing the [Darkness Rune] wasn’t too big.

He had a plan, a plan that would certainly grant him the rune.

And he simply chased after the Snake Clan while the basilisk chased after everyone else.

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