Chapter 149: The Plan

Kael had a vile smile on his face.

It wasn’t that of amusement, no, it was that petty, ugly kind that crawled up your throat when you finally got to choose who suffered. When you finally got to repay the universe a fraction of what it kept charging you.

With Presence active, he slipped between the members of the Snake Clan like a bad thought they couldn’t quite shake. Their bodies were packed tight in the tunnel mouth, shoulders crashing, weapons clattering, boots scraping stone, yet none of them saw the blurred silhouette weaving through them, because none of them were looking for him.

They were looking behind.

A prehistoric thing the size of a metro train was coming up the slope as the world owed it blood.

And when fear has a grip on your spine, you don’t notice the knife in your ribs. You notice the boulder rolling toward your head.

They screamed as they ran up, panic and terror tearing the last bit of discipline out of them. Not a single one tried to fight back; it would’ve been suicide to turn and “hold the line” against something that made arrows bounce, and spears snap like twigs. Their courage had a price tag, and it didn’t cover this.

Kael’s smile served its purpose here.

He found the slowest runner of the Snake Clan, not the weakest, not the stupidest. The slowest.

Thanks to Kael’s improved stats, he could reach, outpace, and out-speed anyone of these frogs. He didn’t even need to break stride. He came in from the side, close enough to smell that sharp stink of sweat and cheap armor, close enough to see the guy’s pupils blown wide with the reflection of the oncoming nightmare.

One small tipping of the ankles, a small nudge, made one of the slowest climbers trip.

The runner’s foot caught nothing. No rubble. No loose gravel. No crack in the stone. His balance simply… vanished, like it was stolen mid-step. His face went slack with confusion, and his arms windmilled, desperate and useless.

He was surprised; he was certain he didn’t make a mistake. Was he tripped on purpose? No, he was the last one, the closest to the jaws; no one could trip him. All his allies were up ahead. He turned his head to see the assailant still.

But there was no one.

No, there was something.

The translucent person.

And just as the man’s mouth opened to howl about it, to blame the world, blame the Sun Clan, blame the tower, blame anything that wasn’t his own weakness, gravity finished the conversation for him. He hit the slope hard, chin cracking stone, breath blasting out of him in a wet gasp.

Behind him, the sound came.

Not footsteps. Not a run.

A mass moving like the tunnel belonged to it.

The basilisk’s jaws took the meal heartily and with ravenous pleasure. A bite, and then a scream. And since the enraged basilisk wasn’t done with the unfortunate man, he raised him up with his jaws bleeding and slammed him down on the ground, a final wet crunch, and no sound would ever leave the climber’s unfortunate mouth anymore.

The noise wasn’t just heard; it vibrated. It shuddered through steel rails, up into bone, into teeth. The entire tunnel felt like it flinched.

Kael kept running.

He didn’t slow for the kill. He didn’t even look back long enough to savor it properly.

The notification of obtaining cores passively was all he needed for proof of kill.

He had more to do than gloat. Revenge was nice, but survival was the real drug, and right now he was high on both.

The basilisk raised its head, throat flexing as it swallowed, then snapped its gaze forward again. It wasn’t “hunting” anymore. It was erasing.

It was a moving disaster with a grudge.

And up ahead, right at the exit of the slope where bodies were trying to squeeze out like water through a cracked dam, the two leaders finally collided.

“MOVE OUT OF THE WAY!” Petrov howled at Iori, who was standing at the exit.

“No, try and make me!” Iori laughed.

Iori wasn’t laughing because it was funny. He was laughing because it was cruel. Because it was the only kind of laughter that existed down here, spite-laughter, knife-laughter, laughter that said: I’d rather die than give you what you want.

He held his position like a cork in a bottle, forcing Snake bodies to jam and bunch. If the Snakes wanted past him, they’d have to shove, swing, or stab. They’d have to hit Sun Clan flesh.

And the contract didn’t care if you “didn’t mean it.”

Petrov saw the trap instantly. His face twisted, not with fear, but with furious calculation. He didn’t want to swing first. He didn’t want his entire clan crippled by a tower debuff at the exact moment a floor boss was behind them.

And then he made the decision only a bastard would make.

“Then we’ll all die here,” he said as he threw it on the ground.

The smoke bomb hit stone, rolled once, and detonated like a sudden, choking curtain.

Gray swallowed everything: faces, weapons, tunnel edges, the slope itself. Vision turned worthless. The direction turned uncertain. The world became sound and panic, and the taste of ash.

“Bastard,” Iori cursed as he backed away, allowing the snakes to leave.

Because now it wasn’t a choke point. It was a blind pileup. A place where you couldn’t tell whose hand was on your shoulder until the fingers tightened.

Behind them, more screams echoed from the slope.

The smoke, the panic, and the sound of the stampeding basilisk. All of them magnified the horror that was chasing after them.

Kael finally emerged from the smoke, having taken pride in feeding the basilisk three more climbers.

He didn’t do it clean. He didn’t do it gently. He did it the way the tower taught you to do everything: fast, dirty, and without apology. A shove into a shoulder here, a hooked foot there, a sudden change of direction that sent someone’s momentum into a stumble… and the basilisk did the rest.

But no one could see him. They were too focused on their own survival, eyes blind, lungs burning, minds shrieking, and they couldn’t see him through his Presence rune.

Kael’s internal energy reserves dipped to their lowest. And he began feeling the drain. It wasn’t like mana-drain headaches, not that white-hot spike behind the eyes. This was heavier. Physical. Like his muscles were turning to soaked cloth, like his bones wanted to sit down and stay down. Like Presence wasn’t just hiding him, it was taking a bite out of him every second it stayed active.

He needed to stop using Presence for now. He’d need the remaining minute later.

So he let it go.

The world snapped into sharper focus, and so did danger.

Once removed, Kael was face-to-face with Iori.

The latter smiled, though it was more surprise than thankfulness that Kael was alive. His eyes flicked over Kael’s posture like he was counting limbs, checking for missing parts, verifying the obvious: the new kid just refused to die.

“Ah, I knew you’d make it.”

“You did, now, did you?” Kael asked.

He didn’t bother pretending. His voice carried that flat edge; it always did when someone tried to act like they were on his side after trying to use him. He was tired, he was dirty, and he was still angry enough that it sat under his tongue like a blade.

“You know I’d have done that for anyone else.”

“Doesn’t make it any better, still, one word for the wise, since you didn’t actively stab me in the back,” Kael said.

Iori frowned, waiting, because he recognized that tone. The one right before Kael did something reckless or clever, the one that meant move your feet, dumbass.

“Don’t touch the railings.”

Kael didn’t explain. He didn’t have time to explain. The basilisk’s scream rattled the entire metro system as it finally caught Kael’s scent properly, caught it through the smoke, through the sweat, through the churned stone and blood.

He didn’t wait.

He ran down the metro tracks.

The Snakes who had just left the smoke area saw him running up. The smoke thinned enough to show him, tracksuit, movement, a body too fast to be normal, and greed stabbed through their panic like a needle.

“He’s running, boss!”

“Catch that fucker! Don’t touch the Sun Clan, but kill that motherfucker!” Petrov howled as he pointed ahead.

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