Chapter 150: Sweet Vengance.

“What do we do, boss…” Peter asked as he looked at what was going on.

Peter’s voice sounded thin, like he was trying to keep it together and failing. He kept glancing between Kael and the slope behind them, like his brain wanted to pick which nightmare to die to.

He wanted to come to Kael’s aid. After all, that man helped him a bunch, and helped the Sun Clan a bunch, even if they didn’t help when he needed it the most, nor cared when he was about to die.

Iori didn’t hesitate.

“Back away, don’t stay near the dungeon entrance. It’s coming out,” Iori withdrew back before the Basilisk shot out of the cave.

He wasn’t shouting because he was brave; he was shouting because he finally believed Kael’s warning. Because he finally saw the geometry of death: railings, a creature with nothing but revenge in mind, and a bunch of idiots that would look like a good snack after a battle.

The Snakes all chased after Kael instead.

They were stupid enough to think Kael was the prize.

Kael was the bait.

Once the basilisk came out, though there was still some smoke in the area, it wasn’t enough to fully hide the Sun clan, who went the opposite way to where Kael ran up to.

The basilisk took note of the Sun Clan, and Peter almost wet his pants as it was locking on them. You could see it in the way his knees locked, and his shoulders rose, as if he could make himself smaller by shrinking into his own spine.

“We’re fucked…” another of the Sun Clan said as he gripped a spear with shaky hands.

“Don’t aggravate it,” Iori said as he looked at the basilisk’s eyes.

The basilisk sniffed once and twice, thick nostrils flaring. It tasted the air like it was reading a book written in blood. For a heartbeat, it hovered between targets, between the clustered Sun Clan and the direction Kael had bolted.

Then its head snapped.

Kael’s smell.

It sniffed it in the air, and it immediately turned its head and began running forward.

Kael laughed like a madman as he saw the dozen or so Snakes following after him, and a faster red dot following after everyone else.

It wasn’t a happy laugh. It was that same petty thing from earlier, but louder now, because he could see the shape of it: Snakes sprinting like rabbits, and a basilisk behind them like a train with teeth.

He pulled out his backpack and rushed up this time on the platform side of the tracks. With an item in hand. A non-tower item. An item that made him try out this plan since the first time he got into this tunnel.

In his hands, the backpack straps bit his palms as he yanked it open while running. His fingers found what he needed immediately, because he’d kept it that way on purpose.

The lever.

That ugly, heavy chunk of metal that belonged to the underground power system. The thing that made the railings dead… or made them a goddamn execution device.

Behind him, boots thundered. Breathing tore. Someone wheezed like their lungs were ripping.

“Why is he so fucking fast!” someone complained as they noticed that Kael was at least twice their speed.

They’d never catch up to him if he decided to just keep running.

Which was exactly why Kael didn’t just keep running.

He had a better ending in mind.

Iori wasn’t able to see what was going on from afar, but remembered Kael’s words. He looked down on the tracks and ahead, where the Basilisk was running. It was too fat and would always have a body part on the tracks if it ran. If this were the normal world, no sane man would ever step on these railings; they were usually charged up with tens of thousands of volts.

Iori didn’t need to be a genius to understand what Kael meant. He would be an absolute dumbass for not understanding it now.

“Fuck, GET OFF THE RAILS!” Iori howled at his members as he jumped toward the platform.

The rest of the Sun Clan didn’t understand much, but seeing the panic in their leader’s voice and actions, they decided to follow without question. They scrambled up, dragging each other, shoving spears aside, tripping and recovering, anything to get away from the steel lines that suddenly looked like a coffin.

Little did they know that their lives could have been lost if they had not listened.

Kael reached the control point in a sprint, where the lever belonged, where the system connected, where the tower’s dead infrastructure still pretended it was a city. He slammed it into place with a violent shove, metal grinding, teeth of the mechanism catching.

He didn’t stop to admire it.

He pulled.

Suddenly, on the other side of the tracks where Iori stood, the first thing that came was light. Lightbulbs all over the tunnel system lit up.

The second was the inhuman scream and the smell of burning flesh and air.

Then the explosion of electricity that shook the whole cave.

And finally, the very lights that turned on exploded in succession.

For a fraction of a second, the tunnel became a strobing nightmare, blue-white arcs snapping like whips, the basilisk’s bulk outlined in brutal flashes, Snake bodies thrown into sharp relief as they realized, too late, what they were standing on.

There was no “heroic death.” No last words. No clean strike.

Just electricity taking what it was given.

The basilisk’s roar, something that had shaken stone and made men piss themselves, twisted into a sound that didn’t belong in any throat.

It was rage becoming pain, pain becoming panic, panic becoming nothing. Then the tunnel filled with that wet, cooked stink that made your stomach flip even if you’d smelled worse.

And to end it all, a notification appeared for everyone.

[You have assisted in Slaying the Black Basilisk of Getava. Calculating contribution rewards.]

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