Chapter 164: From Under The Rubble

It was hot.

That was all that Kael could think of as the wave of heat laced through his entire body.

It wasn’t just warmth, it was presence, like the air itself had teeth. Heat punched through him in one violent sweep, crawling under fabric, under skin, into his ribs and throat. It didn’t behave like normal fire; it felt intentional, like the Ifrit’s territory had noticed something alive crossing its border and decided to remind it what the word owned meant.

It also only lasted a brief second, but to him, it felt like forever.

Time stretched in that single instant the way it did when you almost got hit by a car, when the world slowed just enough to let you understand exactly how you could die. His nerves lit up with warning, all at once, like a thousand needles. Even his teeth felt hot.

His body protested against the flames, but he couldn’t win that argument with sheer will.

The Tower didn’t care about stubbornness. The Tower cared about physics, and whatever warped physics lived in that red circle. Kael could grit his teeth and swear and “push through,” and it wouldn’t change the fact that flesh cooked. Lungs blistered. Eyes boiled. Pride didn’t insulate you.

The moment his feet landed on the ground, Kael hurled himself to the side.

He didn’t try to stand and assess. He didn’t try to breathe first. He moved like his instincts had grabbed the steering wheel away from his brain. Shoulder down, weight thrown, body committing to motion before the heat could decide to linger.

Emerging out of the flame and feeling a small respite of comfort when the fires of the Ifrit were no longer burning him.

The difference was immediate, like stepping out of an oven and into a cold hallway. The air still carried warmth, but it wasn’t eating him anymore. His skin prickled, heat fading into that sharp afterburn sensation that made you hyperaware of every inch of your body.

He didn’t, however, simply stop; he rolled on the ground, many, many times over.

The floor scraped his clothes and jolted his ribs with every rotation. He rolled fast, ugly, desperate. Not graceful. Not heroic. Just survival. The world was still black to him at first, or at least mostly; his sight was still useless, his senses still messed up from the trial, but he didn’t need to see fire to know it existed. He could feel it licking at his back and sleeves.

He couldn’t see it, but he felt it, that his clothes were on fire. And those flames wanted flesh.

The crackle was faint but unmistakable, and the heat flared in little spikes wherever the fabric clung. The outer tracksuit, already half ruined, already a disguise more than clothing, burned with the kind of eager speed cheap cloth always did.

The flames won’t harm him since he had the basilisk leather armor underneath it, but it was still good thinking.

Rolling to get any remaining flames off one’s body.

Kael’s mind stayed practical even while his heart hammered. Armor or not, letting fire sit on you was how you ended up with melted straps, weakened seams, and smoke giving away your position. Also… it hurt. Even through heat resistance, it hurt.

Kael stopped when he no longer felt any of the burning. He stood up with a hand on the wall and looked at the map.

He had to brace himself the moment he rose, legs shaky, breath ragged, a faint ringing in his ears like his body was still catching up to what just happened. His fingers found concrete, grounding him. Then his eyes snapped to the only reliable vision he had: the minimap.

The red dots were all stuck behind him, the red line, the circle of flame had closed off on the only path for the Zombies to reach him.

Relief hit him hard enough to make his knees want to fold. The zombies weren’t gone; nothing in this Tower was ever “gone”, but they were cut off.

Trapped behind that line like animals behind glass. Their red dots clustered and churned, furious and useless, unable to cross the boundary without turning into ash.

He was only at the edge of said circle; if he had been any deeper or any slower, not even the heat-resistant leather would have survived.

He understood that with sick clarity. The basilisk leather was good, but it wasn’t divine. It had limits. And the Ifrit’s territory didn’t feel like “fire damage”, it felt like world-death. A place where heat wasn’t an element but a law.

Finally, he could breathe a sigh of relief. Finally, he was away from the undead and zombies.

The sigh came out rough, half-cough, half-laugh. He didn’t feel triumphant. He felt like a man who’d just crawled out from under a collapsing building and was waiting for the dust to settle enough to confirm his legs still worked.

Kael moved slowly forward. The circle was still growing, but it won’t catch up to him anytime soon.

Not immediately. He didn’t trust “anytime soon” in the Tower, but he accepted it as a temporary truth. The red line behind him sat like a wall now. It would creep, sure, but it wasn’t sprinting. Not like zombies. Not like death with teeth.

He needed to pave his way forward first.

Looking at the map, several pathways were already a death trap, with many Undead swarming them.

They couldn’t sense him yet, but if he got too close, one or two of them might just sniff him out, so he was better off staying away from any dangerous paths.

He’d learned that lesson the hard way: the map wasn’t just a cheat, it was a warning system. Red dots didn’t just mean “enemy.” They meant “time.” They meant “distance.” They meant “if you make one wrong turn, you become meat.”

A couple of pathways led further and deeper into this maze of cables and wires. But they were the only ones that seemed safe for now.

Safe in these types of situations always meant safe for this specific period of time. Kael accepted it anyway. He chose routes the way an animal chose terrain: not based on comfort, but based on what was least likely to kill him instantly.

So he took the closest corner and headed forward, following the map and using his arm to keep track of both his direction and his way.

His palm slid along the wall again, fingers catching on cracks and seams, steering him in the dark. The floor beneath his boots changed texture every so often, smooth concrete to gritty dust, then to a patch of damp that made his sole slip slightly. Each slip made his stomach clench. Blindness turned everything into a potential trap.

The walk felt long, very long, especially with the constant petrification that came in every minute.

Every sixty seconds, his body would stiffen for a heartbeat, like the Tower itself was tapping his shoulder and reminding him who was in charge. Even when it didn’t fully lock him, it slowed his steps and messed with his rhythm. He’d time his pace around it, counting quietly in his head, adjusting his breath, trying to avoid being mid-turn when it hit.

And suddenly a slew of notifications appeared in front of him. Along with what felt like… light.

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