Chapter 181: Tightening Noose

For a brief, extremely brief moment, Kael ’hoped’ that that thing was dead. Not in the heroic sense, more like the tired, desperate kind of hope a man allows himself when he’s done everything “right” and he wants the universe to just… pay him back once.

He stared at the mound of shattered concrete and twisted rebar, listening for anything that sounded like movement, anything that sounded like breath.

Nothing.

Dust drifted in lazy sheets through the heat-haze. Small pebbles rolled off the pile and clicked down into the street like timid footsteps. The air smelled like scorched stone and burnt metal, the aftertaste clinging to the back of his throat.

A brief moment it was.

A moment he didn’t trust.

His fingers tightened, then loosened, then tightened again, like his body was trying to decide whether to celebrate or sprint. Kael didn’t give it the choice. The second that false calm tried to settle, he ripped himself out of it.

Kael jumped back from the rubble.

Screw checking the creature’s life sign, screw hoping that it would be this easy.

When did things ever become easy for Kael? The Tower didn’t hand out clean wins; it handed out lessons, and most of them came with teeth.

“Bastard, couldn’t you just give me a notification that it’s dead. You think’ I’d fall for this?” Kael muttered not to himself, maybe to the tower, or whoever was watching.

His voice came out rough, half laugh and half spit. He didn’t even look away from the pile as he backed off, eyes tracking every crack, every shadow between the blocks, every place flame could hide and burst out from.

His hunch was, in fact. Extremely correct.

The rubble blew up, blasted in every direction, and that moment where he had jumped away from the range of the explosion was impactful to a degree only the sweat on Kael’s forehead could explain.

The shock hit his chest first, like a hammer punch of air, and then the debris came, the real danger.

After all, walls and pillars the size of cars went right through where he was standing a moment ago. Had he gone closer to check, he’d have learned the meaning of becoming a meat patty.

Chunks of concrete screamed past. A bent beam scythed through the space he’d abandoned, trailing sparks as it scraped the asphalt. Fine grit peppered his helmet and hissed against the leather. Even with his resistance, the heat flared hard enough to make his breath stutter.

Fire and more fire tore through the rubble as the Ifrit emerged out.

It didn’t “climb” out so much as erupt, as if the street itself rejected the idea of holding it down.

Stone fists punched aside collapsed slabs like they were paper. Flames surged through gaps, licking at the air with hungry impatience.

The creature’s silhouette reformed, horned stone head, jagged torso, and that infernal core of flame stitching it all together with spite.

A loud, explosive roar that would wake the dead if need be echoed through the block.

It wasn’t just sound. It was pressure. The kind that makes your teeth vibrate and your ears ring and your instincts scream move.

Kael didn’t move; he steadied himself, boots scraping for grip on loose gravel, because panic wasted time and time was now the most expensive resource on the floor.

Kael noticed it immediately on the map.

Mass convergence of both red and green.

The minimap started blooming with motion like spilled ink. Red dots shifting from buildings. Green dots are turning toward the noise.

Even distant specks began drifting in, as if every scavenger and predator within earshot had been handed a written invitation.

Those who heard the noise, be it climbers or monsters, were prone to come and check. Loud noise always equated to an event happening, a monster slaying, a climber dying, in either case. There was always loot involved for the climbers and leftover meat for the monsters.

Kael’s jaw clenched.

’Damn it, I’m on a timer now,’ Kael said as he locked eyes with the Ifrit.

The Ifrit looked… wrong.

Not weak, never weak, but unstable. Like a furnace that had been cracked open and was still burning anyway. Massive cracks appeared all over its boulder-made torso, the flames making its body sputtered and its stone gauntleted fists were half broken, revealing sputtering flames deep inside. The fractures glowed faintly, ember-light bleeding through stone seams.

The hole that Darkness created in its lower body was no longer there; enough time had passed that the disappeared flames returned anew.

That made Kael’s stomach sink. Darkness didn’t leave scars the way a blade did. It wasn’t a wound you could point to and say that’s where it’ll fail.

It was an interruption, and interruptions ended the moment reality caught its breath again.

The Ifrit howled as it raised both fists high up and slammed them into the rubble.

It wasn’t aiming at Kael. It was punishing the ground, as the street had personally offended it by trying to bury it. The slam was heavy enough to jolt the surrounding debris again, and Kael’s instincts screamed before his brain even finished processing the motion.

“Shit!” Kael cursed as he realized what was going to happen.

He still remembers the two abilities the Ifrit has.

And one of them was happening right now.

[Minor Inferno]

It’ll release a shockwave of pure fire outward. Burning anything in sight.

Kael didn’t waste time pretending he was tougher than physics. He dropped immediately, body folding in tight and practiced, leather armor squirming as he made himself small. The posture wasn’t dramatic; it was survival math.

Without hesitation, Kael hunched down, raising both fists forward, elbows above kneecaps, and arms in front of a tucked-in face.

The flames hit like a wall. Not a blast that shoved him back, more like the world becoming fire for the span of a heartbeat. Heat slammed into his gear, into the cracks and seams, into the tiny gaps where air still existed. The street flashed orange-white, and the air itself tasted like metal being cooked.

The flames seared the street and tore away at everything in the vicinity.

They went right into Kale and behind.

The heat from the direct contact was powerful enough that Kael felt his lungs were about to sear. Every inhale felt wrong, like breathing through an oven door. His skin didn’t blister the way it should have, but his body still registered the stress, the pressure, the dryness, the way sweat vanished before it could even form.

And it all took but a second, but it felt like the longest second he had ever lived.

[You have resisted the [Burn] Effect of Minor Inferno]

[You’re now [Overheating]. Reduce your body temperature as quickly as possible.]

[Overheating increases susceptibility to [Burns] and magnifies the effects of Conflagration]

Kael cursed inwardly as he stood up.

The relief of “not on fire” lasted exactly long enough for the next problem to land. Overheating wasn’t just a warning; it was the Tower politely telling him his “99%” wasn’t a shield, it was a delay. His body felt thick and heavy, like the heat had crawled inside the armor and decided to sit in his bones.

A quick glance at his surroundings gave him a clear idea of the power the Ifrit had.

And made him quickly realize that 99% resistance was not enough to challenge the Ifrit head-on.

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