Chapter 184: It Worked!

Ten meters.

Eight.

Six.

His other hand summoned Brokk’s hammer, the familiar weight settling into his grip like an old habit. The tool didn’t feel like a weapon in his mind, it felt like a key. A way to force something into place. A way to make reality cooperate when it didn’t want to.

Four meters.

The flames beneath the Ifrit pulsed erratically, briefly thinning before swelling again like a heartbeat struggling to find rhythm. The ground beneath it was glowing in places, the asphalt warping and softening. Even through his boots Kael could feel the heat coming up, as if the street was trying to cook his soles from below.

Three meters.

Kael bent his knees slightly, committing to the motion. There wouldn’t be time to adjust mid-air. No time to reconsider. No time to do anything but execute.

Two meters.

The heat became suffocating, bending the air so hard it distorted the outline of the Ifrit’s back. Kael’s vision wavered for a fraction of a second, the world shimmering like a mirage, but he forced it steady. The armor held, for now.

One chance.

That was all this was.

Kael exhaled slowly, eyes locked onto the center of the Ifrit’s back where the cracks met and the stone ridge rose like a spine.

Then he moved.

A single jump from where he was, thanks to his increased stats, he was able to make the height difference. Landing on the back of the Ifrit with the gauntlet gripping the belt, also holding to the ridge of the stone chest.

The impact jarred up his arms. The Ifrit’s “skin” was hotter than it looked, heat radiating through the gauntlet even with the lining. The creature’s body dipped half an inch under his weight, flames sputtering in reflex. Kael’s boots scraped for purchase against rough stone.

The Ifrit realized something was wrong. And Kael could see his energy draining far faster than before.

[Presence is failing!]

The notification wasn’t just a message. It was a countdown with teeth. The Ifrit didn’t “see” him, but it felt him, like a splinter lodged in its back. Kael’s concealment was being shredded by proximity, by heat, by that creature’s hatred. He didn’t have the luxury of finesse anymore.

Without wasting a breath, Kael shoved the belt in one of the cracks; it tightened, and with the other hand, struck down with the hammer.

The hammer blow rang through the Ifrit’s body, a dull, heavy vibration. Stone dust puffed up around the impact point. The belt shifted, catching deeper into the fissure. Kael felt it bite, felt the leather and metal wedge into a place that shouldn’t have accepted it.

The Ifrit felt that, roaring out as it swung its arms to its back, trying to smash Kael into paste.

A stone fist came at him like a collapsing pillar, the air around it exploding with heat and force. Kael jerked sideways along the ridge, skin crawling under his armor as the blow grazed past where his torso had been. The strike cracked stone and sent flakes flying; if it had landed cleanly, there wouldn’t have been anything left of him to scream.

He repositioned, raised his hammer, and struck. Another hit. Another vibration through the creature’s core. The belt’s buckle bit harder into the crack, leather tightening like a cinch. Kael’s hands were starting to shake from heat and strain, not fear, just the body screaming this is too close, too hot, too fast.

[Presence has failed! Disabling Presence!]

The world snapped back into full sharpness like a blade pressed to his eyes. The heat hit harder, immediate and raw. His breath came in harsh, and the Ifrit’s presence felt larger now, like stepping into a furnace with the door slammed shut behind you. He could feel the creature’s focus begin to turn inward, toward its own back, toward the parasite clinging to it.

Kael grit his teeth behind the Spartan helmet. And struck a third time.

The hammer came down with all the precision he could force through trembling muscles. The crack widened just enough. The belt shifted again, and then it stopped shifting. Not loose. Not sliding. It held.

And just then, the belt ’fused’ with the back of the Ifrit, right at the center, where both its arms could never reach.

Kael felt the exact moment it locked in, like a latch clicking shut in a mechanism. The Ifrit thrashed, trying to reach, but its own bulk betrayed it. The angle was wrong. The reach was wrong. It couldn’t strike the spot without tearing itself apart.

Kael’s lips peeled back in something that wasn’t a smile so much as a snarl.

“Enjoy speed motherfucker!” Kael slapped the rune in and kicked himself off the Ifrit.

He didn’t linger to admire it. The instant the rune clicked into place, he shoved off with both boots and dropped away from the burning stone like it was a live wire. The air snapped around him. He hit the street hard in a roll, shoulder-first, grit scraping his armor, ugly but alive.

Behind him, the Ifrit’s flames surged.

And whatever came next, it wouldn’t be the careful, hovering predator anymore.

It would be a raging furnace forced to remember motion.

What happened next wasn’t even funny.

No, the proper words to describe it were horrific.

The Ifrit howled as it realized that Kael had left its back, so it turned. And instead of turning to face Kael, it turned slightly more, almost to where it first started.

The motion wasn’t clean. It was too eager, too pushed, like its body was trying to obey a command faster than it could understand. Stone scraped against stone with a grinding rasp, flames surging to compensate, but even the flames looked… wrong like they were being yanked along instead of flowing.

It then tried to adjust, turn back again, only to miss the shot. Its torso twisted, overshot, corrected, overshot again.

The cracks along its chest flexed wider and narrower with every jerk, ember-light spilling out like a wound being peeled open and closed.

Kael’s lips widened.

The rune was working.

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