Chapter 45: Forced By Circumstances

Suddenly it began lessening. Not the danger, his pain. The burning inside him started to dull at the edges, as if the transformation had finished the worst part and was now settling into place. He still hurt, but it was no longer the all-consuming, mind-splitting agony. It became something he could move through, even if it felt like crawling through broken glass.

“Son of a bitch,” Kael cursed some more as he stood on all fours, dragging himself bit by bit. He couldn’t get his feet under him immediately; his limbs felt unfamiliar, like the proportions had subtly changed and his balance hadn’t caught up.

His palms scraped against grit as he crawled, and the crowbar clinked uselessly against his bag as he moved. There was no point in staying huddled up in the rubble now he is spotted, he needed to get away, the pain was slowly subsiding, but not fast enough. His thoughts were still thick, still sluggish, but the instinct to live cut through everything else.

He moved but a few steps or more like crawled but a bit away before the nearest goblin hurled his weapon at him, fortunately, maybe it was the light but the throw missed. Kael heard it whistle past more than he saw it, a rough blur cutting through air and slamming into stone with a dull crack that sent chips skittering. The miss wasn’t mercy. It was clumsiness, sleep-drunk aim, daylight confusion, anything that bought him a fraction of a second.

He couldn’t help but gulp as he moved across glass and broken asphalt. He needed to hide, a cover a way to escape.

The goblin hissed and began climbing up to follow after Kael. The sound was wet and hateful, like it was trying to spit anger into the world. Kael didn’t look back fully, but he caught the movement in his peripheral vision: a hunched body scrambling over debris, claws and feet finding purchase where they shouldn’t. Even wobbly, even half blind, it was coming, and the idea of those teeth getting close was enough to make Kael push harder.

Another axe hurled his way, it struck him with the force of a bull on the back. The impact drove air out of his lungs in a violent burst and shoved him forward onto his elbows. It didn’t draw blood, it thankfully hit his backpack and hit steel, bouncing off, but the pain flared some more. The shock ran through his spine, lighting up every nerve that had just finished being rewired, and for a moment his vision flashed white. He could feel the bruise blooming instantly beneath the fabric, deep and heavy.

Kael wasn’t going to escape before the pain of his bones rearranging was over, so he thought on how he could survive.

The realization was simple and ugly: he couldn’t outrun them in this state, not yet. Even if his new stats promised speed and strength, his body hadn’t fully accepted them. He was still in the in-between, half-built and stumbling, and goblins didn’t need to be smart to kill something that couldn’t move right.

Only one idea came to mind, a terrible one.

Extremely so, and might cost him his life in the tower.

The thought arrived with reluctance, like his mind tried to shove it away and found it stuck.

Runes.

The Presence rune. The thing he’d treated like trade fodder. The thing he didn’t want to use because permanent anything in this place was a trap.

He pulled out the rune of presence from his inventory by willing it to come to be. It’s the same rune he had obtained from killing the doppelganger. Even holding it felt wrong now, like the air around it was colder, heavier, and his fingers didn’t like touching it.

The rune looked too calm for the chaos around him, its symbols sharp and indifferent, like it didn’t care whether it saved him or ruined him as long as it was used.

[Do you wish to use the Rune of Presence ᚱ-ᚪᚾᛞᚹᛖᚪᚱᛞ]

[This action cannot be undone.]

Kael cursed. The prompt felt like a knife held politely in front of his face. “Cannot be undone” wasn’t warning; it was a statement of intent. The Tower loved irreversible choices. It loved watching people corner themselves and call it strategy.

This was the only way out. A forced situation due to the actions of the rabbit.

A limitation and a forced lock on any potential Kael had for normal magic from now onward. He could feel the resentment rising again, hot and sharp, because he hadn’t chosen this.

He hadn’t sought the legendary title. He hadn’t asked for a forced evolution while surrounded by enemies. He had been shoved into it, and now the Tower was offering him a solution that came with chains.

No matter how many times Kael would curse at his current situation it wouldn’t change the result. It was unfortunately, and terribly far better than dying.

The whole situation felt rather ridiculous. For him, these runes were nothing more than items he discovered and was willing to trade off with the merchant for coins. But now, they’re his way to live. The irony made him want to laugh, but nothing about his throat felt capable of laughter. Trading a rune for coins had seemed clean. Using it felt like signing away something he didn’t fully understand.

If it meant cutting off the arm to save the body, it was an obvious choice, a difficult one. But it’s much better than losing one’s life. Kael’s breathing hitched as he stared at the prompt, then forced his mind to stop spinning.

He couldn’t afford dignity. He couldn’t afford principles. He could afford survival.

“YES!”

[Rune of Presence ᚱ-ᚪᚾᛞᚹᛖᚪᚱᛞ has been consumed!]

Instantly, all of Kael’s senses seemed to be muffled for a moment. It was like someone had wrapped his head in thick cloth. The world didn’t disappear, but it dulled, edges blurring into something softer and less immediate. His nose smelled nothing but a bland scent of dust. Even the smoke and the filth of the street became muted, robbed of their sharpness, leaving him with an empty neutral air that felt unnatural.

The texture inside his mouth felt like licking sand. His tongue dragged across the dryness and met grit that wasn’t really there, a phantom sensation that made him grimace. While his limbs felt like they weren’t touching the ground but almost pushing against an invisible barrier. Each step, each shift of weight, felt delayed, like there was a thin layer between him and reality that he had to press through.

His sight turned gray, and his hearing lowered to an incredible degree that he could only hear his own heartbeat. The goblins’ noise faded into nothing, as if they were behind a wall, and that absence was almost worse because it left him alone with the pounding rhythm inside his chest.

The inside of his tracksuit felt like they were on fire however, something burnt at the left side of his chest, but he couldn’t know what it was. The heat was sharp and concentrated, like a brand pressed too long, and it made his breath catch.

But most of all, the dullness of his senses gave him one good advantage.

The pain was also muffled. The bone-deep agony didn’t vanish, but it dropped into the background, pushed away by the same strange barrier that dulled everything else. It became manageable, like someone had turned down the volume on a scream.

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