Chapter 72: A Problem

This time, the crowbar seemed to have suffered. The tip was no longer as sharp, and the metal at the end looked slightly flattened, slightly curled, like it was getting tired of pretending it could do this forever.

It seemed ready to snap at any moment. Breaking skulls wasn’t easy, and the more Kael used it, the more it began bending. It wasn’t made for this. It was made to pry, to lever, to crack concrete, not to pierce mana-infused bone.

It was the difference between an item made by the system and a normal human-made weapon.

The latter broke too easily in the face of monsters, something that Earth knew when they tried to kill off the monsters that broke out into the world a couple of decades ago. Kael’s mind flashed to stories he’d heard, half-news, half-legend, tanks, missiles, entire squads erased because mana didn’t care about steel the way physics said it should. Mana was heavily corrosive to all non-mana-affected items.

That’s why it was impossible for humanity to kill off the monsters no matter how much firepower they used. The only way to kill something with mana was to use mana itself.

If the crowbar could speak, it would be whining right now from the abuse it was receiving.

But Kael couldn’t stop here.

The third basilisk of the group was alert. It turned its face left and right, but it was blind, unable to spot Kael. That should have been comforting. It wasn’t. Blind didn’t mean helpless. Blind meant it listened. It smelled. It struck at anything that felt wrong.

It hissed, loud enough that the remaining three basilisks woke up.

’Shit’ Kael cursed inwardly. There was no way out of this. Not cleanly.

He backed out for a bit, letting the creature thrash around, jaws snapping at empty air as it tried to locate Kael. Its body scraped stone, claws digging into gravel, tail whipping hard enough to scatter pebbles. The noise bounced through the cave and made Kael wince. Too loud. Too much. It was an invitation.

An idea immediately came to mind. Since the crowbar’s tip was damaged and was no longer sharp, he needed to fix it.

Without wasting time, he pulled Brokk’s hammer and struck at it, once, twice, thrice.

Each blow rang inside the cave, alerting the creatures more. The sound wasn’t a clang like the crowbar. It was a deeper, heavier ring, like the cave itself was a bell. He felt it in his wrists, in his teeth. Every strike said: I’m here. I’m alive. Come bite me.

There was no point in being quiet anyway. They had woken up and smelled blood already. Yet they can’t locate Kael with sight.

They listened and began converging toward him. Four hatchlings.

Kael’s breath shortened, not from exhaustion, but from that thin band of fear tightening around his chest. Four at once meant teeth in multiple angles, bodies piling, a mistake being paid for in chunks of flesh.

He struck the crowbar again, and the metal simply molded itself. It wasn’t subtle. It was like the rust and fatigue peeled away under the hammer’s authority. But this time, it didn’t return to its original form. The tip became a stake instead of a pronged prying end, blunter for levering, sharper for killing. A crude spear point, raw but functional.

“Good enough,” Kael muttered, and it wasn’t confidence. It was resignation. He didn’t have time to make it perfect. The hammer demanded perfection, the cave demanded speed, and Kael was stuck between two tyrants.

The closest basilisk opened its jaws wide and clamped them shut.

The snap closed an inch away from Kael’s face. He felt the air move as teeth cut through it. Without sight, it missed the exact location for Kael, thankfully so.

Still, the sound made his stomach twist. That jaw could have taken his head off. That wasn’t exaggeration; it was fact.

The creature looked confused, as if it was sure the enemy was right there but didn’t get bit. It shook its head and hissed again, claws scraping, body bunching to strike at the next scent.

And Kael wasn’t about to waste that opportunity.

He stabbed the pointed part of the crowbar into the youngling’s eye, causing it to howl in mortifying pain. The stake punched through the softer socket with a wet crunch. The basilisk’s whole body convulsed, its howl a raw, broken sound that echoed down the cavern like a siren.

The howl was loud. Too loud.

Too loud in fact that a terrifying thought crossed Kael’s mind.

’The mother could have heard that.’

He felt his pulse slam against his ribs. The idea of that black basilisk returning mid-fight, finding Kael standing over her screaming child, made his hands go colder than the cave air. He waited for it, half-expecting the minimap to suddenly flare with a bright red dot surging back toward the entrance.

Thankfully, nothing indicating that happening presented itself.

Not yet.

Without wasting time, Kael kicked the crowbar that was protruding from the thrashing hatchling’s eye and made it stop its motion, forever. The kick drove the stake deeper, ending the howl abruptly. The body went still in a shuddering collapse that sprayed warm fluid on Kael’s boots. He ripped out the weapon. The tip was still sharp. Still usable. He didn’t let himself think about how close that had been.

He turned to the rest of the litter.

They weren’t coordinated, not truly. They were blind, panicked, snapping at air and scent, moving in jerky bursts. But numbers were still numbers, and teeth were still teeth.

Kael used the pillar of moss-light and shadow to his advantage, circling just out of reach, then darting in with short, brutal thrusts. He had to fight for his survival here. They were asleep and drowsy before, but now they were wide awake. Rewards come with risks. He took the rewards earlier, but now it was time to pay the cost.

And from the look of it, a single mistake would make that cost his life.

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