Chapter 85: Backfire

When he called the rune out, it sat in his hand, warm to the touch to the point of being uncomfortable. Not a friendly warmth either, more like the heat you feel when you hover your palm too close to a stove and realize a second too late you’re being stupid.

It pulsed faintly, like it had its own heartbeat, and the skin of his palm prickled as if the thing was daring him to hold it longer.

He turned it in his fingers, careful, wary. The rune looked inert, just an object, just a carved pentagonal stone, yet it radiated that quiet insistence of danger. The kind of danger that didn’t announce itself with screams and claws, but with consequences. He placed it on the table and leaned back slightly, eyes narrowing as he tried to think like someone who wasn’t currently running on stress, burns, and spite.

He needed to test it, but he needed to test it smart. He was already branded once, and he couldn’t use the rune without making sure how to activate it first or what sort of dangers it could entail. He’d learned that lesson the hard way: in the Tower, even “simple” things had teeth.

Unlike the [Presence] Rune which was a consumable, the [Fire] Rune seemed to be the same type as the [Anchor] rune, a permanent item.

That distinction mattered. Consumables forced themselves into you, left scars, left changes, left permanent consequences. The others… the others felt like they carried their own rules, as if the power was in the object, not in your body.

Which should’ve been safer. Should’ve.

The consumable runes would imprint themselves on the user, while the other ones seemed to possess powers of their own.

Kael stared at the rune like it might suddenly decide to explain itself. It didn’t. Of course it didn’t. Nothing in this place ever explained itself unless it was about to cost you.

He touched the rune, and a notification appeared in front of him.

[Would you like to use [ᚱ -ᚠᚣᚱ] Fire Rune?]

Kael thought for a second, jaw tight, then held the rune forward as if distance alone could make it safer. “Yes.”

Just then, the rune smoldered.

Not slowly. Not gently. It didn’t “warm up.” It ignited.

His hand went up in flames with it, a sudden violent bloom that swallowed his fingers and crawled up his wrist like it had been waiting for permission.

Heat slammed into him so fast his brain didn’t even produce fear at first, just shock, raw and instinctive. The air around his palm shimmered; the smell was immediate, sharp and sickening, like burning hair and plastic and meat all layered together.

A blast of fire, powerful, but not to the level of a fireball, shot outward. It didn’t arc with weight or momentum the way he expected. There was no push behind it, no satisfying “spell impact” like the stories liked to sell.

It was more like a violent exhale: flame shoved out of his hand and smashed against the wall with a flat slap of heat, leaving a singed mark and a brief hiss as dust and grime cooked into a darker stain.

And Kael’s nerves screamed.

“FUUUAAAACK!” Kael howled as he threw the rune away, his voice bouncing off the dead room and coming back to him like mockery. The rune clattered and skidded across the desk and floor, still glowing, still angry, while his hand blistered in real time.

The pain was the kind that made the mind go bright and white. The kind that didn’t feel like “ouch.” It felt like something inside his skin was being peeled back with hooks.

He had an irrational, horrifying urge to cut the hand off just to make it stop.

He struck his palm against the table, hard, trying to smother the flames. The first hit sent a jolt up his arm. The second made the table creak. The third smeared a sizzling line across the surface, but the flames barely subsided. They clung to him like they liked him. Like they belonged there.

His fingers curled and uncurled without permission. He couldn’t even tell if he was moving them, or if his body was simply thrashing in protest. It only calmed down when he struck the materials in the table, as if they decided to take the heat away from him. Though only the flames died out, the pain was still there.

His hand was ruined. He couldn’t feel his fingers anymore, and the agony was so intense it blurred the edges of his vision. The nerves felt fried, not numb in relief but numb in damage, like they’d been overwhelmed and shorted out.

Without hesitation, he called the minor healing potion, the only one he had left, from his inventory and immediately drank it. No careful sip, no savoring. He swallowed like he was putting out a fire in his throat, and maybe he was. The moment the potion slid down, a cool wave surged through his arm, and the pain vanished so fast it almost made him dizzy.

His hand healed back to its original form, skin smooth, no blistering, no redness. Even the injury on his chest from brushing the basilisk’s scale and the arrow wound were gone, sealed as if the damage had never happened. He flexed his fingers once, twice, staring at them like they belonged to someone else.

Kael sat down hard, breath ragged, and looked at the enflamed [Fire] Rune with murder in his eyes. He cursed inwardly, the kind of curse that didn’t need words.

“Damn,” he thought, swallowing down the leftover tremor in his muscles. “No wonder no one uses this crap…”

He rubbed his temples, trying to massage the adrenaline out of his skull, and began thinking of what to do now. The rune itself felt completely useless. He couldn’t apply it, use it, nor even benefit from it without paying a price that would get him killed the moment a real fight showed up.

Merely activating it would make one’s arm useless.

This wasn’t a weapon or a spell. This was a double-edged sword, only the edge that cut the user was sharper than the edge that cut the foe. It was like handing someone a knife that stabbed you first, then politely asked your enemy if it could also stab them.

Kael stared at the rune in the corner as if it were his worst enemy. Still, an enemy must be used. No matter the price, no matter the cost. That rune, though painful, seemed to have in it survival. And he needed that survival desperatly.

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