2025-07-03 10:29:59Chapter 8: Blood-Eye Liar
The silence was filthy. It was not soothing. It was a sort of silence, which smoothed itself against Kael as a wet wool, and caused him panic. It set his skin a crawling, as though the air itself were suspended. Nox, who could no longer be called, poor cunt, stood still. His arms were loose and his smile was as barbed wire across his face. Then laughter erupted. It was sharp, wet, and warped. "Ha... hahaha..." The voice, which came out through the mouth of Nox, was not human. It snapped like burnt bones in blaze. "Was it that obvious?" dripping mockery the voice said. Kael stayed silent. He just gazed and his eyes tore the illusion with a knife. Nox was not that. That was another one, a gastropod in a meat suit, a puppeteer smiling inside the lips of another, a puppet. "The monster," Kael thought. The System had warned him. It was an illusionary being. Fiction constructed on teeth and bone. But was it still a lie? Why did it feel so real? Nox threw back his head and his smiling was as sharp as a knife being sharpened. "Are you scared?" he asked. Kael did not miss a beat. He was not frightened yet, but he was conscious. His eyes flicked. He observed motion somewhat out of the trees. He didn't look straight ahead. His sideline vision was a weapon, to kill its prey, and disguise itself among its prey. What he observed there contracted his stomach. A figure. Tall. Slender. One of its eyes, as a curse, opened in the middle of its face. It was under the shadow of old trees, standing, and looking. It was hiding, cautious. Kael leaned over. Only a little. Then fell in a great heap, hands trembling. "P-please, don’t hurt me!" he stuttered, and his voice was as a child. The creature in the woods took the bait. It stepped closer. And Paul’s—no, Nox’s—mouth twisted into something that was no longer even a smile. It was an abyss wearing lips. "Don’t be afraid," it said. "I’m not going to hurt you." Kael grabbed a rock. He flung it at Nox’s possessed face. Crack. The rock hit. Hard. The expression didn’t change. In fact, it grew wider. ‘Why the fuck is this cunt moving so slow?’ Kael thought. The creature crept closer. Closer. It stopped just within arm’s reach. That’s when Nox tilted his head, the expression beginning to fracture. "You’re not afraid," it said, voice almost offended. Kael moved. He didn’t hesitate. He struck. His fist collided with the creature's red eye. It screamed. Not a sound. Not a word. A fucking scream. Like glass shattering inside Kael's skull. Suddenly, the forest bled hallucinations. A dozen floating eyes blinked into existence around him, staring with hatred, with hunger, with madness. Kael ignored them. Illusions. Just noise. -Bam. His fist met the monster’s face again. -Bam. And again. -Bam. And again. The creature started weaving. Fingers moving like snakes. An incantation. No, a trap. But then— Crack. Kael heard it before he saw it. Behind him, bone breaking. Flesh warping. The sound of something beautiful being ruined. Nox’s body jerked upright. Dead, and yet moving. His skull split open. Brain matter leaking like spoiled soup. The corpse charged, sword in hand, eyes lifeless but driven by something unnatural. It swung. A wild, stupid, useless swing. So far off Kael’s head it nearly made him laugh. The monster couldn’t control Nox’s body properly. The reanimated meat was drunk on distortion. Crack. Thud. The corpse collapsed, its body finally giving up. Kael didn’t let the opening slip. One more punch. Then he grabbed the longsword off the grass and drove it into the creature’s red eye. The shriek that followed wasn’t of this world. It tore at the seams of reality, bleeding sound from every direction. Blue light exploded in Kael’s vision. [Mind Stalker (Level 50) Killed! +10000 EXP] [Generating New Title!] -DING- Ruthless Combatant Raises all damage by 10% when facing enemies at least 30 levels above you. Kael blinked. His hand still trembled, knuckles stained with something black and steaming. "Ten thousand experience," he whispered. "In one fight." You’re welcome, the System hummed, smug. “Fuck you,” Kael muttered aloud. Don’t be like that. You were lucky. That thing focused all its magic on the others. Barely had anything left for you. Besides, you’ve got Discipline. Mental magic doesn't hit as hard on you. “That would’ve been nice to know before I was being haunted by a fucking red eyeball in a meat suit,” Kael snapped. Relax. Its physical stats were trash. Level 15–20 at best. You punched a coward. Don’t get cocky. Kael stood, breathing steady. The creature’s corpse had shriveled, now no bigger than a doll, its red eye extinguished. Nox’s body, though... that was another story. Kael tried. He cast Greater Heal. Twice. The golden light swirled, soft and holy. It faded without effect. Dead. Truly dead. "Pity," Kael whispered. Nox had been an arrogant cunt, but he could swing a sword. ‘System,’ Kael asked, frowning. ‘Why did I get 50 EXP for using Greater Heal now?’ Skill rarity scaling. The rarer your skill, the more experience you gain. Welcome to progress, baby. Kael opened his status screen. +---+ Name: Kael Age: 9 Race: Human Class: Healer [Common] Level: 11 [150/11000 EXP] Titles: Ruthless Combatant Raises all damage by 10% when fighting enemies 30+ levels above you Stats: HP: 416/498 [+50] MP: 770/870 [+50] STR: 50 END: 58 AGI: 47 INT: 120 CHA: 16 Skills: Hand-to-Hand Combat [Lv. 5] – Increases STR by 5% when fighting barehanded Discipline [Lv. 7] – Mental magic has a 7% reduced effect Shooting Mastery [Lv. 6] – Projectiles gain +6% velocity Greater Heal [Lv. 1] – Restores 600 HP, Costs 20 MP Purify [Lv. 0] – Cures diseases, Costs 100 MP +---+ ‘No EXP for healing myself, huh?’ Kael muttered, wiping sweat from his brow. He glanced over his party. Joanna and Zane were insensible. Nox—forever offline. Eric? The bastard looked into the nothingness as though it should say something to him. Kael sighed. "What now?" "Stay here," the system said. 'That's it?' In due course somebody will arrive. 'Probably?' Probably. Kael stared up at the trees. "Fucking hell." Elsewhere Elira trailed Kael with eyes open and silent feet. Drennov had designs, and what nature they were she would know. She darted through the corridors and followed the group of Kael until they got in the doorway. She waited. Waited. Then she entered after them. However, there was no training room. White. Blinding. Infinite. A single note on the floor. She picked it up. Glad you made it, Elira. Your betrayal, I heard, was told me by Maren. Wish we should have decided to leave you alone? Enjoy your new home. You'll be here a while. -- Drennov Her expression darkened. Elira torn the note with her mind. The flow of psychic energy rose and her telekinesis was brought to life. She blasted the walls. Nothing. She could not break the paint even at Level 120. This was no ordinary room. This was a seal. A dimensional prison. Powerless. Circuses she dashed--right, left, round and round. No doors. No breaks. No hope. She resumed the situation in which was the note. There was another. Different handwriting. Different ink. You can't escape. Written in red. She flipped the paper. A cut. Tiny. A drop of blood. Her blood. It was a warning. It was a sentence. Even gods were able to bleed here. Elira fell to her knees. "Fuck..." Her fists clenched. Her mind screamed. But she was powerless. 'I'm sorry, Kael...' she thought. And the white consumed her.
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
82
Chapter 82: Blood That ScreamsThe frenzied Vampire continued its assault with the kind of obsessive cruelty that suggested either remarkable discipline or a deeply personal hatred for Kael’s continued breathing, as bolts of condensed force tore through the air toward him at speeds that made perception itself feel like a delayed luxury, forcing him to rely on instinct and precognition rather than sight as he twisted, stepped, and slid through the storm like a man dancing inside a guillotine factory that had just discovered rhythm.It took far too long for clarity to claw its way into the chaos, but repetition has a way of educating even the most distracted mind, and Kael finally caught the pattern hidden inside the madness, noticing that each projectile shimmered with a dark red sheen that refracted light like wet glass and pulsed with a viscosity that made his skin crawl, the color unmistakable and obscene in its familiarity.“They are using blood,” he mu
81
Chapter 81: Coffin Beneath the DirtKael moved through the uneven hills with the careful irritation of a man who knew exactly where the problem was and deeply resented that it existed at all, his awareness stretched across the terrain as clusters of hostile red marks burned patiently on his mental map, all of them gathered together like idiots waiting to be scolded, and he made absolutely certain that no curious soul or well meaning hero was tailing him because this was personal, messy, and very much a one man inconvenience that he intended to finish without witnesses.The land itself seemed wrong the closer he drew, the ground rising and falling in shallow waves as if the earth had once tried to escape and failed, and when the first shapes revealed themselves, crawling out of shadow and rot, Kael felt that familiar, tired click of recognition settle into place because these things were not shadows, not truly, but imitations stitched together from death and bad dec
80
Chapter 80: SimilarKael lay beside the crackling fire, his body trembling under the lingering ache of exhaustion. The System had forced him to “train” for four relentless hours, and he now looked like someone who’d wrestled with death and barely crawled back. His hair clung damply to his forehead, and his breaths came shallow, smoky in the cold air.To make matters worse, he could feel the weight of two gazes fixed on him. The longer it went on, the more uncomfortable it became.Bored and sore, Kael finally turned his attention toward Astraea. Talking seemed better than sinking further into the silence. He didn’t know much about this world, about its customs or its strange truths, but she fascinated him—too quiet, too composed, too otherworldly.He wanted to ask her something simple, something that wouldn’t sound foolish. Yet before he could, she moved first.Astraea approached the firelight and sat beside him. Her silver eyes shimm
79
Chapter 79: Cold ---Kael sat in front of the fire, staring into it as if the flames could explain why the silver-haired woman across from him wouldn’t stop staring at him like a particularly interesting ghost.‘She’s still staring at me,’ he thought, trying not to meet her eyes again.The cave was quiet except for the occasional crackle of burning wood. Night had fully claimed the forest outside, leaving only the trembling halo of the campfire. Orin seemed calmer now, the madness in his eyes cooled into something that almost resembled rest.But Astraea... she was something else entirely. A presence that shouldn’t exist. A fragment of his past wearing human shape.Kael could feel the connection between them — not imagined, not metaphorical, but stitched through the soul like a needle through scar tissue. The memory she awakened in him was too vivid to dismiss, yet too incomplete to understand.When he finally looked back, sh
78
Chapter 78: The Odd Woman[Kael’s POV]“How does it taste?”Kael didn’t even have the luxury of answering before his body decided to violently betray him. He bent forward and vomited everything onto the stone floor of the cave, the sound echoing wetly in the cold air. That made it the fourth monster he’d ruined today. Four steaming piles of culinary failure, each more inedible than the last.They looked edible enough—beast-like, muscular things that probably considered him a snack in another life—but once he cooked them, every bite tasted like rotten mana condensed into despair.Orin had already fallen asleep deeper in the cave, curled against the wall like an overgrown cat. The cave itself was safe, wrapped in a natural mana flow that repelled beasts. Kael should’ve been at peace. Should’ve been, if not for the yellow dot blinking on his Halo’s minimap, a few dozen meters away.The dot hadn’t moved. It just watched.“Wh
Chapter 77: Safe
Chapter 77: Safe---Kael had been walking for what felt like forever, the weight of the small, unconscious child slung across his shoulder pressing into his bones like a punishment he didn’t remember earning. Two hours. Maybe more. His map promised a stretch of grassy serenity up ahead, but right now it all felt like the same dry, corpse-colored earth, sighing under the heat of a sun that refused to die.The kid hadn’t stirred once, not even a grunt of awareness—just the occasional twitch or mumble, like he was wrestling ghosts in his dreams.Kael exhaled. “Should I just leave this kid here? My shoulder’s starting to ache.”He said it with his usual sarcasm, the kind that made it hard to tell whether he meant it or not. But the boy must have heard the words somewhere deep inside that sleeping shell, because he jerked awake so violently he almost crashed face-first into the dirt.Kael caught him mid-fall by the foot. “You c
You may also like
