Chapter 104: Chapter 104

We carried out our plan with flawless execution. At first.

Khagnio and I separated as soon as we entered the zone with the large building of the Roaring Claws. His stealth made him imperceptible to me as he rushed off. I hung back. Moments later, the first shouts and screams pierced the air.

Time for me to get going.

I was really considering whether an upset stomach would be a reasonable price to pay for getting invisibility, but Khagnio had waved off the idea. The Claws’ detection mechanisms were more sophisticated than just a visual search. Even if they didn’t spot me with their eyes, they had other means of catching trespassers.

But Khagnio had warned me about those other detection schemes, and I had a counter to them all.

As I approached the building, I still didn’t feel particularly sneaky. That was alright. Khagnio was causing quite a lot of chaos. I saw several other Scalekin dressed in those purposefully ripped clothes dashing at him. Some were firing their spells and crossbows from windows. One even had a firearm.

I was a little worried at seeing the sheer number of opponents and attacks he was handling. But Khagnio seemed well accustomed to that sort of battle, weaving between a volley of blows while fighting off multiple Scalekin attacking at once. So much for being a rogue.

There was probably a certain strategy to combat like that. Even I noticed how he was positioning himself so that the ones firing from a distance had to hold themselves back because Khagnio was conducting the fray in such a way that a stray fireball or bullet might end up hitting one of the Claw Scalekin instead of their assailant.

I reached the base of the building’s wall. No one had spotted me yet. I could keep going.

Using Siphon to lower my weight, I jumped straight up to the highest window. Threads of Gravity moved the mass within me until I was nearly weightless, my stomach turning a little at the sensation again. I was used to it by now.

The roof was my goal. But there were problems with targeting it directly. The tunnel ceiling hung low over the roof, and there was a short wall on it too, and the gap between the two was maybe big enough for a cat. I wasn’t a cat.

Trying to break through with force would alert the Claws to my presence, which would be counter to the whole plan. So, I had to resort to breaking in the old-fashioned, sneaky way.

As soon as I was floating next to the window, I took a quick look into the room. Hmm, I could use the dirty goblet on the table. I placed my hand against the glass pane and used Field Manipulation to create a field of horizontal gravity on the other side of the pane acting towards my targeted table. Soon enough, the goblet floated up and flew straight towards me.

Towards the window that shattered a moment later.

Thankfully, the Claws were too busy yelling, cursing, and not dying to Khagnio to notice a smaller disturbance.

I snuck my hand through the hole in the shattered windowpane and unlatched the window. Now I could get in. The reason for going about opening the window in a convoluted way like that was to prevent anything from falling to the floor of the room within.

Khagnio had said that it was warded, much like how the dungeon entrances were warded to prevent anything from entering or exiting the dungeon. If a thief snuck in and placed even a toe on the floor—or within about half a foot of the floor—they would trigger the ward’s alarm, which would then draw in the entire Claws to eviscerate the unfortunate and unprepared idiot.

Thankfully, I was prepared. I had learned that the ward was so sensitive, even dropping smaller shards of glass on the floor was likely to trigger it. Which was why I had attracted in the goblet with enough force to send both it and the glass it broke sailing outside the building.

I slipped inside. Siphon was still active, still making sure that I remained afloat well above the ground. Next, I considered using Flare with Concentration to propel me forward, but I settled on Field Manipulation to create as little disturbance as possible. When aimed at things that were far more massive or structural than me, like a wall, I was the one who got dragged in.

It was a little slower than I’d have liked, but eventually, I made it to the door on the other side.

Once there, I pulled out the tools Khagnio had given me. This was going to take some tinkering, and while I did my best to remember what Khagnio had showed me, a part of me was stressing a little bit.

I needed to be fast. Maybe it was because I was inside the building now, but it felt like I was hearing less of the fighting. I considered using Sacrifice, imagining my head getting populated with all sorts of devious, lock-breaking knowledge after offering up the lockpicking tools as a tribute. Googlᴇ search novel(ꜰ)ire.net

But I had zero proof that would indeed be the case, and I really didn’t want to mess things up here.

It worked eventually. The little pieces of metal managed to pick the lock, which made the door of chalky black facsimile of wood open inwards.

There, now I could go on.

I landed on the floor beyond the room. Khagnio had promised that there would be no wards on passageways people generally tended to use, so I could finally walk. Cool as flying was, it was nowhere near fast enough, so a sprint was a lot more relieving.

When we had talked prior to commencing the operation, Khagnio had sketched out the layout of the interior of the place to get me where I needed to go. Not literally, thank the Banished Gods. There was no one on this side of the building. With the commotion that Khagnio was causing, most of the Claws would be on the fighting side, not the rear.

Except, that wasn’t going to be true for long, and not just because Khagnio could only keep up a fight like that for so long.

These people weren’t that dumb. Khagnio’s attack was brazen and belligerent. He had reassured me that it wasn’t unheard of for him. But it was highly likely they’d clue in on the fact that the scuffle was just a distraction.

The sounds of fighting outside grew even dimmer as I proceeded onwards. I had to hurry, though I wasn’t going to be able to go far. Up ahead, there would be—

Yes, just as Khagnio had said. The thick door in front of me had a complicated lock with glowing runes all over it. I wouldn’t be able to get through no matter what. Which was why now was the time to discard secrecy and focus entirely on busting through as fast and as powerfully as I could.

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“Alright,” I murmured.

I channelled Gravity once again, while also continuing to channel Flare with Concentration to gather heat faster.

But it was Gravity that was going to steal the show here.

I sent threads through the floor and the walls to focus on the ceiling with Infusion, while also using Field Manipulation to create a circle of strong gravity under the section where I was applying Infusion. The double downward force started cracking the ceiling, and soon enough, I could feel it start to crumble.

Which was good because I was starting to feel hints of mana exhaustion, and I really wanted to conserve my body’s capacity to channel mana, just in case I needed it later.

The ceiling fractured some more and then began falling apart. I made sure to stand out of the way. Soon enough, I had the opening I needed.

A quick, Gravity-aided hop and skip later, I was on the gloomy roof. Dark though it was, I had enough light to make out the tower structure. Now that I could finally look at it properly, I saw that it really was built into a hole in the cavern. Just as Khagnio had said.

Which reminded me that the sounds of battle outside had begun to fade. There were some more distant screams and clashes, but it wasn’t as fierce as it had been at first.

I was almost out of time. Pushing down the urge to curse, I headed straight for the tower. I could use something like the same trick I had done moments ago. The power of Gravity directed in such a way that I could break through and enter. We were both pretty sure that the walls wouldn’t be any further fortified than we had seen so far. Which meant that—

The tower wall exploded outwards. I didn’t even jerk to a stop in my tracks. My body had instinctively tried to do so, but Reflexive Mana was even faster. All the motion so far had been Power-driven, which had given rise to external mana threads with my Mana Injection Augmentation. That mana had then been constructed into the antennae-like javelins that Reflexive Mana used to both sense and draw me away.

“What the—” The large, brutish Scalekin emerging from the dust cloud of the shattering wall seemed even more surprised than I was. “How’d you manage to survive that, you little thief?”

He didn’t seem to recognize me, unless he was pretending. I was half-tempted to try and interrogate him then and there, but that was the anger at the other Claw Scalekin’s words that day. Khagnio and I had already settled on using Soul Sight on one of them to get to the bottom of what they were doing.

There was also something off about this Scalekin. It wasn’t just his buff figure. There were familiar, hornlike growths around his head and eyebrows and even from his shoulders. It took me another second to remember where I had seen horns like that.

So far, I had seen half-Scalekin whose other half were humans like Sreketh and Gutran. Now, I was standing before a half-Scalekin and a half-Rakshasa. I was sure of it.

I countered the question I had received with my own. “Were you… sealed inside that tower?”

“We all gotta do our jobs, don’t we?” he said. “‘Cept, I don’t fancy an occupation like yours that has suicide on the job description.”

“You sure know how to talk trash, don’t you?”

“I’ve got experience taking them out too.”

Sheesh, he was roasting me alive. Worse yet, he was wasting my time. The longer I spent here, the more there was a chance that other Claws would appear, and then I’d be screwed.

“Looks like you’re worried.” The Claw—a leader of some sort by the looks of it, with his precisely ripped clothes adorned with a strange sash—grinned. Wait, was this Shagor? “Caught between a ‘cano’s sheer slope and a plummet into the lava pit. Tell you what, I’ll make it easy for you. Why don’t you tell me where you from, and I’ll make sure to kill you in one blow. Sound good?”

“I came here to kill you,” I said.

That took him aback, which was what I had been hoping for. “Say what now? Why me? What’d I ever do to you?”

“You—” Fuck, what was I supposed to say to make sure he didn’t suspect the Sun Cult? “You killed my father!” I blurted out. “Prepare to die!”

“What?” He managed to look genuinely shocked. His hands were raised, and he almost appeared contrite. “I’m sorry for your loss, little thief. Your da never said he left a brat at home. Not that I remember which one your da was.” His hands suddenly turned solid, silvery metal. “Tell you what, though. I’ll make up for it by sending you straight to your pops.”

That was enough of talking for the time being, which was good because I needed to take care of him. Fast.

The Claw leader obliged. His arm and body came crashing at me with incredible speed. Even with my improved senses thanks to Agility, I barely caught him moving. I was absolutely certain that if his motion didn’t trigger one of my Reflexive Mana strands to jerk me out of the way, I’d have been struck. And if his speed was anything to go by, I would have been hit hard.

As it was, the strand of Reflexive Mana pulled me away to the side while opening things up for a counter. All the while we had been shit-talking, I had infused my body with threads of Gravity and sent out threads of Flare to make Concentration work faster.

Now, I took advantage of the opening and thrust my hand into a weighted punch.

The Scalekin-Rakshasa was fast enough to block it. Hitting his arm was like hitting a lamppost. My fingers throbbed with ugly pain, and I left no mark on his metallic skin.

Oh, yes. This guy was stronger than me. The question was how much stronger.

I jumped back as his other fist swung in. Time to go back to my age-old tricks then.

“Stay still, little mantis!” he shouted as he rushed in again.

My opponent was powerful. Every time his attacks barely missed me, I could feel the air rushing past. At one point, his blurring punch brushed past my arm as I hadn’t been fast enough, and just that minimal contact proved all my fears were correct. My arm glowed red with pain, though I was thankful nothing was broken.

Thankful even more for the Vitality buff from the Ritual and the subsequent Sacrifice.

I tried to counterattack in between the blurringly fast blows I was evading. A few slashes with a knife I had pulled out accompanied by a few punches.

They had little effect. The knife slices were easily blocked by the Scalekin-Rakshasa’s metallic arms, throwing up showers of sparks and barely leaving a scratch. He didn’t even bother properly blocking my punches, his Vitality high enough that my Power wasn’t able to leave much of a mark against him.

I didn’t curse. Khagnio had warned the guy was bad news. This had to be the leader.

At the next altercation, I tried not to dodge. It was one of those moments Gutran and I had talked about, where Reflexive Mana automatically making me evade would work against me.

It was still up too, so even if I wanted to get close to my opponent, his bull-rushing motions would trigger the javelin-like strands and jerk me away. Not ideal. It made me even more motivated to impress my will on my own Augmentation.

But there was a scuffed workaround. I could see the javelins around me. I knew how they were oriented and which direction they pointed.

So, after continuing to evade for a bit despite the limited space on the roof, I managed to reorient myself just right so that the next mana strand my opponent hit was pointing in the direction I wanted. I did my best to impose my will, and moments later, I was shooting past him.

Just what I had been hoping for.

He was fast enough to turn, but I was already striking. And I was already Sacrificing my knife. “Die.”

You have Sacrificed 1 [Minor] Bladed Weapon. Windfall bonus activated.

Reward: All blows with aggressive force will now possess a slashing effect for 15 minutes ]

Like before, Shagor didn’t bother blocking my punch. I had successfully conditioned him into believing they weren’t effective at all, and he wouldn’t have a clue what was up with my disappearing knife.

At least, not until the punch connected under his ribs—which weren’t metalized like his forearms—and left a huge, blood-splattering gash that had him stumbling backwards.

I had ducked under his retaliatory swing and jumped back.

“Oh, tricksy little thief, aren’t ya?” Shagor said with a sneer. “Don’t worry, we can keep playing. This is nothing at all.”

He took out a large red pellet, the size of a quail egg. I frowned at it. That colour reminded me of health potions.

With a grin, the Scalekin-Rakshasa threw it up and yawned wide to catch it with his mouth. It never reached him. A little Field Manipulation on my glove had drawn the oversized pill straight at me instead.

I caught it, though I had to lean lower to do so. “Huh, neat. Do they make these only in the undercity?”

Shagor growled. Then he raised his metal arms and slammed them together. The sound that shattered outwards struck my eardrums like a battering ram, and I stumbled backwards, dropping the pill as I clutched my ears. My vision had gone woozy and my whole head pounded with a sharp pain.

Then Shagor was yelling as he rushed at me, heedless of the blood splattering out from his wound.