The storm clawed at Kael's exposed skin. Not rain, but gritty, blood-red ash. It stung, grinding into the fresh wounds on his arm. Horns ripped through the air, guttural and close. Hunters. Blood Coven.
He turned, not running aimlessly, but scanning. The ground was jagged, obsidian spires and rusted sand. But ahead, faintly visible through the swirling gloom, were massive, twisted formations. Crystallized blood. Blood Mesa Labyrinths. Cover. A place to disappear. Or to die, trapped. He ran anyway. Instinct, raw and immediate, shoved him forward.
His new body moved with brutal efficiency. Every step was controlled, precise, though Marcus Chen had never run like this. The spectral rot on his arm pulsed, a cold burn under the skin, spreading from the claw marks the Bone Hound left. The Aether Codex remained silent, its cold voice waiting.
He scrambled deeper into the maze of blood-red rock. The wind here was a funnel, whipping the gritty ash into a blinding haze. Footsteps. Not his. Too light for Ragnar, too heavy for Sylvara. A Blood Coven scout. Coming fast. He pressed himself against a jagged spire, longsword held low.
A whisper, thin as razor wire, drifted from the shifting storm. (Run.)
He spun. She was there. Sylvara. Cloaked in black, emerging from the dust like a ghost given form. Her longsword gleamed, pristine. Her frost-like eyes locked onto his, assessing. No warmth. Just cold, predatory intelligence.
"They'll track you," she stated, her voice terse, like gravel. "By the Doombrand."
He looked at his arm, the rot, then back at her. "So they smell like me now," Kael rasped, the words feeling foreign in his new throat. "Great. Got a target on my back." His voice held a raw, bitter edge.
Her eyes flickered. A slight stiffening in her posture. He saw it. A subtle twitch in her jaw. Something reacted to his words. He didn't know what she heard, but it clearly wasn't pleasant.
"The blood," she said, ignoring his sarcasm. "They'll follow it. This labyrinth. You know it?" She gestured around the tight, winding passages.
"No idea," Kael lied, his mind already racing. Marcus Chen had spent a lifetime navigating complex systems. This was just a different kind of code. Topography, flow, choke points. Environmental variables. He saw the Labyrinth, not as stone, but as a three-dimensional puzzle.
A guttural shout echoed through the red dust. Closer. Too close. The scout.
Sylvara's hand tightened on her sword hilt. "We fight. Or we die." Her eyes, sharp and unwavering, held his.
"Or we play smart," Kael countered, a flicker of his old hacker's mindset kicking in. He saw the winding paths, the narrow gaps, the unstable spires.
She didn't react. No surprise. No agreement. Just a tight, stoic silence. "Lead."
He didn't hesitate. He plunged deeper into the labyrinth, Sylvara a silent shadow at his back. The scout's shouts grew louder, more frantic. It sounded like one, maybe two. Manageable. If the terrain was on their side.
[The Codex demands data. Efficiency is survival.] The cold, metallic voice echoed in his skull. It wasn't a taunt. More like a reminder. A system alert.
"Shut up," Kael muttered under his breath.
He chose a narrow passage, barely wide enough for one. The rock walls here were slick with a dark, oily residue. Rust Rain. Corrosive. He saw fissures in the spires above, weak points. A system vulnerability.
"Move fast," he ordered, not looking back. "We need high ground. Look for loose rock. Anything unstable."
Sylvara moved with effortless grace, her celestial longsword a silver blur in the dim light. She didn't question, didn't argue. Just observed. Her eyes scanned the rock formations, already identifying potential hazards. A good partner. For now.
They found a small, elevated plateau, overlooking the winding passage they'd just traversed. It was a perfect choke point. The scout would have to come through there. He looked at the unstable rock formations nearby. Weak structures, ready to crumble.
Kael crouched, examining the ground. The grit here was coarser, mixed with larger fragments of crystallized blood. He ran his hand over it, feeling the texture. He saw it all. The angles, the trajectory. He pictured the scout, their movements, where they would step.
"I need a distraction," he said, still focused on the rock, on the system he was about to exploit. "Something loud. Something that makes them commit."
Sylvara nodded once. She didn't ask why. She understood the pragmatism of the battlefield. The hunt's grim reality.
The scout was close. Footsteps thudding, ragged breathing. Kael heard it. His senses felt sharper, almost painfully so, a side effect of the Bloodrot Curse. He could taste the metallic tang in the air. Could smell the scout. Could feel the faint thrum of its life force. Invasive. Horror-coded. But useful.
[Anomaly detected. Threat imminent. Calculate optimal engagement.] The Codex chimed, its voice cold, bureaucratic.
"I'm on it," Kael thought, a flicker of defiance. He wasn't following a protocol. He was rewriting one.
The scout burst into view below, a hulking figure wrapped in tattered crimson rags, a crudely bladed staff in its hand. It looked around, disoriented by the labyrinth, its head snapping side to side. Its eyes glowed with feral hunger.
Kael gave a short whistle. A sharp, piercing sound.
The scout's head snapped up. It saw them. Its eyes narrowed. A low growl rumbled in its throat. It began to charge.
This was the commitment Kael needed. The scout, blinded by aggression, didn't look up. Didn't see the trap.
Sylvara launched herself from the plateau, not at the scout, but to a crumbling spire opposite Kael. She swung her sword, striking the base of the spire. A single, clean cut. The rock groaned. Dust showered down. The scout, now directly below, looked up, startled.
Kael acted. He planted his foot, pushing off the plateau with all the new body's brutal power. He didn't jump onto the scout, but onto a precisely chosen rock formation above it. The formation cracked under his weight. A cascade of loose, sharp rocks and crystallized blood rained down. A controlled demolition.
The scout shrieked. It threw its arms up, trying to shield itself. The falling rock buried it. Not a direct hit. A tactical collapse.
The scout thrashed, half-buried, its bladed staff stuck in the debris. It roared, trying to pull itself free.
Kael dropped lightly to the ground, longsword in hand. The scout was disoriented, its armor battered. Its movements sluggish. Its curses were guttural, in a language he didn't understand, but the intent was clear: pure hatred.
The scout lunged, staff flailing. A desperate, wild attack. Kael moved with the new body's instinctual precision. He didn't meet the staff head-on. He parried, redirecting its clumsy momentum. His longsword slid along the shaft, then angled down, severing the scout's hand from its wrist in a clean, clinical cut.
A wet, spraying sound. The scout screamed. A high, raw sound of pain and disbelief. Its hand, still clutching the staff, fell into the red dust. Blood poured from the stump, steaming faintly on the gritty ground. No poetic grief. Just a mess.
The scout stumbled back, clutching the spurting wound. Its face contorted in agony. It still tried to fight, but the will was gone. Replaced by shock.
Kael didn't hesitate. He lunged. A swift, brutal thrust. His longsword drove through the scout's chest, piercing armor and bone. A sickening crunch. The scout convulsed once, a final gurgle, then went limp.
He pulled the blade free. The body slumped, adding to the red stains on the ground.
Sylvara landed beside him, silent. Her gaze swept over the dead scout, then to Kael's longsword. Her expression remained stoic, but he caught a flicker. A brief, almost imperceptible nod. A grim acknowledgment of efficiency.
[ESSENCE: +12]
[CURSE GAUGE: 10% (Stabilized)]
[System Logic: Confirmed. Strategic adaptation noted.] The Codex's voice cut through the aftermath, devoid of emotion.
"Stabilized?" Kael muttered, looking at his arm. The spectral rot was still there, a constant itch under his skin, but it hadn't visibly worsened. The violent urges, momentarily sated by the kill, still simmered beneath his conscious thought.
[Your defiance is inefficient. Your reliance on external factors… ill-advised.] The Codex's tone was subtly altered, a colder edge, more direct. It was taunting him.
"I'll get out of this hell," Kael thought, clenching his jaw, a defiant vow solidifying in his mind. He knew it was stupid to talk back to an omnipresent, reality-altering AI, but he couldn't help it. This wasn't some game he could just turn off. This was his life now. And he wouldn't be a pawn.
A distant horn blared. Longer. Deeper. Then another. And another. Not a scout. A coordinated hunt. The Blood Coven. They knew he was here. The Labyrinths were no longer a sanctuary. They were a trap. The Abyssal Hunt was just beginning.
Sylvara's head snapped up, her eyes narrowing as she listened to the escalating horns. Her hand instinctively went to her longsword. Her stoic façade held, but Kael saw the subtle tension in her shoulders. The hunt was coming for them both.
They were trapped. Again. He didn't know where to run next. And Sylvara, for all her combat prowess, felt like another wild card. He needed allies, yes. But trust felt like a luxury he couldn't afford. Not here. Not in this blood-soaked hell. The horns grew louder. Closer.