Chapter 217: Truth in Smoke

Chapter 217: Truth in Smoke

The crystal knife must have been an expensive masterwork, because it cut deep into Kai's back. He cried out in pain and swung backward... narrowly missing Kraetius.

"Bah." The old man drew another knife and advanced on him. "Almost had you."

"Why?" Kai only managed the word before Tareth's next shout hit him from the side, binding him in place.

"I couldn't stomach the sight of these peasants tearing down Krysal and dancing on the rubble." Kraetius spat. "Half of them are dead anyway, and I took out the rest during the fighting. But Riuklina can restore my crystal cultivation, let me take my proper position again. After everything I had to endure, I'll be the strongest Diamond this city has ever seen."

While another shout staggered Kai, the two Ruby Crystalliers leapt forward and grabbed his arms. Once they had him bound in place, Kraetius stepped forward with his knife raised.

"And all I had to do was betray you. I'd say it's worth the price."

His hand came down, and Kai's teeth snapped closed.

Isulfr's Bite consumed both the dagger and Kraetius's hand. The old man staggered backward, crying out in pain, and the Ruby Crystalliers stared in horror. Kai chewed on the mouthful... the crystals stuck in his teeth, but the troubling part was how good D-rank flesh tasted.

"Take him!" Riuklina screamed. "All of you!"

"Down!" Tareth cried the word and Kai was forced to his knees. Once the Ruby Crystalliers recovered they began kicking at him, battering at his body from all sides. They weren't his equal, but with so many blows, even his Physique would begin to bruise.

When one of the crystalliers started to form an axe, Kai forced past the pain to act. He locked Tareth in place for a second with a Void Gaze, then spun on the others. One Ruby was knocked across the courtyard with a kick to the chest, while a Tyrant's Claw tore through the armor of the other and left him bloody.

"I said everyone!"

When Riuklina shouted, blue smoke flooded into the courtyard. Kai had just the barest second to look up and see Omilaena, standing on the balcony alongside the merchant. She met his gaze briefly, but the smoke pouring from her lips was overwhelming and soon the entire courtyard was so filled with smoke that it was impossible to see.Fiind updated novels at novelhall.com

"Did you need to do that?" Riuklina complained.

"You saw how he fights," Omilaena said, "I'm not getting close. Besides, it won't kill Tareth. And do you really care about the Ruby Crystalliers?"

"Oh, I suppose they can be replaced."

Though the poison smoke was so omnipresent that he couldn't avoid breathing it in, Kai felt... surprisingly fine. At first he thought his D-rank Physique was enough to resist, but Omilaena was the very one who had given it to him. Then he thought that she might have underestimated his monstrous soul, but he had told her so much...

With the odds in their favor, Kai pressing and Omilaena wearing him down with poison, the outcome was inevitable. The only point where there was real risk was when Kraetius suddenly leapt back into the fight. He might have gotten his knife in time if Omilaena hadn't thrown a needle at him. After Kai cut across his chest, he didn't rise again.

Eventually Kai drove Tareth to exhaustion, and when he opened his mouth to shout again, one of Omilaena's needles went through his neck. Then a second and a third. No crystal defenses this time. He didn't cry out in pain, just released a slow sigh. The massive man slowly reached up to pull out the weapons, looked at them briefly, then let them drop to the ground.

"Twenty years ago..." His voice was still strong despite the holes in his neck and he turned toward Kai sadly. "If we'd met twenty years ago, maybe things would have been different."

Then he sagged to the ground and collapsed. For a moment the courtyard was silent.

If consuming flesh was solely about power, it would make sense to eat Tareth, but Kai's hunger turned him around. Kraetius was still alive, trying to crawl away with his good hand. Maybe it was the man's Physique or maybe just the fact that he had betrayed him. Either way, Kai stalked after him, then watched the man's fear as he stared into the monstrous maw before it ended his life.

A moment later Kai wavered, coming back to himself. He had been so controlled, no one suspecting his real power despite fighting in front of them, yet now he'd done something like that in a fugue state. Right in front of Omilaena, too.

When he turned back to her, she gave a polite little clap. "Very monstrous, good work."

"Just one thing I don't get." Kai swayed to his feet and wiped off his mouth, trying to put the taste behind him. "What was your plan with the poison? If it was my Physique, wouldn't Kraetius have been immune too? Or did you inject me with something special?"

"No, no, your Physique injections were exactly what I said, designed to maximize the benefit." Omilaena stepped forward and began playfully tapping her fingernails against his chest. "I've been dosing you with small quantities of poison ever since we agreed to work together. It's much more convenient to have allies immune to my most common poisons, as you just saw."

"And Zae Zin Nim?"

"She's so touchy and suspicious I haven't managed it yet."

Kai was about to say more when an explosion shook the ground. Some chaos was expected in a battle, but this was unusually large. He jumped to the roof of the estate, Omilaena just behind him, to get a good look.

The explosion had come from the docks, where half the ships were now burning with a green fire that wasn't put out by the water. He could just see a small group of his allies down there, spotting Maggle but no Nirka. They were hemmed in between the flames, the water, and now a vast spiky wall of earth.

Traelisia stood in the path of their only way out, moving in slowly to finish them off. Even though he was too far away to arrive in time, Kai began to run toward them.

Maggle swayed forward, drinking from what looked like a jug of beer. Without warning he hurled it at Traelisia, who knocked it out of the air with a spike of earth without even looking at it. Yet as the jug broke, acid splattered from within, striking her earth barrier. At practically the same instant, Maggle spewed the acid he'd held in his mouth at the same time he hurled a burst of qi.

The bolts of acidic qi shot out, a more dangerous assault than Kai would have ever believed Maggle was capable of. He didn't know if it would be enough against a Diamond Crystallier and he didn't get to find out, because at that moment Suortril stepped from behind the earth.

Acid, qi, and earth all broke against the prism around him.

That was the last thing Kai saw before he dropped to one knee. The knife wound and all the other injuries were finally catching up to him, and he'd pushed himself to the limit fighting Tareth. It was going to take him a while to catch his breath... and when he did, he had no idea what he was going to do about Suortril.