Kael stared at the Ifrit’s back, forcing his breathing to stay slow even while the heat tried to chew through his lungs.
Every inhale tasted like scorched dust and hot tal, like the air had been left too long over a forge. The creature hovered a short distance ahead, its body still fractured from the collapse, cracks spiderwebbing through stone plates, thin lines of ember-light leaking from between them.
The fire that held it together sputtered unevenly, pulsing and thinning like it couldn’t decide whether to flare or die.
It wasn’t dead. It wasn’t even close.
But it wasn’t whole either, and that, that, was the only reason Kael was still upright.
His eyes dropped briefly to his belt, then snapped back to the creature. The thought that had surfaced refused to drown.
It just floated there, ugly and stubborn, like oil on water. It wasn’t just dangerous. It was the kind of plan you didn’t say out loud because the universe would hear it and punish you for arrogance.
The kind of plan that worked exactly once, and if it didn’t, you didn’t get to be embarrassed about it.
You get to be dead.
Kael let out a quiet breath through dry lips, almost amused at himself. Not because it was funny, because it fit him a little too well. He kept ending up in situations where the best option was sothing any sane person would call suicide, and his only edge was being unsane enough to attempt it with a straight face.
The Ifrit shifted slightly, still scanning ahead, attention locked on the rubble where Kael had been monts ago.
It didn’t know where the thief had gone. It didn’t like not knowing. The combination of [Presence] and the chaos around them was buying Kael ti, but ti with interest.
A creature like that didn’t stay uncertain for long; eventually, it would pick a direction, and once it did, it wouldn’t stop to second-guess itself.
Kael’s fingers brushed against the belt at his waist.
[Montum].
He’d already felt what it did to a human body. Not a clean buff. Not a neat little boost like an extra ten points sowhere.
It was a shove from behind at the worst possible mont, a demand that your muscles and bones keep up with an idea that didn’t care if you tore yourself in half. Twenty seconds and his lungs turned to fire. A little longer, and his legs started wobbling like jelly.
His body barely could.
Slowly, Kael’s gaze lifted back to the Ifrit, studying it with a different kind of focus. The creature wasn’t flesh. It didn’t have tendons to snap or joints to dislocate. It was stone held together by fla, sothing animated by rules that didn’t match his. That should have made it superior.
But it also ant sothing else.
It had never been pushed past its limit the way a human had. It didn’t understand "strain." It didn’t understand "overextension." It probably didn’t even understand what it ant to lose control of your own movent until it happened.
Kael’s grip tightened slightly. If Montum turned him into a projectile and punished him for it, what would it do to sothing that didn’t feel pain the sa way? What would it do to sothing that couldn’t stop because it never practiced stopping?
His eyes flicked down the street, taking in the tight lanes between broken structures, the uneven ground, the scattered rebar like teeth sticking out of concrete.
There wasn’t room for clean movent here. Not at speed. Not for sothing as big as the Ifrit. Obstacles weren’t just obstacles; they were anchors. A wall to crash into. A slab to stumble over. A support beam to snag on.
A faint motion tugged at the edge of his awareness. The minimap confird it imdiately, green dots, closer now, still keeping their distance, still watching. Vultures doing circles.
Kael didn’t spare them more than a heartbeat. They weren’t the problem in front of him. They were the problem after.
What mattered right now was that he didn’t have ti. And the solution he ca up with didn’t respect his ti either. He needed to act fast.
He reached down and quietly unlatched the belt, the motion controlled and deliberate. The second it loosened, a weird, cold pressure slid into his gut, like he was taking off a safety harness before stepping over a ledge. For a mont he hesitated, not because he was scared, but because he understood exactly what he was about to do.
He wasn’t using Montum for himself.
He was giving it to the enemy.
A faint, humorless smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Insane. Pointlessly clever. The kind of thing that would get mocked, if he survived long enough for anyone to mock it.
The doubt that the Ifrit wouldn’t react to the rune ca and died fast. The thing was the source of the [Fire] Rune. That already ant it was ’Rune’ Compatible. If the Tower could graft runes onto him like tattoos and treat him like a circuit board, a monster like the Ifrit wasn’t going to be immune to the sa "language." It was practically built out of it.
Kael lowered his stance, then started forward. Each step was asured, each shift of weight careful. Loose grit underfoot could betray him. A kicked pebble could be the difference between "It’s still confused" and "It turns around and deletes you." The heat thickened as he closed the distance, pressing against him even through the armor, seeping into his breath until it felt like he was inhaling through a cloth held over a fla.
The Ifrit remained focused ahead. Its flas flickered unevenly as it tried to stabilize itself, the stone plates of its torso grinding subtly as it hovered. It was still recovering, still not fully in control of its own form.
That window wouldn’t stay open.
Kael counted the distance in his head as he moved, because counting gave his brain sothing to do besides imagine his skin peeling off his bones.
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