Chapter 26: Levels Bought in Blood
Chapter 26: Levels Bought in Blood
The windows arrived while Aria and I were lying flat in the gully.
They had waited through the escape. Whatever the class was processing while Aria tore open the gate had taken priority over the results, and now the rest caught up.
[Combat contribution verified.]
[Class-Assisted Kills Confirmed: 3.]
[Experience transferred.]
[Level increased.]
[Level increased.]
[Adrian Vale has reached Level 6.]
A searchlight slid across the rubble above my head while I read the word kills three times.
Three men. Forty minutes ago, they had been standing at a gate with issued rifles and assigned shifts. Aria had killed them, my class had counted them, and now their deaths had bought me two levels.
My entire progression since the Merge had come from a Crawler, two Ash Rats, and a Scalejaw Lurker. Four days of nearly dying. Three human beings had given me just as much in under a minute.
The System offered no judgment. It listed the transfer and opened the allocation panel. That was all it ever did.
It weighs things. I am the only part of this that knows what they were.
I had six points. Clever distribution could wait until I was no longer in danger of sliding off the woman carrying me.
Strength: 5 → 7
Vitality: 5 → 7
Agility: 5 → 7
Intelligence: 8
Spirit: 5
Charisma: 100
Warmth spread through my limbs. The pain in my forearms eased, my grip firmed, and the grey at the edges of my vision receded. My wounds stayed open. The three physical debuffs built into this body remained exactly where they had always been. Mana Deficiency remained too, but it limited ordinary mana rather than the dimensional energy running through my Anchor.
Better. Still bad. Better is useful.
Beside me, Aria drew a sharp breath.
[Active summon synchronisation complete.]
[Manifested Level: 4 → 6]
[Attribute and energy ceilings increased.]
[Existing injuries unchanged.]
[New energy capacity: Unfilled.]
[Duration added: two increments of 10% B-grade Level 1 duration.]
[Remaining timer capped by current normal maximum.]
She flexed the hand on her wounded side, then carefully rolled the shoulder the bullet had passed through.
"You have advanced."
"We both did. You synchronise with me while you’re here." I swallowed. "The experience came from the guards."
Her eyes settled on my face. "That troubles you."
"It should."
"Yes. Keep it that way." Her answer held no comfort, but it steadied me anyway. "The day their deaths become numbers and nothing more, you will have become worse than the people behind that wall. For tonight, carry the trouble while we move."
Eastbridge’s pursuit had changed. The first chaos had resolved into engines moving slowly along the perimeter road, overlapping lights, and whistles spaced perhaps two hundred metres apart. A search line.
They were moving north toward the drainage cut, following the route I had told Aria was fastest.
"They guessed where we were going," I whispered.
"Then they may have it."
She lifted me onto her back again.
Level 6 changed the way she moved. Her first step took less effort, and she controlled the end of each turn instead of skidding through it. Her hip still bled through the strapping, and every push from the left leg caught in her breath. The new strength gave her more ways to work around the damage.
She took us east through a line of collapsed storefronts where the shadows ran together. Whenever a whistle sounded, she became completely still until it passed.
I counted because counting was something I could do.
"Same whistle on the left. Closer by maybe twenty metres. The engine changed pitch, but it’s staying on the road."
"Continue."
A searchlight swept across the storefronts before we reached the next break. Aria dropped behind the counter of a ruined café and lowered me beside her. The light filled the street, passed over broken tables, then returned more slowly.
Voices followed it.
"Movement east of the cut!"
Someone had seen us cross the previous gap. Aria glanced toward the café’s rear wall. The doorway had collapsed beneath brick and timber, leaving a narrow opening above the rubble.
"Can you climb?" she whispered.
At Level 4, the answer would have been no. I wedged one boot between two bricks, caught the edge of the opening, and pulled. My arms shook, but they held long enough for Aria to push me through. She followed without disturbing more than a trickle of dust.
We lay behind the wall while two men ran past the front windows. One stopped so close that I could hear his breath over the engine.
My new Vitality kept me from gasping. My new Strength had carried my weight for three seconds. Six points had already made the difference between hiding behind that wall and being trapped in front of it.
The guard moved on.
I called every sound and memorized the route: a bent lamp post, a hanging shop sign, a burned van with a tree growing through it. Soon I would have to walk through these ruins without someone carrying me.
Four minutes later, I noticed blood running down the back of her greave.
"Your hip is worse."
Aria shortened her stride and shifted my weight away from the injury. She had already known, yet she used the information immediately.
We crossed another stretch of broken road before she stopped beside a concrete apron behind several dead industrial units. A rectangular opening had been cut into the retaining wall, half screened by collapsed roofing sheets. Rusted rails descended into darkness.
"Wait."
She returned ninety seconds later with her sword drawn.
"The passage bends twice and continues beneath the units. Neither bend can be seen from the entrance. One fighter could hold either."
"What’s wrong with it?"
"Something has been using it. Droppings. Bones. Disturbed silt."
Forty armed men were behind us. Something that preferred tunnels waited ahead.
"We take it."
The air inside was cold and wet, thick with rust, standing water, and an animal smell that sat flat against the back of my throat. Aria went first. I followed with one hand on the wall and counted my steps.
We passed the first bend. The whistles faded until I could no longer hear another human being.
Past the second bend, something dragged itself through the silt.
The sound came from three different places.
Then all three stopped at once.