Chapter 324: Groaning Steel
Kael looked at her. "Dip? is it That bad?"
"This thing won’t fall easy."
The golem took another step.
The street shook.
"You fought it before?
"Does that matter?"
"Yeah, I mean if you fought it and lived, it should be manageable, annoying but manageable."
"I did, and didn’t like it," Yenna said. "And yes, it is annoying."
The golem’s right arm rose, chain dragging across the ground.
Yenna pulled back. "No matter how you damage it, it repairs itself immediately. We avoid it."
Kael looked at the swords sticking out of its body.
They had dug in deep, but the metal around them had folded over the blades, rust and iron crawling up the edges until the weapons looked fused into its frame.
"Do we really have to withdraw?" Kael asked.
Yenna turned her head sharply. "Yes."
"Is that a tactical yes or a please-don’t-do-something-stupid yes?"
"Both."
Kael’s eyes stayed on the golem.
The morning star came down.
He stepped back as the spiked ball smashed into the street, stone bursting upward. The chain tightened, then began retracting with a violent metallic rattle.
Kael saw the motion.
Saw the joints.
Saw the rust.
Saw the blades fused into the body.
"Let me try something," he said. "Keep the torch in my direction."
Yenna cursed under her breath. "Kael."
He placed his own torch on the ground, making sure it remained upright in a crack between stones, then rushed forward before she could argue properly.
Yenna’s grip tightened around her sword.
The honey badger emerged slightly from her hair. "He’ll not die."
"That is not comforting."
"He looks sturdy enough to survive at least one blow," the honey badger said. "Then he’ll learn. Leave him be."
Yenna’s jaw tightened.
She hated that the creature sounded calm.
She hated more that Kael moved like someone who had already decided pain was acceptable research.
"Fine," she muttered.
But she still stepped forward enough to keep her torchlight on him.
Kael pressed several runes.
Frost stirred along his left arm, cold crawling beneath the gauntlet until pale vapor curled from the metal.
Heft settled into his right arm, weight and torque gathering in the limb like a hammer being drawn back. He linked both gauntlets with the chains and pushed his wrists apart. The whirring sound of chain pulling echoed in the dark and silence of Vanitas.
Exploit Weakness awakened.
Execrate followed.
[High Synergy detected.]
[High internal energy consumption.]
Kael ignored the warning.
The golem’s left chain whipped forward.
The morning star tore through the air with enough force to pulp a body. Kael ducked under it and felt the spikes pass close enough to tug at his hair. The weapon slammed into the ground behind him, bounced once, and began retracting as the chain pulled it back toward the golem’s arm.
By then, Kael was already beneath the creature’s guard.
He slapped the golem’s left leg.
[Execrate has been applied.]
[Target has been marked with instability.]
[Exploit Weakness condition secured.]
[Weaknesses revealed.]
Red marks appeared across the golem.
Both feet.
The joint sections of its arms.
The knee-like hinges buried beneath layered metal.
And one spot in the middle of its lower chest, larger and brighter than all the rest.
Kael saw it.
He did not go for it.
Not immediately.
The golem raised its left leg and tried to stomp him flat. Kael dove to the side, rolled through broken dust, and came up beside the other leg. His right fist drove upward into the knee joint with Heft behind it and Frost riding the impact.
Cold burst from his gauntlet.
The joint flashed pale.
Localized freezing spread through the rusted metal, creating brittle conditions so suddenly that the hinge sounded like glass under pressure. The golem tried to shift its weight.
The leg snapped.
A massive crack tore through the joint, and the entire limb buckled in the wrong direction.
The Rusted Reclaimer fell forward.
Its torso hit the street with enough force to shake dust from nearby buildings.
Yenna stared.
The honey badger’s ears perked.
Kael still had a small window left.
Exploit Weakness remained active.
He moved before the golem could begin repairing itself.
One punch to the right shoulder joint.
Frost burst.
Crack.
One punch to the left arm hinge.
Crack.
One punch to the remaining leg.
Crack.
The chains spasmed as the golem tried to pull itself together, rusted plates shifting, metal crawling along broken seams. Kael felt the repair begin under his hands. It was fast. Too fast for ordinary destruction to matter.
So he made the damage spread faster than the repair.
He climbed onto the fallen creature’s back and drove both fists down toward the large red mark beneath the lower chest, striking from above through the fused plates. Heft turned the blow heavy. Frost made the metal brittle. Execrate made its flaws eager to open. Exploit Weakness told him exactly where the body wanted to fail.
The sound was not metal bending.
It was glass shattering.
A hole tore open through the golem’s back, wide enough for Kael to see the interior. Inside, surrounded by rusted ribs of metal and black cables like dried tendons, sat a core.
It was larger than the cores he usually found in his palm.
Darker too.
Kael shoved both hands into the hole.
The golem began moving again.
One chain twitched.
A morning star scraped against stone.
Yenna stepped forward, sword ready, but Kael did not stop.
He braced one foot against the golem’s back and pulled.
Metal screamed.
The opening widened.
His gauntlets dug in, tearing through rusted plates and brittle seams until the core was exposed fully. He grabbed it with both hands and ripped it free.
The golem froze.
Then collapsed like a structure forgetting why it had been standing.
[Corrupted Golem Core obtained.]
[You have obtained Shard of Vanitas.]
Kael stepped back from the broken frame, holding the core.
"Good."
He turned toward Yenna.
She stared at him.
The honey badger stared too.
Kael smiled faintly.
"And they call me a brute."
Kael laughed.
Then he started putting pieces of the golem into his inventory.
Yenna watched him pry loose fused blades, rusted plates, chain sections, and fragments of the shattered leg joints.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"This could be usable."
"That is a self-repairing death machine."
"Was."
"It tried to crush you."
"Most useful things do, at first."
Yenna opened her mouth, then closed it.
The honey badger nodded from her hair. "He has craftsman sickness."
Kael glanced at it. "That sounds rude."
"It is a diagnosis."
Kael ignored it and continued salvaging.
The material was heavy, but inventory did not care about weight the same way his arms did. He took what looked valuable, especially the chains, broken morning star pieces, the rusted plates that had tried to repair themselves, and several swords fused into the golem’s back. If Andre ever saw them, he would either curse him or praise him. Possibly both.
Once they were done, they moved again.
The route north grew uglier with every street.
Sector Two did not merely look darker. It felt more deliberate. The buildings leaned inward, upper floors almost touching above the road. Signboards hung without words. Doors stood open into rooms filled with black that torchlight refused to enter fully. The monsters on the mini-map shifted through alleys and interiors, some following briefly before peeling away, others waiting in clusters that Yenna guided them around with sharp, efficient turns.
Eventually, they reached another lantern.
It stood at the center of a cracked plaza, blue flame burning inside a crooked iron frame. Broken statues surrounded it, their faces scraped smooth and their hands missing. The moment Kael stepped into the light, the pressure around his skin eased.
A notification appeared.
[Safe Zone discovered.]
[Vanitas Safe Zone registered.]
[Current Vanitas progression: 2/3 Safe Zones.]
Kael exhaled slowly.
One more.
He needed one more safe zone, and he could leave Vanitas.
Technically.
The thought should have made him rush.
Instead, he looked north again.
Sector Three-Three waited somewhere beyond the dark, along with a merchant who traded in Vanity Shards and apparently carried weapons capable of turning Yenna into a red execution line.
Leaving before seeing that shop would be stupid.
Possibly suicidal to continue.
But stupid to leave.
Kael looked at Yenna. "One more safe zone and I can get out."
She nodded. "Then we make sure you get it."
"After the merchant."
"Obviously after the merchant."
Kael smiled. "Glad we’re on the same page."
Yenna rested her curved sword against her shoulder and looked toward the northern streets. "Don’t relax. Sector Three is worse."
Kael checked his mini-map.
Red dots clustered ahead.
A lot of them.
A few were larger than the others.
"Of course it is," he said.
The blue lantern hissed behind them.
Kael adjusted his gauntlets. Clashed both fists together. A tic that helps him focus.
"Alright," he said. "To the demon merchant, then."
Yenna’s lips twitched. "Try not to call him that to his face."
"Why?"
"Because he might charge extra."
Kael considered that.
"Fair."