Chapter 208: The Hound
Inside the realm of darkness, Bruski roared and punched the barrier again.
BOOM.
The barrier rippled. Cracks spiderwebbed across its surface. But it held.
Kael added something else.
Devouring Darkness.
The darkness around Bruski shifted. It wasn’t just absence of light anymore — it was hungry. Dark tendrils emerged from the walls of the realm and attached to Bruski’s body like leeches. They didn’t drain physical vitality. They drained mana. Slowly. Invisibly.
One minute.
Bruski’s fists kept hammering the barrier. Each impact sent cracks spreading further. His berserker ability kept his physical power rising, but his mana reserves were leaking away like water through a broken pipe. He didn’t feel it yet. The berserker rage filled the gaps in his awareness.
Two minutes.
Bruski’s sword strikes joined the fists. The iron blade — enchanted, heavy, designed to crush armor — slammed against the barrier with enough force to make the entire realm shudder. Cracks deepened. The realm was weakening. But Bruski’s swings were also slowing. The sword felt heavier than it should have. His mana reinforcement was fading, siphoned by the devouring darkness, and he was too enraged to notice.
Three minutes.
"Enough games!"
Bruski shattered the barrier.
The realm of darkness collapsed in a shower of dissolving shadow fragments. Bruski erupted from the remains of the darkness like a beast breaking from a cage, iron sword raised, single arm bulging with berserker-enhanced muscle. His eyes were bloodshot. Veins bulged across his temple. Steam rose from his skin from the heat of his own berserker ability.
He rushed Kael.
Kael formed the hand sign. "Shadow Army: Legion of the Void."
Three copies of Kael materialized from his shadow.
Bruski didn’t slow down. He drove through the first clone with a shoulder charge that shattered it into dissipating shadow. The second clone lasted slightly longer — dodging two sword strikes before Bruski grabbed it by the throat and crushed it into nothing.
The third clone flanked with twin shadow blades. Bruski turned and caught both blades in his iron grip and crushed them too.
All three clones dissolved.
Bruski’s chest heaved. Sweat dripped from his jaw. His remaining arm trembled from the effort. The berserker ability was fading as his mana depleted. But the rage remained.
"Is that all?" Bruski growled. "Hiding behind copies?"
Lira appeared at the edge of the fortress. Her hand drifted toward her weapon. "My lord—"
Aria’s hand caught Lira’s wrist. "Don’t."
Lira turned to her with barely concealed frustration. "He’s fighting a Rank 7. His mana is draining. If he makes a mistake—"
"He has a plan." Aria’s voice was flat. "He initiated this fight knowing exactly what he was doing. Let him finish it."
Lira’s jaw tightened. She lowered her hand.
Inside the fortress, Kael stood alone against Bruski. His expression was calm.
His mana is depleted. His physical strength is still dangerous due to berserker, but the boost is fading as his mana drains. I need to end this.
Bruski charged.
Kael shadow-stepped behind him and drove a kick into the back of his knee. CRACK. Bruski stumbled but didn’t fall. He spun with a backhand that Kael ducked. The wind from the swing tore a groove in the warehouse wall behind Kael.
Shing. Slash. Crack.
Kael’s blade met Bruski’s iron sword. The impact numbed Kael’s arm. Bruski’s depleted mana couldn’t fully reinforce the weapon anymore. The iron sword was just metal now. Heavy metal, but still just metal.
Kael’s Void Edge blade was Special Grade quality.
The iron sword snapped.
Bruski stared at the broken hilt in his hand. For one moment, the berserker rage flickered. Something human surfaced in his eyes. Fear.
Kael’s blade found Bruski’s remaining arm. Schlick. The arm went numb from shoulder to fingertips. The fingers opened and dropped the broken sword hilt.
Kael swept his legs. Sweep. Bruski, already unbalanced from the arm wound, went down hard. His head cracked against the stone floor.
A boot pressed against his neck.
"Submit," Kael said quietly, "and live. Resist, and die."
Bruski stared up at the boot on his neck. The berserker rage was gone now. What remained was the cold calculation of a survivor who had lived in Ashfall’s underworld long enough to recognize when he was outmatched.
"I submit."
"Good."
Kael removed his boot and stepped back. "You’re mine now. You do what I tell you, to whoever I tell you to do it’s not negotiation. It’s a command. Understand?"
"I understand."
"Stand up."
Bruski climbed to his feet. His broken arm hung useless at his side. Blood dripped from a dozen wounds he’d accumulated during his three-minute fight with the realm. But his eyes held something new. Recognition.
"Let’s go."
They marched through Ashfall’s streets in the pre-dawn darkness.
The mine’s main entrance was a massive stone archway reinforced with runic formations that Kael’s Spirit Eyes identified as Rank 3 quality. Two dozen armed guards stood at attention around the archway. Miners in chains shuffled past them in single file, heads down, not daring to look up.
And standing at the entrance, blocking the path, was the head slaver.
He was a giant. Nearly seven feet tall, with arms like tree trunks and a belly that strained his leather armor. His face was flat and brutal, pockmarked from old fights, with small eyes that scanned everything like a predator assessing prey. A cat-o-nine-tails — three tails, indicating mixed beast-kin heritage — swayed lazily behind him.
His name was Gorn.
"Stop."
"Young master." Gorn’s small eyes flicked to the one-armed Bruski. "This is my mine. My territory. My rules."
Kael said nothing.
"You want to enter?" Gorn’s lip curled. "Toll is fifty credits per person. For you, young master, I’ll make it a hundred."
He leaned closer. His breath smelled of stale meat and old violence.
"Or I throw you down a shaft. Accidentally, of course. These shafts are dangerous. Accidents happen."
Kael drew his blade.
Shing.
Schlick.
Both of Gorn’s hands hit the stone floor in quick succession. The sound was wet, heavy, final. Gorn stared at the stumps where his hands had been, eyes too shocked to process pain.
He started screaming.
Kael grabbed his collar and walked him to the mine shaft entrance — a vertical drop into darkness that smelled of sulfur and something worse. The shaft yawned open like a throat.
"Wait—" Gorn gasped. "You can’t—"
Kael kicked him into the shaft.
Thud. Thud. Thump. Thump. The sounds echoed up from the darkness for several seconds before stopping abruptly.
"Clean up," Kael said.
Bruski moved.
The one-armed hound drove into the guards like a battering ram. Crack. Thud. Crack. He used his arm and his head, primarily — skull strikes that dropped guards without killing them, breaking bones and shattering jaws. The guards fought back desperately, but they were Core Formation rank thugs playing at warrior.
Kael walked through the carnage with his blade drawn, finishing anyone Bruski missed. Schlick. Schlick. Schlick.
By sunrise, the main minehead was a pile of corpses. Blood pooled in the entrance shaft. The surviving guards knelt in chains, their weapons confiscated, their lives spared only because Kael didn’t feel like killing because they will be more useful in the mines.
Kael stood at the mine entrance and watched the sun rise over Ashfall’s smog-choked skyline.