Chapter 12 – The Edge of Fear
The slums had never felt so suffocating.
Every corner Kael turned seemed to twist into another shadowed alley, another maze of broken walls and rusted doors. The silence after battle pressed on him heavier than any wound. The only sound that kept him grounded was the dragging scrape of his boots against cracked stone.
Behind him, three goblin corpses cooled in the night air, their blood already sinking into the dirt. The sight of them still burned behind his eyelids. His hands shook from the memory of crushing bones and tearing flesh, but he tightened them around his makeshift weapon anyway. If he let go now, he knew he wouldn't have the strength to pick it back up.
[ Quest Progress: 3/5 Goblins Defeated ]
[ Time Remaining: 21:48:12 ]
The glowing blue text floated like a curse. Twenty-one hours sounded long, but every second gnawed at him. His muscles screamed for rest, his lungs burned, and his wounds stung with every step. But the system didn't care. It demanded blood.
He leaned against the jagged wall of an old shack, chest rising and falling with ragged breaths. Sweat mixed with dirt on his forehead, and when he wiped it away with the back of his sleeve, the smear left a red-brown stain.
"Two more," he whispered, voice hoarse. "Just two more."
Two more goblins to escape weakness. Two more to step out of the gutter. Two more to prove that his life wasn't already over.
The faces of the dead flashed in his mind—his mother, his sister, the people who had looked at him with pity or contempt. He had been powerless when it mattered most. But if he finished this… if he succeeded… maybe he could finally take back control.
The system flickered again.
[ Tracking Nearest Target… ]
[ Goblin Detected – 0.9 km South ]
Kael forced his legs to move, each step deliberate. He pushed through the stench of refuse and stagnant water, past walls lined with mold and alleys filled with heaps of rusted scrap. His footsteps echoed in the narrow streets, the night stretching endlessly ahead.
Halfway down a darkened lane, he froze.
Voices. Human.
"…heard screaming up ahead."
"Could be scavengers. Could be worse."
Kael pressed his back against the wall, tightening his grip on the iron rod. His heart pounded so hard it hurt.
Two men appeared from the shadows, cloaked in ragged leather, their eyes sharp and hungry. Scavengers. Hyenas of the slums. They preyed on the weak, stripped corpses for coins, and sometimes made their own corpses to keep business steady.
The men spotted him at once. His blood-stained shirt, his trembling frame, his makeshift weapon.
"Look at this one," one sneered, his teeth yellow under the lamplight. "Fresh blood on him. Might've been fighting. Could be carrying something."
The second man's lips curled into a grin. "And if he isn't, we'll make sure he pays the toll anyway."
Kael's breath caught. His body screamed that he couldn't survive another fight—not against trained humans. Not now. His legs wanted to run. His mind whispered hide.
Then the blue glow of the system lit up before his eyes.
[ Hidden Condition Triggered ]
[ Passive Activated: Hell's Endurance – Fear resistance increased ]
The panic dulled. His heartbeat steadied. The sharp edge of terror that threatened to paralyze him softened into something else—clarity. His eyes narrowed.
"…Get in my way," he rasped, voice low and dangerous, "and I'll kill you too."
The words didn't sound like his own. They were heavier, edged with something primal.
The scavengers blinked, startled. For a moment, they didn't see a broken youth clinging to a pipe. They saw a predator who had already painted the streets with blood.
The silence stretched. Then one spat on the ground.
"Not worth the trouble," he muttered.
"Yeah," the other agreed with a sneer. "Crazy ones are more dangerous than they look."
They backed away, melting into the shadows, their muttered curses fading into the night.
Kael exhaled slowly. His arms trembled, and his knees threatened to give out. If they had pressed him, he knew he wouldn't have survived. But somehow, the system had pulled him through again.
"…Thank you," he muttered—not sure if the words were for the system, for himself, or for the gods that had abandoned him long ago.
He pushed on.
[ Distance to Target: 300m… 200m… 100m… ]
The trail led him to what had once been a bustling marketplace. Now it was nothing but ruin. Wooden stalls lay in splinters, tattered cloth banners hung like cobwebs, and the smell—rot mixed with something sour—clawed at his throat.
Kael's breath quickened. His grip on the iron rod tightened until his knuckles whitened. He crouched low, moving slowly through the debris.
And then he saw them.
Two goblins crouched in the center of the marketplace, hunched over the carcass of a stray dog. Their guttural laughter scraped against his ears as they tore chunks of flesh with jagged teeth, their yellow eyes glowing faintly in the dim light. One carried a chipped hatchet, the other a shard of bone sharpened to a point.
[ Target Identified – 2 Goblins ]
[ Warning: Enemies armed ]
Kael's pulse thundered. His body screamed that he couldn't. That he should turn back, find safety, live to fight another day.
But there was no "another day."
[ Quest Progress: 3/5 ]
[ Time Remaining: 21:39:48 ]
His vision locked onto the goblins. The world narrowed to that single point. Success or failure. Life or death.
He crouched lower, controlling his breathing. He remembered the trial, the flames, the suffocating pressure. If he had survived that, then he could survive this.
The iron rod felt like an extension of his arm now, the weight familiar, grounding. His body trembled, but his mind burned with resolve.
"This is it," he whispered. His voice was steady. His eyes shone with something fierce. "Time to finish this."
And with that, Kael stepped from the shadows, weapon in hand, toward the final hunt that would decide his future.