Chapter 103: The Bronze Cage and the Breath of the Swamp
I. Rats in the Steam Labyrinth
The rain over the Bronze Citadel didn't clean the streets; it only caused the soot and machine oil to form a black, slippery mud.
Kael ran at the vanguard, leaping across the factory rooftops. His combat boots struck the metal tiles with a frantic rhythm. Behind him, Violeta glided almost as if floating, creating ephemeral ice bridges between buildings that crumbled seconds after Eris and Elara crossed them, cutting off the immediate pursuers.
—"To the left!" Elara shouted, her voice barely audible over the hiss of steam escaping from industrial pipes.
Three crossbow bolts whizzed past where Kael's head had been a second before. From the watchtowers, luminous stone searchlights swept the rooftops. The city's alarm bells rang with a hammering pace: Clang… Clang… Clang… Total district lockdown.
—"They're herding us," Kael growled, skidding behind a chimney to dodge another volley of arrows. "They're closing the routes to the western wall. They want to push us toward the Foundry District."
—"The heat there is unbearable," Violeta said, her breath visible in the cold air she generated. "My ice will be less effective."
Eris, her red auction dress now torn for movement and stained with soot, smiled fiercely. —"But my fire will be right at home. Let them take us there. I'll burn their whole damn industry down."
—"No," Kael ordered. "The goal is to get out, not to fight a war of attrition. If they corner us, the numerical superiority of the Iron Vipers will crush us." Kael looked down into a dark alley. —"Elara, what do you see?"
The disciple closed her eyes for an instant. Her perception, sharpened by fear and Samael's training, expanded like an invisible mist. —"There are two squads climbing the fire escapes to the north. To the south… there's a gap in the formation. But…"
—"But what?"
—"It feels strange," Elara said, opening her eyes with concern. "There are no guards there. It's like a void in their net. Too perfect."
Kael transmuted his worry into resolve. —"We go south. Violeta, be ready to distort space if it's a trap. Eris, cover our rear. Move!"
II. The Ambush of the Righteous
They descended to street level in the South District. Here, the buildings were tall, silent warehouses. The noise of the pursuit seemed muffled, which was more unsettling than the shouting. Suddenly, the shadows at the end of the street lengthened. It wasn't the natural darkness of night; it was something viscous.
From the shadows emerged six figures. They didn't wear the uniform of the Iron Vipers or the City Guard. They wore tattered gray robes adorned with bird bones and dried mud amulets.
Elara stopped dead, her daggers trembling in her hands. —"The Pale Ones… no, they are something worse."
The central figure, a man with half his face covered by parasitic fungal scabs, raised a staff of rotten wood. —"They smell of Him," the man said, his voice sounding like bubbles bursting in mud. —"They smell of the King's dream. Thieves. Defilers."
Kael unsheathed his greatsword. The crimson glow illuminated the alley. —"We don't have time for crazy cults. Step aside."
—"You carry the mark of the awakening," the cultist hissed. —"And you carry the Fire that must not burn. The Tear. Hand it over, and perhaps the Swamp will grant you a swift death before the King claims your souls."
—"The Swamp?" Eris stepped forward, black flames licking her arms. "We're miles away from that mud hole."
—"The Swamp is not a place, fire-girl," the cultist laughed, and black insects crawled from his mouth. "It is a truth." He struck the ground with his staff. The cobblestones liquefied instantly, turning into a bubbling, acidic muck that lunged for the Morningstars' ankles.
—"Jump!" Kael yelled.
III. Fire against Rot
—"Astral Frost Prison!" Violeta threw her hands downward. Ice expanded over the mud, creating a solid platform just before the acid touched their boots. But the ice hissed and cracked; the cult's corruption was eating away at Violeta's Qi.
The cultists lunged. They didn't use conventional weapons; their own bodies mutated. Arms lengthened like flesh whips, ribs opened like maws. They were cultivators who had sacrificed their humanity to the entity of the "Sleeping King."
—"They're fast!" Elara shouted, parrying a bone tentacle with her daggers. The impact threw her against a wall.
Kael roared, activating the Sword Seed. —"Dragon Slash: Crimson Wing!" An arc of red energy decapitated two of the cultists, but their bodies didn't fall. Black tendrils sprouted from the severed necks, attempting to reattach the heads.
—"We have to burn them completely!" Kael shouted. —"Eris, now!"
Eris didn't hold back. She remembered the auction, the humiliation, the fear for Samael. It all became fuel. —"Ash of Oblivion!" She released a shockwave of incandescent particles. It wasn't an explosion; it was a fire plague. The particles adhered to the cultists' rotten flesh and began devouring them from the inside. Inhuman screams filled the alley as the cultists disintegrated into gray dust, unable to regenerate.
The cult leader, burning, looked at Kael with pure hatred before turning to ash. —"The mark… stays. The Hunter… is coming."
IV. The Bronze Titan
The combat had lasted barely a minute, but the noise was enough. From the north end of the street, a blinding light illuminated them. The heavy sound of hydraulic pistons shook the ground.
—"There they are!" Lord Cassian's amplified voice shouted. —"Crush them!"
Blocking the exit, a Citadel war machine advanced. It was a five-meter-tall Bronze Golem, powered by steam and beast cores. On its right arm, it carried a rotary cannon; on its left, a siege claw.
—"Sh*t," Kael whispered. They were trapped between the district wall, the remaining acidic mud, and the golem.
—"Eris?" Kael asked. —"I'm at 30%," she gasped. "Burning those swamp things wastes a lot of Qi."
—"Violeta." —"I can try to teleport us, but with this dirty Qi interference in the air… we could end up inside a wall."
Kael looked at the golem. The cannon began to spin. —"Elara," Kael said. —"Do you trust me?" —"Always." —"And your mist?"
Elara nodded. —"Good. Violeta, frontal shield, hold one impact. Eris, prepare a blinding flare. Elara… I need you to freeze that thing's pistons. Not from the outside. From within."
The golem fired. A rain of steel bullets the size of fists swept the street. —"Frost Wall!" Violeta shouted. The ice splintered under the continuous impact. Crack. Crack.
—"Now, Eris!" Eris launched a white fireball straight at the golem's visual sensors. The machine wavered, its optical systems blinded by the heat.
Kael grabbed Elara by the waist and, with inhuman strength boosted by his lineage, hurled her through the air, over the ice shield, straight toward the chest of the metal giant.
—"Do it!" Kael roared.
Elara, mid-air, turned into gray smoke. She passed through the golem's ventilation grates, entering its machinery. Inside was a hell of gears and heat. Concentrate. Winter. Elara released all her Qi in a burst of absolute cold inside the golem's boiler.
The metal groaned. The steam condensed and froze instantly. The expanding water burst the pipes from the inside. With a deafening screech, the golem paralyzed, its joints locked by internal ice. Elara materialized outside, falling to the ground, panting. The inert machine blocked the path for the guards behind it.
—"To the wall!" Kael ordered, picking up Elara as they ran.
V. The Leap of Faith
They reached the outer wall. Twenty meters of smooth bronze. —"We can't climb it in time," Violeta said.
Kael looked back. Lord Cassian was coming on horseback with more troops. Kael drew the Odachi of the Ravenous Eclipse. The black blade pulsed, thirsty.
—"We aren't climbing," Kael said. —"Eris, Violeta. Combination. Fire and Cold. Thermal shock." Eris placed her hands on the bronze of the gate. She heated it to red-hot in seconds. Violeta struck the incandescent metal with an absolute zero palm.
CRACK. The metal shrieked and fractured, losing its structural integrity. Kael stepped forward, channeling all his Qi into the greatsword. —"Dragon Slash: Siege Breaker!"
The blow was devastating. The gate, weakened by the thermal shock, exploded outward. The fresh, humid air of the outside hit them. The smell of the jungle. The Sea of Beasts. They leaped into the darkness of the night, leaving behind the Bronze Citadel and Lord Cassian's furious screams.
They ran until their lungs burned, deep into the thicket. Only when they were sure the cavalry couldn't follow them through the dense terrain did Kael allow them to stop. Eris collapsed against a tree, laughing hysterically.
Violeta checked on Elara. —"You're freezing, more than usual."
—"I'm fine," Elara said, but she stared into the darkness of the forest with terror. "Kael… the cultist said something before he died. He said 'The Hunter' is coming."
Kael cleaned his sword and looked toward the east. —"We have the Tear. We have the Root. Nothing will stop us from returning to Samael. If a hunter comes…" Kael adjusted his silver mask, which now had a crack. "…we'll show him who the true prey is."
But in the distance, between the trees, a pair of ancient, golden eyes—devoid of humanity—opened in the darkness, watching the Qi trail the Morningstars had left behind.
[End of Chapter 103]