Chapter 133: The Worm's Wrath
Daren was alone.
The realization was a cold, sharp shard of ice in his gut. The tunnel, once a channel for their focused advance, now felt like a tomb. His eyes darted to the far end, where Kai's body lay motionless, a dark shape against the grimy concrete. He had witnessed Kai's power firsthand—the calm, surgical precision that had dismantled an army. The thought that a single, unseen attack had neutralized him was terrifying. If that had hit me, Daren thought with a shudder of visceral fear, I would be dead. My life would have been erased in an instant.
He forced the thought down. Panic was a luxury he couldn't afford. His body snapped into a high defensive stance, muscles coiled like springs. With a guttural roar, he activated his Hale bloodline. The air around him shimmered with heat, and his red hair erupted into a living, crackling crown of fire, casting frantic, dancing shadows on the walls. He was a beacon in the gloom, ready for a fight.
Then, he saw a figure walking calmly towards him from the direction of the circular building.
It was Shi Xiao.
The ever-present, easy-going smile was still plastered on his face. Daren's instincts, screaming in high alert just a second ago, faltered. A wave of confused relief washed over him. "Shi Xiao!" he called out, his voice echoing in the cavernous space. "You're here!" He began to lower his guard, taking a step forward.
But then, something clicked in his mind. The pieces, horrifyingly, fell into place. The ambush. The leaked plan. The Silent Portal, supposedly undetectable. The absence of the other leaders. Shi's sudden, solitary appearance.
His guard snapped back up, higher and tighter than before. The fire around his head flared violently. "Shi!" he barked, his voice now thick with fury and betrayal. "Why? Why are you doing this? Why are you attacking us?"
Shi stopped a dozen paces away, his hands casually tucked into his pockets. He chuckled, a sound that was once friendly but now dripped with condescension. "You had very good luck back then," Shi said, his smile never wavering. "If that worm of a bloodline hadn't gotten in the way, you would already be dead."
Daren's mind reeled. "Worm? Bloodline? What are you talking about?" But Shi was done talking. The transition from stillness to motion was so instantaneous it defied physics. One moment he was standing relaxed, the next he was a blur.
Daren didn't even see the movement. He just felt an iron grip clamp onto the sides of his head. Shi's forearms were like vices, holding him in place. Before Daren could react, a series of devastating knee strikes hammered into his abdomen. Thud! Thud! Thud! The air exploded from his lungs in a pained gasp. The force was immense, each impact feeling like it was rearranging his internal organs.
His thoughts scrambled. He fought with Minji... I've seen him fight! He was never this fast, this strong! Has he been hiding his power all this time? Was betraying Ashveil the plan from the very beginning?
Driven by survival instinct and sheer rage, Daren roared. He ignored the white-hot pain in his gut and drove his own knee upward, not at Shi's body, but directly into the shin of the leg Shi was using to attack. It was a desperate, painful counter, but it created just enough of a shock and pushback for Daren to wrench his head free and stumble back, putting a few precious feet between them.
He knew he had to get to Kai. He had to warn Ryo and Moon. But he couldn't. The difference in their capabilities was not just a gap; it was a chasm. Fighting Shi was like a player running at 30 frames per second trying to combat one moving at 120. He was sluggish, his reactions a fraction too slow. Shi was a phantom, a predator playing with its food.
Daren dodged and weaved, his fiery aura flaring with each evasion. Shi's attacks weren't just punches and kicks; they were concentrated blasts of force. Every time Daren barely avoided a strike, the tunnel wall behind him would explode, leaving a crater of shattered concrete and twisted rebar. Soon, the entire length of the passageway was pockmarked with these wounds, as if a giant shotgun had blasted the interior.
Daren was tiring, his movements growing slower, his blocks becoming sloppier. He was a brawler, a powerhouse. Shi was an assassin, a precision instrument.
Seeing an opening, Shi finally decided to end it. With a flick of his wrists, his signature weapon—a pair of deadly, pointed nunchaku—materialized in his hands. The metal gleamed wickedly in the firelight of Daren's hair. There was no fancy display, just ruthless efficiency.
Slash! A deep gash opened on Daren's shoulder.
Slash!Another on his thigh.
Slash! Slash! Slash!
The pointed tips tore through muscle and sinew with horrifying ease. Daren couldn't block them. They moved in unpredictable, whirling arcs, a storm of sharpened metal. In seconds, his body was a map of bleeding wounds. The fire in his hair sputtered and died as his concentration shattered. The world swam before his eyes, the pain overwhelming his senses. He took one last, stumbling step before his legs gave way, and he collapsed to the ground, unconscious in a growing pool of his own blood.
---
Consciousness returned to Kai like a sudden, violent tide. One moment, there was nothing but blackness and the echo of a crushing impact. The next, he was gasping on the cold floor, his head screaming in agony. His vision blurred, then focused. His sword, Luminis Aquae, lay beside him. He grabbed it, the familiar weight a comfort. Pushing through the dizziness and the throbbing in his skull, he scrambled to his feet.
Daren. The thought was a lightning bolt. Please, let him still be fighting. He knew the odds were slim, but he had to hope.
He broke into a sprint, his body protesting with every step. As he ran, he fumbled in his storage ring, his fingers closing around a small vial of glowing blue liquid—a high-grade healing potion. He ripped the stopper out with his teeth and gulped it down. A wave of cool, soothing energy spread through him, knitting bone, mending tissue, and clearing the fog from his mind. The pain receded, replaced by a cold, sharp clarity.
BOOM. He pushed his speed to its absolute limit, becoming a blue-tinged blur down the ruined tunnel.
He skidded to a halt at the scene before him. His hope shattered. Daren was on the ground, unconscious and bleeding profusely. And standing over him, nunchaku poised for a final, killing strike, was Shi Xiao.
A torrent of questions flooded Kai's mind. Why? Is it really him? Is he being controlled? But there was no time for analysis. There was only action.
He moved without a sound, interposing himself between Shi and Daren. Luminis Aquae came up in a sweeping arc, not to attack, but to defend. He used the flat of the blade as a shield, the nunchaku striking the enchanted metal with a sharp clang that reverberated up his arms.
"What the fuck are you doing, you moron!" Kai's voice was a raw, roaring thing, filled with a fury he rarely displayed.
Shi Xiao took a graceful step back, a pleased, yet cunning and deeply discomforting smile stretching his lips. "Hi there," he said, his tone mockingly cheerful. "THE WORM OF ALHUWALIA. I was hoping you'd join us."
The name—the insult—hit Kai like a physical blow. It was a secret shame, a identity he had buried in the slums of Nova Lumina. "How... how do you know about that?" The question was out before he could stop it, and in that single moment of shocked faltering, his immense concentration wavered.
It was all the opening Shi needed.
He was on Kai in a flash. The nunchaku became a whirlwind of pain. Slash! Slash! Slash! Slash! Twenty cuts opened on Kai's torso in the span of a heartbeat. His white shirt, now bloodied and torn, hung from him in ribbons. The pain was excruciating, but it was the anger that consumed him.
With a savage roar, Kai grabbed the remnants of his shirt and tore it from his body, throwing the bloody rag aside. His torso was a mess of crisscrossing wounds, blood flowing freely. "I don't know how you know about my relations with Alhuwalia," he snarled, his voice dripping with cold, controlled rage. "And I don't care. But you chose to betray us. Now face my wrath."
The air behind Kai began to churn. Water materialized from the moisture in the tunnel, gathering, compressing, swirling with immense force. It coalesced into a single, colossal arrow of water, hovering in the air, humming with pent-up energy. Kai mimed drawing a bow, his hands gripping an invisible string, his body a perfect line of focused intent.
"BOOM!"
The water arrow shot forward. It wasn't a liquid; in that moment, it was harder than steel, sharper than any blade. It struck Shi square in the chest with the force of a tidal wave concentrated into a single point.
For all his speed and skill, Shi had never been hit by something like this. A grunt of pure agony was punched from his lungs. He was thrown backward, ribs cracking audibly, the cunning smile finally wiped from his face. He slammed into the far wall, cratering the concrete.
But Kai wasn't done. The dam of his restraint had broken. All the pain of his exile, the hunger of the slums, the memory of Moon's sickness, the betrayal he now faced—it all fueled his onslaught.
He didn't give Shi a moment to recover. He was upon him, Luminis Aquae a blur of blue light.
Slash!A deep cut across the chest.
Slash!A gash on the arm.
Slash!A slice across the thigh.
He was a storm of vengeance, his movements a brutal, beautiful, and terrifying dance of martial precision and elemental fury. "If I am THE WORM OF ALHUWALIA," Kai roared, his voice echoing in the shattered tunnel, "then let me show you how much dangerous a worm can be!"
He feinted high, then dropped low, putting every ounce of his strength, his speed, and his burning anger into one final, horizontal slash.
The blade met no resistance.
Shi Xiao's head, its expression frozen in a mask of shock, separated cleanly from his shoulders. It tumbled through the air in a macabre arc before hitting the ground with a dull, final thud. The body remained upright for a heartbeat, then slumped to its knees and collapsed.
Silence returned to the tunnel, broken only by Kai's ragged breaths and the soft drip of water—and blood. The worm had indeed shown its teeth.
To be continued…