Chapter 101: Penalty

"Come on then, you stitched-up leech."

Elias bent his knee, and jumped. The water rippled beneath his feet.

He met it halfway and they collided mid-air.

The null led with a fused limb — six feet long, edge honed to a scalpel. It came down to split him from shoulder to hip.

Elias caught it, bare-handed.

[WARNING: DIRECT CONTACT WITH ANOMALY]

"What?!"

The second his skin touched the Neus’s, his Sense screamed a full-body alarm. Elias could feel it: dozens of consciousnesses inside the Null, all of them screaming, all of them aware, all of them trying to crawl into him through the point of contact.

He almost recoiled at the sheer force. The voices pierced his mind yearning to take him away.

"Be a part of us!" They chanted.

The pendant around his neck flashed white-hot, blinding every eye that saw it. It lit up the whole cave to daylight.

They saw the grotesque figure of the null even more clearly.

Kael staggered back, eyes widened.

"What the hell!"

Eventually, the pendant cracked further, and the light died down.

The noise in Elias’s head intensified.

"Come to us!"

"Come to us!"

He wrenched hard and the fused limb tore free from Neus’s shoulder with a sound like wet trees splitting. Black ichor sprayed into the water. The stitched faces nearest the wound shrieked.

Elias didn’t throw the limb away.

He flipped it in his grip and drove it up, straight through Neus’s gut.

The blade punched through stretched leather and came out Neus’s back, dragging black cords and half-digested ribs with it. The null folded around the wound, the main mouth opening in a silent, heaving gasp.

They crashed down together. Shelf stone shattered. Water, sloshed back into the crater and flash-steamed off Elias’s skin.

Elias swivelled and landed on top. One knee on Neus’s chest. One hand is still gripping the limb buried in its gut. His other hand reared back, dark mist crackling between his fingers, ready to cave its skull in.

Then from the high rock—

"Elias, holy shit, you won! You freaking won!"

Kael.

It just had to be Kael.

Kael, who’d been doing so good.

Kael, who’d lasted almost two whole minutes without talking.

The null head snapped toward the sound. All of it. Every eye swiveled up to Kael.

[Alert: Secondary Target Lock Detected]

[Null Attention: Split – 20% Primary / 80% Secondary]

"No!"

Too late.

Elias jumped off, as soon as he noticed the Null strong desire to get up. The anomaly moved like it didn’t have a six-foot blade in its gut. The fused limbs on its back slammed into the shelf and launched itself atKael.

Several feet covered in one leap. Black cords tore from its wound, spraying ichor, but it didn’t care. Its main mouth opened wide, rows of fused teeth and stitched tongues writhing.

Kael’s eyes went huge. "Oh fu—"

Elias lunged. Void erase aimed at Neus’s ankle, to yank it back.

[Xp: 100/100]

[Initialing ability upgrade]

Kael moved first.

Instinct, terror and Leech survival mode fused together. His hand moved to his boot. The dagger was out before Elias could take note of what was happening.

He stabbed right into Neus’s descending eye.

Shk!

The dagger went into the hilt.

[Direct Interference: Confirmed]

[Observer Status: Revoked]

[Penalty Activated: Scorched Trial Grounds – 2 Days]

[Mission: Failed]

The null screamed.

The sound hit physically as Kael was thrown off the high rock like a ragdoll. The dagger stayed in Neus’s eye.

Elias slid to a stop and was already moving. He stretched his hand and caught the boy before he could enter the black water, leaving him dangling by the back of his shirt like an angry, stupid kitten.

"..."

They both watched the thrashing beast.

"Did I cost you something bad?" Kael shrank further.

"A major upgrade."

[Mission Failed]

[Reason: Observer Interference]

[Penalty: Scorched Trial Grounds]

[Duration: 48:00:00]

The null thrashed, half-blinded, blade still in its gut, dagger in its eye. It wasn’t dead. But it wasn’t their problem anymore.

The system window filled Elias’s vision.

[Teleporting Party To: Scorched Trial Grounds]

[00:03...]

Kael, dangling, wheezing, looked up at Elias. "I panicked."

Elias stared at him. Eyes, cold.

[00:02...]

"I messed up. I know."

[00:01...]

"I’m sorry?"

[TELEPORTING...]

The Sunken Maw went black.

The dark light burned away.

One second they were falling through system teleport. The next, Elias hit ground he dreaded the most.

A familiar nauseous feeling.

Heat.

Not like the Sunken Maw’s boiling water and dark cave. This was dry, cracked, breathing heat. The kind that lived in your lungs and stole water from your blood.

Sector seven. A place he spent three years in, trying to survive alongside a thousand people.

Elias landed on his feet. Kael hit his shoulder and rolled, coughing, the dagger wound in his palm still fresh from where he’d gripped too hard.

[Location: Scorched Trial Grounds]

[Duration: 47:59:58]

[Objective: Survive]

The sky was red. Burning sun, no clouds. Just a flat, lidless red that hurt to look at. The ground was black sand and ash.

It was worse than he had remembered.

And twenty feet away, steaming, were Nulls and crawlers.

Smaller. A lot of them.

Crawling, shrieking, running. Anything to get to the new prey.

The system continued its notification. Although Elias didn’t get a major upgrade, the experience points accumulated were enough to get to the next level.

[System ability: Void]

[Level:02]

[Xp: 0/200]

[Skill: void erase]

[Skill unlocked >>Void pull]

’Void pull?’

Kael pushed himself up, ash sticking to his palms. He looked at Neus. Looked at Elias. Looked at the timer.

"Two days," he croaked. His throat was already dry. "We have to fight those for two days straight?! In this hellhole?!"

Elias glanced at him.

"Welcome to sector seven, leech."

"Sector seven?" He frowned. "How did you know that this is sector sev... this is sector seven? Your sector?!"

Elias didn’t reply.

"How did you survive here?"

No answer.

"Kael," he said instead.

"Yeah?"

"You’re not an observer anymore." Elias’s voice was flat. "You interfered. The system revoked it."

Kael blinked. Then checked his screen.

[Status: Upholder – Kael Winger]

[Designation: Penalty Combatant]

[Restrictions Lifted]

His eyes went wide. "Oh. OH. I can—"

Elias glanced at him.

"Fight now. Prepare to die in my arms later."