Novel Full Chapter 820: 820: Family Feud
Chapter 820: Chapter 820: Family Feud
The moonlit clearing erupted as Kain’s subtle hand twitch sliced through the night’s stillness.
Darius and Malzahir dropped from the gnarled trees, their silhouettes blending with the jagged shadows cast by barren branches, their contracts beside them.
Darius’s orange-grade jellyfish-squid hybrid contract floated forward. Malzahir’s wyrm coiled menacingly, its feather-like fins glinting razor-sharp, tarnished bronze eyes locking onto its target with toxic intent.
Jax burst from behind a boulder, his orange-grade segmented cube contract starting to whir again as it began to build up and store an electric current, pink magnetic arcs crackling between floating cubes, its pupilless pink eyes glowing with erratic energy.
Miya emerged from a patch of dry grass, her orange-grade black-furred feline prowling forward, three blue flame-tipped tails lashing as heat waves rippled the air, igniting the grass into a smoldering barrier to block any retreat.
Airalai stood in the clearing’s center, her purple hair catching moonlight like a violet halo, her serene facade fracturing as the team encircled her.
Dark-attribute spiritual energy coiled briefly around her hands, shadowy tendrils writhing like vipers. Kain glanced at it in curiosity. Given that the Director was unawakened (at least until Kain’s help) and didn’t mention anything about beast-tamer family members, Kain had assumed that perhaps everyone related to the Director was affinity-less. Which is why, after her disappearance, none of them had much hope that Airalai would be able to survive until now. But now, it looks like Airalai either has some kind of affinity or gift. Or her body had been enhanced by the Black Dawn’s experiments herself. In which case she’d be the first successful case of one of those experiments working. Until now, Kain had viewed them solely as useless torture with no instances of ever working.
Her violet eyes flicked from Kain to the surrounding contracts, surprise flashing before settling into an icy calm. “Brother,” she said, her voice smooth as polished stone, “some reunion. Not quite the welcome I imagined after all these years of separation.”
Kain’s aura chilled the air, his voice low and unyielding. “It’s over, Airalai. Surrender, or we end this now.”
She tilted her head, a faint smile curving her lips, as if the ambush was nothing more than a poorly timed interruption. “End it? After all our years apart? I think not. I was just starting to enjoy our time together, and I have no intention of letting it end so abruptly.”
The shadows around her hands writhed as if ready to lash—but then, just as Kain braced for a fight that could split the surrounding rundown buildings apart, she let them fade. Her posture relaxed, and she raised her palms slowly, open and unthreatening.
“Fine. You win. Shall we continue this conversation elsewhere?” Her tone was light, almost playful, as if she were being invited for afternoon tea, not facing capture. The cunning in her eyes, sharp and cold as the blade of a knife, mirrored the heartless figure from Gabriel’s memories—a manipulator who tortured children for Black Dawn’s cause, now playing docile.
The sudden shift jarred the group. Every muscle in Kain had been prepared for bloodshed, his mind already rehearsing counters for her strikes, yet she surrendered as though she had never had any intention of fighting him. The clash between the violence he’d steeled himself for and the almost casual way she gave in left the air tighter and more uneasy than an actual battle would have.
The team tensed, weapons and contracts primed for a trick. The team held position, contracts tense and ready, the night air heavy with the threat of violence that never came.
Kain raised a hand, signaling them to hold. Airalai’s aura felt nonexistent—thin and hollow, like the earlier dark-attribute power she flared had been no more than an illusion.
Then she smiled faintly, her gaze sliding over Darius and the others. They each tensed as she made eye contact with them one by one and glanced at each of their contracts. “Interesting… your underlings seem quite unique. I’ve travelled far on behalf of the Black Dawn, even to other continents, and I can’t recall ever seeing contracts like these. Not a single one of them looks familiar. Not even in whispered rumors.” Her curiosity carried no warmth, only a calculating edge, and the team stiffened under her scrutiny.
Seeing her already trying to poke at the irregularities of himself and those around him, he once again contemplated just killing her. But suddenly the faces of Bridge and the Director flashed in his mind and he couldn’t bring himself to do so.
Kain’s gut clenched. Not to mention, although he didn’t trust her, capturing her alive offered answers about the abyss and the Black Dawn’s plans. As an organization that had been supposedly planning for the Abyss’ arrival for years, surely they would know more about the Abyss than little old Kain…
From his storage ring, Kain produced a 5-star enchanted rope, its threads woven with shimmering runes that pulsed with binding energy. He’d traded for it months ago at the System Shop on Pangea. Since the shop’s contents refreshed every week, it was a pilgrimage he made even when his Source Points hit zero. The Shop, a glowing pavilion atop Pangea’s ‘holy mountain’ (as the inhabitants began to think of the physical manifestation of the System), refreshed with otherworldly objects—enchanted weapons, tomes of information, spiritual skills and objects from other unknown realms. Even if Kain couldn’t afford anything that week, he still visited to broaden his horizons, studying items he couldn’t afford, like a fire-wreathed spear or a scroll of void-stepping.
Thankfully, this rope, designed to suppress high-grade spiritual power, had appeared at a (short) time when Kain did have points and it just so happened to not be too expensive for its described effect, its runes promising to bind even a five-star beast-tamer or green-grade spiritual creature. Now, it would contain his sister.
He tossed the rope toward Airalai. It uncoiled like a living thing, wrapping her wrists and ankles with unyielding force, the runes flaring as they sealed her energy with a low hum. She didn’t flinch, letting it bind her as if donning fine jewelry, her smile unwavering. “It looks like you came prepared.”
“Move,” Kain ordered, his voice flat. “We’re taking you to your new ‘home’.”
The team escorted her to Kain’s nearby headquarters, a reinforced warehouse on the town’s edge, and the location where they’d all undergone their own awakening ceremony. Its proximity to the meetup location was no coincidence—Kain had chosen the clearing for this very reason.
The HQ, a hub for his secretive operations with Darius’s crew, bristled with spiritual arrays and hidden chambers, its walls etched with runes to contain high-grade threats. The short walk was tense.
Malzahir sneezed again, perhaps allergic to a nearby plant. The corrosive spit splattered a roadside rock, narrowly missing Jax’s foot. sizzling as it melted into a blackened puddle, the acrid stench stinging the air.
Jax muttered, “Buddy, aim that somewhere else,” while Miya smirked, “Why? Afraid of a little spit?.”
Airalai walked with regal poise, her bound wrists resting easily in front of her, as if she were strolling a ballroom rather than being escorted in chains. Her violet eyes lingered on each of them in turn, studying, cataloging, as though storing away their strengths, flaws and interactions.
The scrutiny gnawed at the team more than her silence. Even in bondage, she seemed in control.
At the HQ, Airalai was led to a cell in the basement Kain had specially made for moments like this, its walls shimmering with containment sigils and was made of the strongest metals he could find.
She stepped inside with poise, settling on the steel bench as if at a café, her bound hands resting lightly in her lap. “So, Kain,” she said, her voice conversational, “what now? A family chat? Or do you plan to play interrogator?”
Kain stood outside, his expression granite. “Why surrender? You didn’t even try to fight.”
She leaned back, her violet eyes gleaming. “And waste my energy? No, brother. I know you’ll listen eventually. The Black Dawn isn’t your enemy. The abyss is coming—faster than you know. We’re humanity’s only hope.” Her tone was calm, almost bored, but carried a chilling certainty. Then she leaned forward slightly, her voice dropping into a whisper that slithered past the runes: “The abyss isn’t waiting beyond the horizon, Kain. It’s already here, gnawing at your walls.”
Kain’s fist clenched, but he turned to the viewing panel, where Darius, Malzahir, Jax, and Miya watched, their contracts still active. Jax whispered, “She’s too relaxed. Bet she’s got an ace.” Miya nodded, as if sensing it’s master’s agitation, her feline’s tails flickering.
Airalai’s voice drifted through the panel as the cell door sealed. “You can’t stop what’s coming alone, Kain. Not even you.” Her words hung in the air, a cryptic warning sharpened by her earlier whisper. Kain paused, a chill creeping down his spine.
Her surrender was too easy, her calm too calculated.
Was her weakness real, or was she playing a longer game?
Or, like she alluded to, he’d eventually come crawling back to her to ask for help against the Abyss?