Chapter 178: A Daring Idea
Kael walked up one of the building’s staircases up to the third floor, which was full of rubble, broken windows, and torn walls, but it still had enough structure to cover him from sight.
The staircase complained under his weight, gravel shifting, rusted beams groaning softly. He kept his steps tight to the inner edge where the concrete was thicker.
The outside wall was missing in places, exposing the red sky and the distant pillars of flame. He could see the city like a carcass from up here, cracked streets, gutted buildings, moving specks of red and green.
He then peered over one of the broken windows to see the Ifrit hovering in the street, moving rather slowly in fact.
It wasn’t running. It wasn’t chasing. It was drifting like a king walking through a conquered town, unhurried because nothing could stop it.
The asphalt underneath its floating body changed color to a darker, then redder, then molten form from how slow it moved.
And that wasn’t even the Ifrit actively trying to ’burn’ the asphalt.
That was just passive heat.
Kael watched the road deform under it. It was obscene. Not flashy magic, not dramatic attack, just existence as damage. The kind of thing you couldn’t "tank" or "dodge." If you stood too close, you lost because the environment itself lost.
"Damn, I wonder how people were supposed to kill this thing..." Kael thought, but then again...
"I guess, thirty days is enough for a group of people to gather enough power and resources from the shop to combat it... but I accelerated the whole thing too much..."
He tasted bitterness at the back of his throat. Not regret, regret was useless, but the recognition that his early advantage had come with a floor-wide cost. The Tower’s economy, the Ifrit’s rage, the shrinking zone... he’d pushed dominoes, and now they were falling on everyone.
He sighed as he realized how his own advancement and upgrades made the whole floor far riskier than what it should.
Granted, many would have died trying to fight it even after thirty days. But it would still be safer than doing it when it’s enraged now.
He kept his face low behind the broken sill and tracked the Ifrit’s movement. Its head of horned stone turned slowly, scanning. Not with eyes like a human, more like a predator sensing heat, life, motion. The air around it shimmered. Every few seconds, small sparks crawled off its body and died before hitting the ground, like the world couldn’t even keep embers alive near it.
Suddenly, the Ifrit raised a hand and pointed at one of the buildings.
Kael’s attention snapped to the mini-map first. Instinct. He searched for what triggered it.
He noted that there was a green dot in that building the Ifrit was aiming at, and immediately, a fireball the size of a small car shot out from its hand and lit up the whole thing in flames.
The blast wasn’t like Kael’s fireball. It wasn’t a "spell" so much as a verdict. The air warped, the impact hit, and the building didn’t just ignite; it became fire. Windows blew out. Walls split. A roar rolled through the street as flame ate upward like it was starving.
The green dot, of course, disappeared immediately.
No hesitation. No fight. Just erased.
Kael clicked his tongue.
He didn’t feel sorry. Not because he was heartless, but because pity didn’t change outcomes. Whoever that was had gotten noticed, and on this floor, being noticed was death.
"Fucker has a UAV..." he sighed as he kept watch.
The snark slipped out like a reflex, but it wasn’t really a joke. It was the observation that mattered: the Ifrit wasn’t blind. It wasn’t passive. It was actively hunting. It could target through buildings. It could kill at range. And it didn’t need to get close to do it.
Unlike what anyone else would have done, and that was run the fuck away, Kael remained in place.
Watching, inspecting, and checking things out.
He didn’t shift his weight too much. Didn’t let his silhouette rise above the window line. Didn’t breathe too loud, even though that was stupid; breathing wasn’t what got you killed. Movement did. Heat did. Attention did.
After all, if the Ifrit noticed or located him, he could immediately go into [Presence] and ghost away.
That was the safety net he kept folded in his back pocket, the one he tried not to touch unless he had to. Presence wasn’t free anymore. Everything costs energy, and energy was time.
The large building kept burning, and soon an already damaged piece on the higher floor fell down.
It was a wall section that was hanging on by god’s will alone, and with the impact of the fireball, it got looser.
The chunk peeled away from the structure like a rotten tooth, finally giving up. It tumbled down in slow, ugly rotation, trailing sparks and debris. Kael watched it fall straight toward the Ifrit.
The large piece of wall fell on the Ifrit, and it smacked its head on.
For a heartbeat, Kael expected it to do nothing, expected the wall to vaporize, expected the Ifrit to ignore it.
But it hit. Stone met stone. Mass met mass.
The Ifrit howled.
No, it didn’t release sound, but flared in heat as it was ’damaged’ by the building and raised its arm up, shooting out a larger fireball toward the section where the wall fell on him, blasting the upper part of the building into the heavens.
The retaliation was immediate and furious. The fireball didn’t just ignite the area; it disassembled it. The top of the building blew apart, chunks of concrete launched outward like shrapnel, flaming debris raining down in a wide, deadly arc. The street shook beneath Kael’s boots even from here, the vibration crawling through the bones of the ruin he was hiding in.
Kael’s mouth twisted into a sly grin.
Not because it was funny. Because it was useful.
The Ifrit reacted to impact.
It didn’t ignore physical force. It didn’t float through debris like a ghost. It got hit.
"I see... well, that’s some good news now, isn’t it?" he squeezed his hands tight enough from anticipation.