Chapter 198: The Fist King
"F-fuck!" Kael cursed as he couldn’t move, he desperately tried to lift his body up, but no amount of strength was going to help him do that.
Kael felt fear, real fear, that Climbers were dangerous, this man was dangerous, deadly even.
His heart rate began pumping faster, higher, and more pitched. For a second, the pressure slightly, ever so slightly, reduced. He gripped the floor and tried to push himself up, but the pressure became twice as much, so he fell on his face and almost chipped his teeth.
Then the pressure slammed back down harder, punishing the attempt.
Warmth ran across his upper lip. His mouth tasted iron, sharp and bitter. His eyes watered, not from emotion but from the simple act of existing under that weight.
Andre’s voice cut in, annoyed again, like someone had spilled ash across his newly-cleaned floor. But there was something else too: a warning edge. A line Andre didn’t want crossed in his forge.
Kael’s vision tunneled. The world became a circle of stone and grime and the horrible realization that if the man kept going, Kael would simply stop. No dramatic end. Just... crushed. Like a bug.
It wasn’t courage. It wasn’t some heroic surge. It was that weird thing Kael had noticed in himself since the tower, his body hitting a ceiling, then snapping into cold control. Like something inside him refused to keep panicking once it realized panic was useless.
"The fuck... you want..." he said, gritting his teeth as blood poured from his nose and mouth.
"Good!" the man said as a wide smile appeared on his face, and immediately, all the pressure disappeared as if it was never there.
Only then could Kael take a breath, only then was he able to move.
"Did I wrong you?" Kael asked, as he struggled to stand up, every muscle in his body felt like it had torn from overwork.
Kael stared at him, genuinely baffled. His brain tried to find the missing link and came up empty.
"It’s because we didn’t meet earlier that I feel wronged; now you have to make up for it."
"The fuck is that reasoning, old man?" Kael said.
Andre’s head snapped toward the man like he’d been slapped. "Are you serious, Fist?" Andre asked.
Kael wiped his mouth again, tasting blood, tasting humiliation, tasting anger. He’d been forced onto the floor like a dog and then offered a collar with a grin.
"Well, it isn’t like you have a choice in the matter," the man shrugged.
Kael’s hands curled slightly, instinctively. He had weapons. He had runes. He had tricks. But every part of his body remembered that pressure and knew exactly how meaningless those tools were in front of this man if he decided to be serious.
The words were calm. Not a threat. A statement.
Kael’s eyes flicked to the bottle. Andre held it like it was a treasure, fingers tight, already mentally drinking it. The dwarf looked annoyed, but the fact that he’d stepped in at all said enough. Andre wasn’t letting this go fully out of control.
Kael’s voice came out rougher than he wanted. He hated sounding confused in front of people like this. Confusion was weakness. Weakness got exploited.
Kael’s stomach sank, not because he understood, but because the man spoke like he was diagnosing something. Like Kael wasn’t being threatened, he was being informed.
"No need for me to tell you, in one day, you’ll understand what I mean. I’d recommend you not go out until then. Andre, I’ll be leaving my gloves here."
"Nope, still stuck on the same floor, no one worthy," he then looked at Kael, "Yet." And then simply disappeared.
It was like he used the presence rune, more like he himself felt like the rune.
Kael stood frozen for a second, then sucked a careful breath through his nose, only to wince because the inside of it still hurt.
Andre took a sip from the drink and said, "Hnh... looks like I can’t be lettin’ ye leave just yet." he sighed.
Andre rolled the bottle in his hands like he was deciding which truth to give first. Then, with the reluctance of someone admitting the sky was blue,
"And who is this guy?"
Floor 89.
And apparently, that universe had just walked into Andre’s filthy forge, called Kael a ticking bomb, and decided he belonged to him.