Chapter 52: System Alert
[SYSTEM ALERT]
[Threat Assessment: Critical]
[Hostile Detected: Six-Star Warrior]
[Survival Directive: Remain alive against this target for an unknown duration of engagement]
[Reward Pending: New Ability Unlock]
Kael read the notification in the half second it took Robert to push himself fully upright off the ground, and the weight of it settled into him fast.
"Cool," he muttered. "Cool, cool, cool."
Robert dusted himself off, looked at the smoking crater the explosion had left, and then looked at the goblin standing protectively over Violet. His expression shifted from irritation into something more analytical.
"You’re not a simple goblin," he said.
"Seems so," Kael said.
Robert’s sword was already in his hand again, the casualness from before gone, replaced by the focused stillness of someone recalculating a fight they thought had already ended.
"Doesn’t matter what you are," he said. "You’ll die the same way everything else does."
He moved.
Kael had never felt anything move that fast. One moment Robert was ten feet away; the next, his sword was already arcing toward Kael’s neck, and the only reason Kael’s head was still attached was that his perception, stretched thin and razor-sharp from being compressed into a single body, registered the attack a half second before his eyes did.
He dropped low and felt the blade pass through the space his head had occupied.
’Okay,’ he thought, scrambling backward, ’that’s how this is going to go.’
Robert pressed immediately, no pause between strikes, each swing forcing Kael into a retreat that had no clean exit, the violence of it relentless and clinical. Kael ducked one, sidestepped another, felt a third graze close enough to nick the edge of his borrowed armor.
He threw an explosion spell at point-blank range, hoping the proximity would matter.
Robert simply angled his blade and let the blast deflect off the flat of it, the force scattering harmlessly to the side.
"That’s weak," Robert said, already swinging again.
Kael felt the strike coming and twisted, the blade catching only air, and used the opening to put real distance between them, putting Violet further behind him with every retreating step.
[Ultimate Counter — Available]
The notification sat in the corner of his vision, patient, waiting to be used. Kael filed it away. One shot per minute. He needed Robert to commit to something worth countering, not waste it on a probing strike.
Robert closed the distance again, faster this time, and Kael read the angle of his shoulders, the subtle shift in his footing that told Kael where the strike was actually headed before the sword even moved. He had no idea where that read came from. Maybe it was the dungeon consciousness compressed into flesh, maybe it was pure desperation sharpening his instincts to a fine point. He didn’t have time to wonder about it.
He moved exactly enough.
The blade passed a hair’s width from his ribs, and he used the momentum of the dodge to throw a second explosion spell, this one aimed not at Robert directly but at the ground beneath his trailing foot.
The blast caught him off guard, just enough to disrupt his footing.
Robert stumbled half a step.
It was the first time he had been forced to react rather than simply attack, and Kael used it, closing the distance himself for once and throwing a punch that connected solidly with Robert’s jaw.
Robert’s head snapped sideways.
For one full second, nobody moved.
Then Robert turned back, and there was no humor left in his face at all.
"You actually hit me," he said, low and flat, touching his jaw with two fingers and checking for blood.
"Yeah," Kael said, breathing hard, every instinct in his borrowed body screaming that he had just made a serious mistake. "I’d do it again, honestly."
Robert’s grip on his sword tightened.
He came in faster now, the strikes losing the casual rhythm they had carried before, replaced by something sharper and more committed. Kael felt the change immediately, the margin for error shrinking with every exchange. He dodged one cut by inches. He weaved under a second. A third clipped his shoulder, drawing a thin line of pain that told him this body would not survive much more of this kind of pressure.
He threw himself sideways and unleashed Ultimate Counter the moment Robert telegraphed a heavier, more committed swing, a strike meant to end the exchange. The counter caught the blade mid-motion, the force of it rebounding back into Robert’s arm and staggering him for the second time.
"Impossible," Robert said.
"Apparently not," Kael said, scrambling backward again, lungs burning despite not technically needing to breathe through this body the way a human did. The strain of it was real regardless.
Robert stood there for a moment, sword lowered slightly, studying the goblin in front of him with an expression that had fully abandoned condescension and arrived somewhere closer to genuine focus.
"What are you?" he said again, quieter this time.
Kael did not answer. He kept his stance low, eyes locked on Robert’s sword hand, waiting for the next opening, every part of him aware that he had survived this far on instinct and luck and nothing else, and that luck did not last forever against someone like this.
Behind him, Violet stirred weakly, watching through half-open eyes.
Robert’s jaw tightened.
"Fine," he said. "Let’s stop playing."
The air around him began to change. The pressure in the air rose rapidly, and it did not seem to want to stop anytime soon.
"I simply don’t have the time to watch you dance around me, goblin. So I’ll take you down fast and be done with it.
You could have easily lived your monster life somewhere with that strength of yours, but you chose to aid these humans."
His aura twisted into something sharp. It felt as if there were a hundred sharp blades floating in the air. This was the sword aura of a powerhouse warrior like Robert, and it was no joke