Chapter 116: Broken Pride
Deep within the monster zone, Rebecca continued to trail behind Tyler, though her patience was wearing thin. She had been following him through the trees for a long time. Ducking behind a tree trunk, she peeked around the bark.
*Just where is he going? Or where is that thing taking him?*
Tyler was beginning to wonder the exact same thing. He didn't know where the necklace was leading him, simply following the direction of its magnetic pull in the hope that it would guide him to something worth finding.
"Just where the hell are you taking me?" he muttered under his breath.
Suddenly, the tension vanished from the dark chain, and the pendant went completely limp.
"Huh?" Tyler breathed out, coming to an abrupt halt.
He lifted the necklace and shook it. The pendant dangled motionless from his fingers, refusing to rise again.
A few dozen feet away, Rebecca's mouth fell slightly agape. With her Perception skill still active, her silver eyes could see what Tyler could not, subtle air displacements and distortions circling him, crawling stealthily through the brush toward his position.
"Dracos," she muttered beneath her breath.
She almost took a step out from behind her tree, but hesitated.
*Should I warn him?*
Tyler's cold threat from the tent echoed in her mind, how he had warned her that if she came looking for him again, he would put her in a worse state than the one he had saved her from. She remembered the faint, chilling glow behind his eyes, his tone absolute and final. Yet she also recalled his expression before that outburst, he hadn't looked angry at all, but genuinely disappointed.
Looking back through the foliage, she saw a large, shifting camouflage shape, a massive lizard wagging its thick tail just feet away from Tyler's back.
Tyler's eyes narrowed into a sharp glare. He felt the air grow heavy, a surge of hungry, predatory malice surrounding him from every angle.
"Watch out!" a voice called out from behind.
Tyler spun around on his heel, catching sight of a massive ball of green goo, the size of his head, streaking through the air directly for his legs. He launched himself to the left, diving clear of the projectile.
Landing on his feet, he looked toward the voice and saw Rebecca standing in the woods a distance ahead.
"Get out of there! Before you get surrounded!" she screamed.
"What?" Tyler breathed, caught completely off guard.
Beside him, the projectile struck the grass, instantly crystallizing and hardening into a shell resembling pre-melted hard plastic. Recognition hit him in a flash, he remembered the night receptionist describing these exact creatures. The Dracos.
Tyler triggered his skill, Mana Sight. A faint blue light flared in his eyes, and his pupils dilated in shock the instant his vision transformed.
Right in front of his face, a set of massive, gaping jaws flew straight toward him through midair, dripping stringy strands of saliva. Tyler ducked violently, turning his body as the creature overshot his head and dropped heavily onto the dirt.
As his vision traced the surrounding area, his surprise deepened, four massive lizards were closing in around him. They resembled giant Komodo dragons, each measuring a full one point five meters in length.
Through the blue glow of his Mana Sight, he could clearly see the dark mana flowing throughout their bodies, outlining their scaled shapes and highlighting the glowing mana cores within their chests.
*How did she get here? Has she been following me?* Tyler thought, keeping his stance low as he faced the invisible Dracos.
With a mental command, the Terra Dagger materialized in his right grip, the metal heavy and familiar.
*I'll have to ask her once I kill these things.*
System panels suddenly flared into existence above the four creatures in front of him, displaying their ranks and power: Level 22, Level 34, Level 27, and Level 15.
The Dracos flicked their long, forked tongues in and out, tasting his scent in the air. Without warning, the two middle Dracos spat streams of green goo straight for Tyler's torso.
Tyler drove his boots into the soil and launched meters high into the air, his body spinning horizontally to clear the incoming acid. Mid-spin, he cocked his arm and hurled the Terra Dagger directly at the back of the Level 34 Draco with all his physical strength.
The dagger tore through the air, striking the Level 34 Draco squarely in the back. The sheer kinetic force of the throw pulverized the monster's spine, detonating its upper torso in a gruesome explosion of green blood and shredded scales. The remaining three Dracos hissed in fury as the spray of thick green gore showered over them, coating their camouflaged bodies and revealing their positions.
Tyler flipped through the air and landed lightly on his feet behind the pack.
A few dozen feet away, Rebecca's mouth fell open in shock. While she was confident she could have dodged the goo herself, watching Tyler evade the projectile while simultaneously executing a brutal, single-throw kill was a breathtaking display of raw martial skill.
The Terra Dagger vanished from the pulverized corpse on the ground, dissolving into light and rematerializing instantly in Tyler's hand.
He exploded forward, closing the distance on the Level 27 Draco. The creature whipped its massive, scaly tail around in a sweeping arc, attempting to crush his legs. Tyler swung the Terra Dagger downward in a sharp stroke, the blade sheared clean through the thick tail, causing the Draco to let out a piercing hiss. The severed tail tumbled onto the dirt, thrashing and bouncing violently like a dying snake.
Before the remaining pair, the Level 22 and Level 15 Dracos could adjust their stances, Tyler spun on his heel, his arm sweeping the blade horizontally through the air. The Terra Dagger cleaved through both of their necks at the exact same time, severing their heads in a single fluid stroke. Both massive bodies collapsed heavily onto the earth.
The Level 27 Draco shrieked in agony from its severed tail, but Tyler quickly pivoted his weight and drove a brutal side-kick squarely into the side of the creature's neck.
The explosive force launched the lizard through the air, sending it crashing violently into a nearby tree. Bark splintered in every direction as the impact shattered the creature's spine and ribs. It slumped to the base of the tree, dead.
He glanced around the clearing. With their camouflage broken by green blood and death, the remaining bodies lay clearly visible on the forest floor, thick, green-scaled reptiles resembling giant Komodo dragons. He no longer needed his vision skill to track them.
His mana Sight deactivated, the faint blue glow fading from his eyes. He turned his shoulders to face Rebecca.
Rebecca took slow, measured steps toward him, her expression a mix of shock and utter confusion. Tyler gave the Terra Dagger a sharp side-flick, spraying the green blood off the blade onto the grass, before the weapon shimmered with a faint blue light and vanished back into his inventory.
"What are you doing here? Did you follow me?" he asked.
"Why wouldn't I, when you stole something from me?" Rebecca retorted, holding her ground. "Plus, I saved your life just now. If it wasn't for me, you'd be dead. So we're even."
Tyler smiled, a quiet chuckle escaping his lips before he could stop it. Her words struck him as offensive and ironic all at once.
"You followed me because I stole something from you? Yeah, right," he said. He turned his shoulders, presenting his back to her as he walked forward through the trees. "If you keep following me, you'll get hurt. I'm not going to say it again."
Rebecca gritted her teeth in anger at his calm, confident tone.
*Damn it, this bastard,* she thought, her fingers clenching into fists. *If I had a weapon, a bow, he'd stand no chance against me.*
Suddenly, the carcasses of the Dracos scattered across the grass shimmered with a faint blue light, and their scaled hides dissolved instantly into his inventory space.
Rebecca gasped, her eyes darting around the clearing. "What just happened?" she muttered.
Ignoring her outburst, Tyler crouched down and retrieved the small black orb from the grass. The item had reverted to its spherical shape when he dropped it during the initial attack. He held the object in his palm, studying the smooth metal.
*This thing... did it lead me straight to the Dracos?*
A sudden realization struck him, bringing a broad smile to his face. His eyes widened, excitement brightening his features.
*Did it do that because it knew what I was looking for? It might be useful after all.*
"Hey!" Rebecca shouted out loud.
Tyler stood tall, keeping his face turned away as he continued walking forward.
"Hey, I'm talking to you,* she shouted, taking a step into the grass to pursue him.
Before her boot could land, Tyler swiveled on his heel, the Terra Dagger materializing in his grip in a flash of light. He whipped his arm out, hurling the blade straight into the earth inches from the tip of Rebecca's boot.
A cloud of dry dust puffed into the afternoon air. Rebecca stumbled backward, her balance breaking as she nearly fell to the forest floor.
Tyler held her gaze across the distance, his face cold. "I told you not to follow me. Do you think I'm joking around?"
Rebecca's heart hammered violently against her ribs, her breath catching in her throat.
"If you take even a single step forward," Tyler said, his voice dropping into a lethal register, "I'll kill you where you stand."
Rebecca froze for a full minute, her chest heaving as she processed her narrow escape.
*I couldn't react. If he wanted to kill me, he could have done it just now.*
Ahead of her, the Terra Dagger embedded in the earth vanished with a faint blue shimmer, returning to Tyler's inventory.
"This ability..." Rebecca muttered under her breath, staring at the empty dirt.
Tyler turned his shoulders, resuming his walk through the sunlit woods.
"Tyler!" Rebecca called out.
The moment his name left her lips, a sudden, blinding temper surged through Tyler's chest faster than anything he had ever felt before.
"Why did you get into a fight with Gary?" she pressed, taking a fast step forward.
Tyler spun around to face her, his eyes cold. "Keep my name out of that filthy mouth of yours. And that has nothing to do with you." He turned his back once more, intending to walk away.
"The guild is actively looking for you," she continued, her voice sharp with urgency. "The man you found dead in the monster zone last night, he was a part of the Black Cloud Guild. He must have come here looking for—"
"Shut up," Tyler barked, cutting her off before the sentence could leave her throat.
His right hand shimmered with a pale blue light, and the white-bandage-wrapped bow materialized directly into his grip.
Rebecca gasped, the air catching in her throat as her eyes dilated. "My bow..." she muttered.
"You want your weapon back, right?" Tyler asked. "Well, you can have it."
He clamped both hands around the metal frame of the bow, his jaw clenching tight as he flexed his strength to snap the weapon in half.
"What are you doing?!" Rebecca screamed, horror crashing over her face as she realized his intent.
A heavy, agonizing creak echoed from the bow as the thick metal frame began to slowly bend under the immense pressure of his hands.
"No!" she shrieked.
Her movement skill triggered on pure instinct, and she sprinted forward in a blur of motion. The moment she closed the distance, Tyler drove his right boot squarely into her abdomen.
The heavy impact crushed the air from her lungs. Her eyes bulged as a spray of crimson blood erupted from her mouth, her body flying backward and rolling across the dirt multiple times before coming to a halt.
Fighting through the blinding agony in her stomach and back, Rebecca ground her teeth together and forced herself up onto one knee.
Through her blurred vision, she saw the metal bow bending further, the straining frame groaning on the verge of snapping completely in two.
"No... please! Please!" she begged, her composure shattering into desperate panic.
She collapsed onto both knees, pressing her palms flat against the dirt.
"I'm sorry!" she screamed at the top of her lungs.
Tyler froze instantly, the immense pressure in his hands halting as her words caught him completely off guard.
"Please... don't do it," she said, her voice breaking into ragged, desperate gasps. "You wanted me to apologize... I'm sorry."
Tyler paused for a second, staring down at her on her knees. He shook his head. "You don't mean it," he said, his fingers tightening around the metal frame once more.
"No, no, no, no, no, no, I mean it!" Rebecca cried out, her voice frantic as her hands gripped the dirt. "I mean it, it's true! I'm sorry, for everything!"
Tyler held her gaze for a long moment. Gradually, the tension in his arms eased, and his hands lowered the weapon to his side. "All right. If you don't want me to break this thing, you'll answer every question I ask truthfully. Understand?"
"Y—Yes," Rebecca stammered, nodding her head slowly as she sat back on her heels.
"That fight last night with that man," Tyler demanded, his eyes locking onto hers. "Tell me what happened. Why did he try to kill you."
Rebecca paused, her chest rising and falling as she swallowed hard. Her throat felt painfully dry, raw from screaming, filled with nothing but the sharp, metallic, tangy taste of blood lingering on her tongue.