Free Web NovelChapter 286: The Predator’s Game (2)
"I have to use it!" Emma yelled in panic.
She pointed her palm at the lead hound. Ignoring Marcus’s previous warning, Emma forcefully channeled her mana. The blood inside the beast instantly superheated and combusted.
A violent burst of crimson fire illuminated the dark tunnel, instantly incinerating the lead hound and terrifying the remaining pack into retreating down a side channel.
The crimson fire faded, plunging them back into total darkness, but the damage was already done.
Emma’s magic flared like a beacon on the Vanguard’s radar.
High above them, Torix sensed the sudden spike of thermal energy. He clicked his mandibles in satisfaction and immediately relayed the coordinates to Novus and Hawl.
Down in the aqueducts, the group stood frozen in the water. The silence felt heavier than before.
A sharp metallic clink suddenly echoed from the ceiling directly above Ethan. Before he could react, a monomolecular wire dropped from the darkness and wrapped tightly around his wrist. The invisible silk jerked forcefully upward, entirely dislocating Ethan’s shoulder with a sickening pop.
Ethan screamed in agony as he was hoisted partially out of the water.
"Cut it!" Marcus yelled, swinging his broadsword in the dark to sever the unseen wire. The silk snapped, dropping Ethan back into the freezing water.
A chilling laugh echoed from the shadows down the tunnel. It belonged to Novus.
"Running already?" Novus taunted from the dark, his voice bouncing off the stone walls to make it impossible to pinpoint his location. "You have such a long way to go." ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com
A poisoned dagger flew through the darkness, intentionally missing Liam’s throat by a fraction of an inch to slice a shallow cut across his cheek instead. The Vanguard was not trying to kill them. They were actively playing with their food.
"Move!" Marcus commanded, realizing they were completely exposed. "Deeper into the tunnels! Go!"
Marcus waded through the waist-deep sludge, his golden broadsword casting a flickering glow against the wet brick walls to reveal completely empty corridors. Ethan leaned against a nearby pillar, clutching his dislocated shoulder.
"Keep moving," Ethan muttered through gritted teeth.
Elena pressed her glowing hands against his torn ligaments. "My mana is depleting."
Her boots caught on a submerged iron grate, causing her to stumble forward and nearly drop her staff into the muck.
’We are burning everything just to survive the next corner,’ Marcus realized, his grip tightening around the hilt of his weapon.
An invisible wire dropped from the vaulted ceiling and coiled around Liam’s ankle. The cord snapped upward, ripping him completely off his feet and sending him face-first into the stagnant water.
Emma raised her palms to unleash a burst of crimson fire. The sudden illumination revealed Torix crawling along the arched brickwork overhead. Torix released the wire and scurried backward into a narrow drainage pipe to avoid the incoming flames.
Liam pushed himself out of the sludge and spat a mouthful of foul water. Blood trickled down his calf where the monomolecular silk had sliced through his greaves. Mason and Sophia rushed forward, grabbing Liam by the arms to pull him upright.
"Watch the ceiling!" Mason yelled, scanning the darkness.
Splashing echoed down the adjacent tunnel. Hawl sprinted out of a side passage and launched himself off a stone column, driving a poisoned dagger directly at Logan’s ribs.
Logan reacted instantly, snapping his fingers to create a localized gravity pocket beneath the attacker. Hawl twisted his body mid-jump to escape the spatial distortion and dragged his blade across Logan’s forearm.
Hawl landed gracefully in the current and immediately dashed away into the gloom.
"He got my arm," Logan grunted, applying pressure to the bleeding gash.
Ava extended her hands to strip the friction from the stone floor beneath Hawl’s retreating boots. Hawl simply engaged a pneumatic spool attached to his waist, sending a grapple hook biting into the ceiling to pull him effortlessly out of the snare.
Novus materialized from a dark alcove right behind Isabella, slashing a dark matter blade across the back of her thigh. She collapsed with a sharp shriek, splashing into the water while Novus dissolved back into the shadows.
Marcus slammed his broadsword against the brick wall, sending a shower of sparks raining down into the current.
"Show yourselves!" Marcus commanded, turning his head to scan the darkness. "Fight us directly!"
A mocking laugh echoed from multiple directions, bouncing off the curved architecture. Novus and Hawl refused to engage in an open clash. They intended to bleed the survivors drop by drop.
Elena knelt beside Isabella and pushed her restorative light into the bleeding leg wound. Her hands shook violently, confirming her magical reserves were failing from the continuous healing.
Noah and Mia moved to the front of the formation, keeping their eyes trained on the intersections to scan for tripwires.
The fourteen of them waded deeper into the subterranean network, their splashing boots revealing their exact position to Novus and Hawl waiting in the dark.
Noah pressed his palms against the wet brickwork and let his physical form dissolve into the stone. He pulled himself upward through the plumbing network. The scraping of boots echoed just inches above his position.
’I have you,’ Noah thought.
He materialized directly beneath Hawl and drove his knife upward. The steel tip screeched against an iron plate lining the assassin’s tunic.
Hawl rolled violently through the cramped tunnel to bring his boot up and smash it squarely into Noah’s jaw. Bone cracked loudly inside the confined space.
Noah spat a mouthful of blood and lunged forward to tackle his attacker.
"Get off me!" Hawl twisted his wrist to drive a dagger toward Noah’s ribs.
Noah caught the descending arm with both hands. He slammed the assassin’s limb against the curved ceiling until the weapon popped loose. The dropped blade clattered down the sloping shaft and vanished into the darkness below.
Hawl drove a knee upward, shattering Noah’s collarbone with a loud snap.
The sounds of the brutal struggle drifted down into the main aqueduct. Marcus gripped the hilt of his broadsword and stared up at the rusted grates covering the ceiling.
Ethan wiped dirty sludge from his face and shoved Emma hard against the brick wall. Her skull connected violently with the stone.
"Every time you cast a fire spell you paint a target on our backs!" Ethan pinned her wrists against the wet masonry.
"Let go of me!" Emma brought her knee up into Ethan’s stomach and pushed him away.
She raised her palms to conjure a sphere of crimson flame. Ethan tackled her into the muck before she could release the spell. They thrashed wildly in the stagnant water.
’We are going to die down here because of them,’ Liam thought. He rushed forward alongside Mason to rip the two brawling classmates apart.
Novus watched the infighting from a drainage pipe overlooking the corridor. He picked up a loose brick from a crumbling archway and tossed it into the flooded intersection twenty yards away. The resulting splash echoed loudly across the corridor.
"Over there!" Marcus spun around and launched a massive arc of golden light toward the noise.
The holy magic slammed into the empty brickwork and blasted a hole straight through the structural support. Torix dropped another piece of masonry into the water directly behind Isabella.
"Die!" Isabella spun around with a shriek.
She unleashed a blinding wave of frost that froze a completely empty section of the tunnel. The continuous splashes drove the group into a frantic panic. They swung their weapons blindly at every sound and burned their ultimate spells on empty shadows.
Novus smiled from his perch and collected another handful of stones.
They continued this until dawn, and wherever the heralds thought they were safe and they could rest for a bit, Novus and Hawl returned and kept them awake.
After that, they returned to the palace, knowing well that the heralds wouldn’t be able to escape Transtead.
