Adrenaline Junkie [Book 2 Complete]

Henry raced through the massive underground city, barreling down the many winding stone paths as his boots pounded against the uneven ground. He weaved through the gaps between startled dwelfs who, for some reason, had all decided today was the day to crowd the streets.

"God fucking damn it," Henry huffed, pivoting on his heel and clipping someone's shoulder as he dashed into a narrow alleyway, ignoring the shouted complaints the dwelf hurled after him.

Vaulting over an air purifier unit that took up a third of the legroom in the alley, Henry muttered another curse as he skidded to a stop at the other end, only to find yet another wall of people blocking his way into Stris and Velgt's Street.

"I fucking hate this city," he growled under his breath, eyes flicking upward. All around him, pipes, vents, laundry lines, and outer appliances all jutted out from the stone like scaffolding that every building was made out of.

They weren't meant for climbing, but they'd do.

Henry kicked off a crate and grabbed onto a low-hanging air purifying conduit, hauling himself up. The metal groaned under his weight, but he kept going, scaling the side of the alley with quick, practiced movements.

Leaping off a jutted-out pipe and onto the roof of a building, he dashed across them, leaping between ledges, ducking beneath support beams, and shoving past a vendor refilling a rooftop stall's tanks.

"What the hell is even happening?" he muttered to himself as thousands of dwelfs poured out of their homes and into the streets, marching their way up towards the Central Tunnel.

"Is there some sort of national holiday going on? Religious, maybe?" he questioned, looking down at the streets below, barely slowing his pace as he sprinted across the uneven rooftops.

From up here, Henry had a clearer view of the chaos - streets that were usually half-empty at this time of day were packed shoulder-to-shoulder with dwelfs, all moving in the same direction like a living tsunami of people.

"This doesn't look like any celebration I've seen before," he muttered, squinting as he sprinted forward. There were no decorations, music, or colors - just tense faces, hurried steps, and silence. Not a single word came from their mouths.

He hopped a narrow gap between buildings, landing with a dull thud that rattled the piping beneath him. "Something's wrong," Henry hissed under his breath, already picking up speed again. "No way this is just some holiday. Not with that many people heading to the Central Tunnel."

He almost tripped over a low-raised water pipe as a sharp whistle echoed through the air, followed by the distant sound of metallic boots stomping.

Henry glanced over his shoulder.

Armed dwelf guards, wearing the stone-gray armor of the city's enforcement division, were being deployed. Dozens of them, maybe more, weaving their way through the crowd and heading in the same direction as everyone else.

For what reason, he didn't know - but it couldn't have been good. They were always on his case whenever he returned from completing guild quests. Whether it was because he was human or because he wasn't a citizen and only allowed in the city due to his guild membership, he couldn't say.

"Shit," he muttered, tightening his jaw as he pushed forward, "Camilla, please be okay."

He vaulted over one last rusted pipe before he reached the edge of the building and dropped down onto a lower, smaller rooftop that belonged to a mom-and-pop shop he'd visited to buy nutrient milk for Camilla.

Just as he rolled out of the jump landing, a deafening explosion erupted miles behind him, in the direction of the Southeast Tunnel, where the dwelf noble houses were located.

The shockwave hit him like a freight train, slamming into his back and sending him tumbling forward uncontrollably.

He flew off the rooftop, arms flailing for balance, before slamming down hard on a narrow balcony rail - his midsection taking the brunt of the impact as his head cracked against the outer edge of the rail.

The blow knocked the wind clean out of him. But before he could even register the pain, gravity finished what the blast had started. He pitched forward, flinging himself over the edge just as his footing slipped.

He crashed through a weather-worn cloth tarp stretched across the walkway below. The fabric tore apart around him, the world spinning in bursts of color and grit, until he hit the ground in a clumsy, bone-jarring roll.

"Fuck," he muttered, pushing himself up to a knee, ears ringing from the blast and heart pounding like a war drum. The air smelled of smoke and scorched mana, and in the distance, screams had begun to rise. "…Me."

Dust filled his lungs as he coughed, stars dancing across his vision. Somewhere behind him, screams echoed through the tunnel-city. The acrid scent of smoke was already starting to flood the air.

He was now just a few buildings away from the block his apartment was on.

"Shit," he muttered, pushing himself up to a knee, ears ringing from the blast and heart pounding like a war drum. The air smelled of smoke and burnt flesh, and in the distance, screams had begun to rise.

A sharp metallic taste touched the back of his throat - blood, probably from biting his tongue on impact. The thudding of countless feet and muffled shouting above rang in his ears, distorted like he was underwater. He blinked again, finally focusing on the red, blaring glow of the streetlamp above the alley's exit.

Camilla, his mind reminded him, snapping him back to focus.

Grimacing, he forced himself upright, his arms scraping forward as a wave of nausea rolled through him when he forced his legs forward. His enhanced muscles twitched under the strain. Overmuscle wasn't meant to be pushed beyond 20% for over half an hour, and now he was paying for it.

Pandemonium erupted in the crowd; all signs of silence and order vanished the moment the enormous explosion struck the Town Square.

People were still flooding out of their homes, some with bags, others with nothing at all - just their kids in hand or panic in their steps as they screamed and shouted, pushing everyone around them, trying to reach the Central Tunnel. He caught snippets of conversation as he sprinted past.

" - they said a breach!"

" - evacuation through the Central Tunnel - "

" - they're coming up from the deep pits - "

A breach.

Camilla, Henry's heart sank, but just as quickly as it did, a surge of resolve filled him. He couldn't just sit back and let whatever was happening unfold, not while she was still not in his arms and safe.

Fuck the consequences.

"Shroud of the Lone Knight."

Without a second thought, Henry's form erupted in Dark-Flame - the shadowlike flames coiling around his frame like a living cloak. The sudden burst of power blasted the crowd nearest to him backwards, their bodies flung like ragdolls and briefly ignited in flickering Dark-Flames as they crashed to the ground.

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His twin short blades were already in motion before he consciously registered the draw, yanked from the sheaths strapped across his lower back and gripped tight in his hands. The blades, oiled and aflame, hissed through the air as he lunged forward.

He didn't pause. His boots pounded against the stone floor, echoing with every step, and with fluid motion, he threw himself into the chaos. Dwelfs shouted, shoved, and scrambled, but Henry's momentum didn't slow.

His head tilted just enough to avoid a fire blast that zipped past his ear and slammed into a dwelf behind him with a sickening thud. The crowd turned violent in an instant, panic blending with fury. Screams of confusion and rage filled the air as Henry carved a path forward, a force of singular, burning purpose.

Snippets of shouting cut through the noise, swirling around him like gnats:

" - the human is attacking!"

" - killed 'em before - "

" - them's the cause of - "

A dwelf burst through the panicked mess, arm outstretched to grab or strike. Henry didn't hesitate. His right blade swept outward, fast and brutal, cutting clean through the dwelf's neck.
The body collapsed mid-stride, and the severed head hit the stone floor with a wet crack - only to vanish beneath the trampling feet of the fleeing crowd, the dwelf's long blue hair now stained with blood and flesh.
The flames dancing along his body burned hotter. Not with rage, but with the unrelenting toll of the shroud.

The Dark-Flames coiled tighter around him, their heat making his leather and steel armor crack and bubble as the unstable Affinity combination began to gnaw at the flesh beneath. He gritted his teeth, using the pain to sharpen his focus, not dull it.

He could feel the char forming beneath his gauntlets - the raw, searing sting of skin splitting, blistering. But he didn't stop. He kept moving. Every second counted.

The skill he'd inherited from Ragnar during a skill selection had been crafted with one assumption in mind - that the user possessed a proper, stable Dark-Flame Affinity. Something Henry didn't yet have, but the bootleg version he'd been using for the past month seemed to be passable by the System to grant him the option. It was his fourth Epic skill.

He was close. About 80% of the way there by his own rough calculations. The fusion between his Dark and Flame Affinities was progressing, but it wasn't complete, and the gap left behind was costing him more than just control.

Without a fully fused Affinity, the skill drained mana faster than it would take Archie to choose something reckless and dumb over something safe, which was saying a lot.

Worse still, it scorched his flesh on contact. The inherently destructive nature of Dark mana lashing together with his Flame Affinity didn't just amplify the power - it made it volatile.

The innate resistance he had to his own flames? Gone. The unstable fusion bypassed it entirely, letting the fire eat at him like he was just another enemy.

Every second he kept the shroud active was a gamble.

Henry's eyes widened as he twisted his torso and swung his blade to the right, slicing clean through a jagged spear of bone that had hurtled toward him, threading impossibly through the forest of dwelven heads that filled the streets.

The severed fragments of the spear scattered midair, with two arm-sized shards striking two unfortunate dwelfs behind him. One let out a strangled cry and crumpled; the other doubled over, clutching their gut as blood spilled between their fingers.

Henry didn't flinch at the noise, instead, his gaze darted across the chaos, searching. Scanning for the one who had launched that attack. But all he could see were panicked faces, screaming mouths, and bodies pushing in every direction.

Sixth Sense blared in his mind like a siren, shrill and sharp - danger, above.

Henry's left blade snapped up just in time, angling in front of his face. Steel met bone with a sharp crack, slicing through an arrow mere inches from skewering his skull. Shards of splintered bone scattered off his Steel Plated Leather Pauldron as he exhaled a sharp breath, eyes already scanning upward.

His gaze locked with the source.

[Withered Husk Lv 81]

Atop a building two kilometers away, the Reimerian Church, he reminded himself, was a pale figure, almost skeletal, dressed in tattered rose gold-covered robes, wearing a crown of bones.

Surrounding it were five human skeletons - each cloaked in scraps of armor, all holding different weapons - and one towering skeletal beast, hunched and knuckle-dragging, its massive ribcage and elongated arms. A gorilla?

Henry's chest tightened.

"Fuck," he muttered, still catching his breath. Are they the ones who caused all of this? The hell do they want with me?

Henry didn't hesitate.

He pivoted hard on his heels, his Dark-Flamed blades whipping outward as he carved through the few unfortunate enough to still stand in his path. Blood sprayed across the stone walls, screams drowned out by the thunder of his boots against the ground.

He cut left into a narrow alley, shoulders brushing past rusted pipes and hanging laundry lines, that now caught aflame, as he sprinted through the shortcut that led directly to the old apartment building, one that also doubled as a tavern on the bottom floor.

The Withered Husk and its bone constructs were distant threats - but Camilla was nearby and alone.

As he was midway through the alley, a high-pitched, desperate scream pierced through the chaotic noise of the city being laid to waste by undead, creating the feeling as though a blade had sunk into his heart. It was faint, nearly drowned by the cacophony of the city's panic, but unmistakable.

Henry's heart dropped.

Camilla.

His legs moved on instinct, faster than before, faster than what should've been possible in his state.

The Dark-Flames licking at his skin were irrelevant now. The pain of charred flesh? Distant. The blood trickling from his thigh from a knife from one of the dwelfs that stood in his way? Forgotten.

He shoved through the narrow gap at the alley's end, the old, weather-worn bricks scraping against his arms as he forced his way out into the courtyard behind the tavern-apartment. His boots skidded across the cracked stone, and his bloodshot eyes shot up -

The third-floor window was open. The curtains fluttered out like a flag. And there - he heard it again.

Camilla's scream. Closer now. Clearer.

A primal sound tore its way from Henry's throat as he launched himself forward, barreling through the front door of the tavern, his vision tinged red, unaware of the deep, jagged slashes across its front.

The door cracked off its hinges as he passed through, crashing to the floor behind him, bringing up a faint cloud of sawdust. The tavern, usually filled with noise that kept both him and his daughter awake, up until he purchased a noise-cancelling array, was silent.

Tables were overturned, chairs broken, bottles of liquor spilled across the floor like blood. And actual blood, dark, congealed - pooled beneath the barkeep, who lay slumped over the bar, his throat a ruin of torn flesh. Two patrons sat slumped at a corner table, bodies twisted, faces frozen in horror, clean incisions splitting down their chests.

Henry didn't slow.

He pushed through the tipped-over and broken tables and chairs without care as his charred boots pounded across the blood-slick floor, barely noticing the metallic tang in the air. The staircase loomed ahead.

He made a sharp turn, smacking his side on the staircase wall as he stormed up the stairs two at a time. His damaged thigh screamed with each impact, but he pushed harder, faster as the Dark-Flames blackened the wound.

Camilla's wails were growing louder.

His breaths came in ragged gasps, and his heart rapidly pounded in his chest as though it were hooked up to an electric powerplant.

As he neared the top of the stairs, he saw that the hallway, normally lit to high hell with Mana Lanterns, was now cloaked in darkness, lit only by the faint flicker of lamplight spilling through the narrow crack in his apartment door.

It was open.

Just barely.

Henry surged forward, barreling into the apartment.

The door slammed open with a crash, rebounding off the wall as Henry stormed inside, blades drawn, breath sharp and uneven.

The room was in shambles.

Chairs overturned, the table that came with the apartment was now split in half, with its drawers hanging open with their contents spilled across the floor - baby blankets, nutrient milk canisters, spare clothes.

His eyes instantly drawn to the smear of blood painted the floorboards of the small walkway living room, leading toward the bedroom. He barreled toward her cries.

"Camilla - !" he choked out, his voice cracking as he tore across the room, following the trail.

The crib was knocked halfway over, one side splintered and singed, and its bedding was by his feet.

Empty.

His eyes darted around the room in a frenzy, limbs tense, blades still coated in Dark-Flames trembling in his hands. He scanned for anything - movement, sound, her.

Then he saw it - a small, wriggling motion beneath the overturned crib mattress near the far wall, far from where the crib usually should have been.

"Cami…" he breathed, heart lurching.

He dropped his blades instantly, ignoring the painful clatter as they struck the floor, and lunged toward the mattress, both Shroud of the Lone Knight and Overmuscle deactivating with nary a command. Carefully - so damn carefully - he flipped it over.

There she was.

Tiny. Red-faced. Wailing.

Wrapped in the same little cloak Maria had knitted for her weeks before she was kidnapped, her tiny fists were clenched tight, tear tracks glistening on her cheeks.

Henry's breath hitched, and searing heat rose from behind his eyes as he took in her tiny, wailing, and flailing body in front of him.

A choked sob ripped out of him as he dropped to his knees and scooped her up into his arms. He held her against his scorched, bloodied chest like the world would shatter if he let go.

"I got you," he whispered, voice thick and wrecked. "I got you, baby girl."

But even as he held her close, shaking and crying, his eyes kept moving - scanning the room, wired and raw. Relief didn't quiet his instincts.

Blades were everywhere. Daggers, swords - some buried in the walls, others scattered across the floor - chipped, cracked, scorched. And yet… no bodies. Only burnt blood, the smell of burnt flesh, and… Dark-Flame.

Henry gently pressed a kiss to her forehead, still trembling, then shifted her into one arm.

"Thank you," Henry choked out, his throat hoarse and raw. There was only one other whose mana felt like that. "Thank you."