NOVEL NEXT Chapter 381: 381: Level Up!
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[System Notification: You have slain a Four-Star Soldier. +40 Experience.]
Three down in the time it takes a runner to take two hard breaths.
"Close in you fucking idiots!" the captain Rauk barked his orders, climbing to his feet, jaw red and swelling.
They closed. Kai broke them again. He didn't give them clean pictures. He gave them stutters and short pain. He used the spear butt like a club, then the blade like a nail, then the shaft like a lever to yank men out of shape. When a four-star tried to hook his ankle, Kai let the hook catch and used the line to pull the man off balance, then cut him under the arm as he fell.
[System Notification: You have slain a Four-Star Soldier. +40 Experience.]
Another tried to take him from behind. Antennae Sensory Boost flared; he felt the step and the breath. He snapped his head back, cracked the man's nose with the back of his skull, spun, and pushed the point in deep.
'Bam'
[System Notification: You have slain a Four-Star Soldier. +40 Experience.]
Azhara ghosted the edge, blade up but idle. She stopped a flanker by slicing his rope, then stepped back. "Yours," she breathed on the road, and kept the wolves at bay while Kai did the killing.
Two four-stars came together, shields up, pointed out. Kai slid left, then right, then cut between guards with a mean, short jab to the ribs. The first man sagged; the second man panicked. Kai finished both — one with a heel to the throat, one with a straight spear through the heart.
[System Notification: You have slain a Four-Star Soldier. +40 Experience.]
[System Notification: You have slain a Four-Star Soldier. +40 Experience.]
Sand squeaked under boots. Men grunted. Blood salted the night. Kai moved with ugly grace. A spear tip nicked his thigh; Adaptive Armor bled the force. He answered by ripping the weapon away and jamming it back into its owner's chest.
[System Notification: You have slain a Four-Star Soldier. +40 Experience.]
He felt the cores he'd eaten still burning through him like clean fire. He spent that fire without wasting it.
A new four-star tried a high feint and low cut. Reflex Mode ticked; Kai hopped the low cut and slammed down with both hands on the man's wrist. Bone cracked. The spear dropped. Kai put the point in the hollow above the man's collar.
[System Notification: You have slain a Four-Star Soldier. +40 Experience.]
A pair on his left pressed hard. Kai let the first overreach and stepped inside the second's guard, teeth bared. Devourer's Bite flashed; he bit the spear head, metal screamed, and the point bent. The carrier's eyes went wide. Kai rammed the butt into that face and shoved the blade through the partner's belly.
[System Notification: You have slain a Four-Star Soldier. +40 Experience.]
[System Notification: You have slain a Four-Star Soldier. +40 Experience.]
Rauk came back in, fast and stubborn. He stabbed for Kai's chest. Kai batted it aside, slid forward, and cracked Rauk's temple with the haft. Rauk staggered, but the line moved to cover him. Two more four-stars rushed to fill.
Kai cut one across the mouth guard —teeth and blood— and spiked the other through the sternum.
[System Notification: You have slain a Four-Star Soldier. +40 Experience.]
[System Notification: You have slain a Four-Star Soldier. +40 Experience.]
Somewhere behind the crescent, a man hissed, "He won't stop."
"No," another said, voice flat. "He won't until we all are dead."
Kai pivoted on a planted spear and swept the butt along the knees of three men in a row. They dropped like posts under a saw. He finished them before they could rise—quick, efficient, nothing fancy.
[System Notification: You have slain a Four-Star Soldier. +40 Experience.]
[System Notification: You have slain a Four-Star Soldier. +40 Experience.]
[System Notification: You have slain a Four-Star Soldier. +40 Experience.]
The captain's voice stayed level. "Anchor. Set. Don't chase."
They set. Kai broke the set.
He drove a shoulder into one man's shield and shoved the edge into the neighbor's ribs. The gap opened; he slid through, cutting as he went — hamstring, kidney, heart.
[System Notification: You have slain a Four-Star Soldier. +40 Experience.]
[System Notification: You have slain a Four-Star Soldier. +40 Experience.]
[System Notification: You have slain a Four-Star Soldier. +40 Experience.]
Twenty kills. A cold bell chimed inside him.
[Ding! EXP threshold reached. Level Up → 44.
Current EXP: 120/1000.
Note: Star Core heat stable. Unused stat points available.]
He didn't smile. He used the breath that the bell gave him and pressed.
A four-star with a rope dart tried to tangle his spear. Kai rolled the shaft, let the rope slide past, and stabbed through the man's throat while the dart circled uselessly.
[System Notification: You have slain a Four-Star Soldier. +40 Experience.]
Two more tried to dogpile. Tiny Tank hardened his plates; he took the first hits like stone, then shoved both men back, one into the other. He drew a short knife with his off hand and put it under the chin. The man dropped. He reversed the grip and put the knife through a visor slit. The knife stayed. He didn't need it back.
[System Notification: You have slain a Four-Star Soldier. +40 Experience.]
[System Notification: You have slain a Four-Star Soldier. +40 Experience.]
Azhara clipped the hamstring of a would-be runner, then stepped away again. "No one leaves," she whispered to the sand. The man crawled two paces and realized he was alone with Kai. It was a terrible thing to realize. He died fast.
[System Notification: You have slain a Four-Star Soldier. +40 Experience.]
Rauk gathered four men and came in hard as a block. Kai met them like a wall that hits back. He shattered the first spear with a twist, parried the second, lunged past the third to spear the fourth, then put a heel into the chest of the third and finished the second with a sideways thrust.