Chapter 75: Ch114. Hide and seek
Kurt hid in the shadow of the building while watching the horde of various beasts run away, when the system beeped in his head.
[ALERT]
[EMERGENCY QUEST]
Kurt raised his brow.
’What does the system want, now of all times?’
He sighed and rolled his eyes right when the system answered his question.
[EMERGENCY QUEST – PROVE YOUR WORTH]
[A THREATENING ENEMY APPROACHES, AND THEY ARE VERY FAMILIAR TO YOU!]
[PROVE TO THE ONES WATCHING YOU FROM AFAR THAT YOU ARE WORTHY OF THEIR RESPECT AND INHERITANCE]
That was it.
No following messages regarding rewards, no difficulty level, nothing.
Kurt breathed in and sharpened his senses.
’So I’m being watched, then...’ He sharpened his senses to the extreme, in order to find out who were the ones observing him.
But it seemed like there was not a single soul nearby, aside from the Beasts running away.
’But how am I going to prove my worth?’ He frowned.
That was when Kurt wished he didn’t sharpen his senses that much.
The pressure that emanated from whatever was coming his way was so oppressing, that even his breathing became heavy and irregular.
"Hah..." ’Well, shit... So, whatever that thing is... I gotta fight it... So let’s do it the smart way.’
Kurt balanced his senses, so he could feel the thing’s presence without being overwhelmed by its power, and waited.
Seconds passed and turned into minutes, but it didn’t take much longer for him to understand why the system said it like that to him.
’You gotta be kidding me...’
A wild grin spread through Kurt’s lips as he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
However, he still couldn’t understand why the thing that finally appeared in the horizon line was so powerful that even Kurt’s senses would tremble before that.
He wondered if [CONCEAL] would be enough to hide him from it, but then he shook his head really hard.
’Shut it! You only need to hide for long enough, until the time is right.’
That night was especially dark, and it offered a good shadow under the ruined building for Kurt to get a nice cover.
He didn’t know if it had anything to do with his skill, but he wasn’t feeling especially powerful like he did the two times he used [LIGHT ABSORPTION], so he just wondered if that night had anything more special than the others.
He got up, stretched up, and unsheathed K’s daggers.
They fit in his hands like a glove, and even though Kurt never lived in that world, he felt familiar with the grip of K’s blades, along with the feeling of the shadows giving him cover.
He even felt nostalgic for some reason.
But before he could pinpoint the reason in his heart of why he was feeling like that, Zaval showed up, closer than ever, in the middle of the street.
’When the fuck did he get there?’ Kurt’s jaw dropped ever so slightly.
He noticed that his hands were shaking, his breathing was erratic, and his heart beat like a war drum.
But it wasn’t from fear.
"I smell... A little runaway rat..." Zaval said. "Did you come to finally surrender to me, Kurt Blake? You know you dragged this game on for far too long, don’t you?"
Kurt’s senses warned him that something was coming his way, so he ducked right before an enormous fireball hit the wall of the building.
’WHAT THE FUCK?’ Kurt’s thoughts rang loud in his head. ’Fire?’
"So there you are, but... You look a little... Young, don’t you...?" Zaval unfolded his wings, breathing in deeply through his nose. "Ahhh... That must be... So that old geezer Rhegal finally decided to step into The Great Red Flood, huh?" He smirked.
And that smirk showed every single one of Zaval’s sharp teeth.
"I’m gonna make good use of the power he sent me..."
"Not if I kill you first!"
Kurt had gotten up and started running towards another ruined building.
He didn’t have time to ask what Zaval meant by what he just said, so he decided to throw the questions while fighting.
If he was as dumb as his father, he would give him the answers anyway.
"So we’re playing tag, now?" Zaval’s grin didn’t leave his lips for a second. "Alright, then. You’re... It."
As Kurt entered the building, he felt the heat of another fireball touching his leg, but not enough to burn.
He began running up the stairs without looking back.
’That was close! Now... He has wings, I gotta take care of it first.’
He kept going up, noticing how the darkness washed over the walls.
It turned the whole place into a shadow maze, so Kurt activated his [NIGHT VISION], dealing with the steps like child’s play.
As he went up and his [NIGHT VISION] adapted more and more to the darkness, an idea struck him like lightning.
"Wait... Shadow... Maze?"
Kurt felt slightly afraid of extending his senses, but he strengthened his determination, and let it out all at once.
The difference between his past stats and his current ones showed as soon as he risked it.
First, he felt the ominous oppression of Zaval’s presence outside the building.
He was flying really fast, already outside the ninth floor, while Kurt was ever so slightly ahead of him, in the tenth floor.
But what Kurt really wanted came along with the oppression of his enemy’s strangely heavy pressure.
Kurt felt every wall and every corner of the building as if he was touching it with the tip of his fingers.
And just a few seconds after that, he had the whole blueprint to the building in his mind.
"HEY, ZAVAL! WANNA PLAY HIDE AND SEEK?" Kurt grinned. "THE FOUND DIED!"
Zaval just laughed, and Kurt heard the sound of a window breaking, meaning that Zaval was now with Kurt, inside the building.
And Kurt activated [LIGHT ABSORPTION].
He felt it immediately.
The growth in power as the already almost inexistent light in the interior of the building faded away.
’Is it the light or the darkness that increases my stats?’
The system beeped in his head.
[NEITHER OF THEM]
Kurt was taken aback by the answer, but he didn’t care much about it, since the whole building was turning right into what he wanted.
"Now... You’re trapped with me, and this is going to be your tomb..."
