Runebound Reverse Tower of The Dead

Chapter 267: Expandable

The notification lingered in front of all of them like a death sentence branded into the air.

[Only the first three climbers to arrive at the exit will be able to proceed to the next floor.]

The silence that followed was not peaceful. It was suffocating, heavy enough that even the oasis seemed to quiet around them. The water no longer sounded refreshing as it lapped softly against the edge of the pool.

The wind no longer felt gentle as it dragged faint trails of sand across the ground. Everyone stared at the message, and for a moment, no one seemed willing to be the first person to admit what it meant.

The old man was the first to shout, they could hear him all the way from the pool he was at, "This... this is bullshit..." his voice trembled. "Redo the whole trial? Are they insane?" His hands shook as he stared at the words above them, and his breathing had already begun to turn shallow.

The man looked like someone had reached into his chest and squeezed whatever courage had survived the desert out of him.

Hakim remained seated near the opposite side of the oasis, his eyes hidden behind the cloth over his face. He did not speak, and because of that, it was impossible to tell whether he was afraid, angry, or simply accepting the situation faster than everyone else. That stillness made him look almost detached from the panic beginning to spread through the group.

Christy slowly stood from the water, grabbing her clothes and quickly putting them on. She did not waste time with embarrassment or hesitation. The sudden shift in the trial had stripped the moment of anything soft, leaving only urgency behind. Her movements were stiff because of her injured leg, but she forced herself through them anyway, jaw tight and eyes fixed on the notification.

Kael didn’t move. His eyes remained on the timer, and the number sat there with the same indifferent cruelty as every other message the tower had thrown at them.

Twenty four hours.

That was more than enough time to finish the trial, at least under normal circumstances. They had already survived the desert, learned its patterns, and found enough ways to avoid the worst of it. But now there was another problem, one that had nothing to do with thirst, monsters, storms, or terrain.

People.

"I can’t do this again," the old man suddenly said. "I’m too old for this shit. I barely survived once." His voice cracked at the end, and he approached the group and looked around the oasis as if expecting one of them to offer an answer that would make the notification disappear.

Kael glanced at him, and the thought that crossed his mind was not kind.

Too old.

What a stupid excuse. Nobody weak made it this far inside the tower. Even the old man had physical capabilities that would make athletes back on Earth look crippled, yet fear made people say stupid things. Fear took whatever strength someone had and dressed it up as helplessness, then asked others to believe it.

"So?" Christy asked coldly.

The old man swallowed, his throat bobbing as his eyes darted between them. Then he looked directly at Kael, and something ugly began to form behind his expression. "He can do it again."

The silence returned, but this time it had teeth. Kael’s eyes narrowed slightly, and the old man pointed at him as if naming the solution made it reasonable.

"He’s the strongest among us. Fastest too. He carried us through half this damned desert. If anyone can clear this trial twice, it’s him."

Christy immediately stepped forward, anger cutting through her exhaustion. "Are you out of your fucking mind?"

"I’m being realistic!" the old man snapped. "Look at him! Does he look exhausted to you? He’s a damn monster!" His voice rose too quickly, cracking under the pressure of his own panic, and the accusation hung in the air like he had finally said something the others had been too afraid to speak aloud.

Kael remained quiet. That silence seemed to encourage the old man more than it should have, because he continued speaking, panic slowly leaking into his words and making them sharper. "If one of us has to stay behind then logically it should be him! We barely survived this place once! I won’t survive another attempt!"

Christy scoffed, her expression twisting in disbelief. "And you think he’ll just agree to that?"

"He should if he’s smart enough," the old man said. "Unless you’d rather sacrifice someone else? Maybe him?" He pointed toward Hakim, though even his hand seemed uncertain when it chose that direction.

Hakim didn’t react. He remained seated, silent beneath the cloth covering his face, and that lack of response seemed to make the old man retreat from the idea as quickly as he had raised it. "No, no, we need him. He understands deserts. Without him we’d have died already."

His eyes then shifted toward Christy, and fear mixed with resentment until his face turned mean. "And you..." he sneered slightly, "You’re obviously not leaving his side. So what are you now besides his bitch?"

The moment those words left his mouth, the atmosphere changed. It was not dramatic in the way stories made it sound. There was no sudden thunder, no flash of light, and no system warning. The shift came from Kael, from the way he slowly lifted his head and turned his attention fully toward the old man.

"What did you just say?"

The old man’s face paled instantly. Christy herself looked stunned for a moment before anger rose in her eyes, but Kael was already standing. Oasis water dripped down his body, falling from his arms and shoulders as his presence spread outward, heavy and violent enough to make the space between them feel smaller.

The old man immediately stepped back. "I-I didn’t mean..."

"No," Kael interrupted. "You meant it." His voice wasn’t loud, and that somehow made it worse. There was no need for volume when the threat beneath the words was clear enough. "She isn’t my bitch."

Kael stepped closer, and the old man shrank with every inch of distance lost. "We fucked because we wanted to. That’s it. So, watch your mouth before I tear your jaw off and make you swallow your own teeth."

The old man trembled, and for a second it genuinely looked like Kael would kill him. Christy did not stop him. Hakim watched from where he sat, still as stone, before finally speaking.

"We move now."

The tension lingered even after the words were spoken, but nobody argued. Everyone knew something ugly had already rooted itself into the group. Fear had been there from the beginning, buried beneath thirst and exhaustion and survival, but now it had finally grown teeth.

Fracture kept rising on everyone’s head. Kael however, still remained sub 10.

Christy’s fracture which had surprisingly dropped by an incredible margin from the nightly activity rose back to the twenties.

Hakim remained in the low twenties but the old man was well in the 35th level of fracture.

Clearly destabilized.

The trip resumed shortly after, and unlike before, nobody walked close together anymore. The loose shape of the group had broken into fragments, each person keeping enough distance to pretend it was practical rather than distrustful. Kael remained near the back alongside Christy due to her injured leg, matching her pace without commenting on it. Hakim walked ahead steadily, his covered face turned toward the route with the same unreadable calm as before. The old man constantly looked around nervously, shoulders tense and fingers twitching near the supplies as if expecting the group to turn on him at any moment.

The closer they got to the final stretch, the worse his thoughts became. Kael was too valuable. Hakim was useful. The woman followed Kael. That left him with a question he clearly did not want to answer, and the answer pressed down on him harder with every step.

What about me?

He knew it well; besides being a bag holder, he was nothing else. Everyone had their use, he didn’t.

He was the expendable.

His breathing became heavier, and every time he looked at Kael’s broad back, he felt smaller. More expendable. If things came down to it, would they sacrifice him? The thought seemed to claw through his head again and again until his face tightened with desperation.

No.

No no no.

He refused. He survived too much already to die here.

He had to make a change, he had to make sure that he survives.

If anything, he at least needed to be more useful than someone else. Or live longer than someone else. If they all approach the final beacon and make a run for it. Hakim is young and will probably outrun the old man. The woman, though injured, can easily be carried by that monster and they’ll all leave him in their dust.

He’ll have to redo this whole thing, without a Saharan, without Kael’s strength, and without any hope of being a leader again, and have the bag which is the only reason he still draws breath.

He needed an equalizer, something to change the status quo, because the current status is telling him a clear message. He will die, and there is nothing he can do to change or affect it.

Fracture rose above his head.

And that meant only one thing: whatever he was thinking or feeling was definitely not good.

And if someone had to pay a price, it will not be him.