52.
The maintenance halls were just as much a labyrinth as the sewers. Santi quickly grew lost, threading his way from one hall to another. A half a dozen wrong turns finally got him moving in a more productive direction. The faint voices of people could be heard and Santi followed their whispers like a bloodhound.
The halls carried sound better than he thought, as the distance was greater than expected. It took nearly three minutes of moving at a quiet, slow, jog to finally find where the voices were coming from. It was an underground bar that was being lit with a dozen or so gas lamps. A half dozen men were laying about, drinking different types of alcohol as they talked to each other. A young woman was sprawled across the largest of them’s laps.
Santi risked using [Identify], needing to know what he was about to get into. If any of their perception and mana stats were high enough they’d be able to feel his prying. The second-to-last thing Santi wanted to do was alert them to his presence before he was ready to act. The last thing he wanted to do was to start a fight with a group of high level classers.
Brutal Brawler lvl. 29
Mage lvl. 28
Quick-Hands lvl. 26
Bloodhound lvl. 28
Guardian lvl. 27
Medic lvl. 30
War-Leader lvl. 32
The young woman sprawled out across the big man’s lap was the [War-Leader]. The big man himself was the [Bloodhound]. The others were scattered about, all of them sipping their drinks, not a single one of them having noticed his prying. They were all adequately leveled, a match for his own team. Santi planned out how he would kill them all.
The [War-Leader] would have the most information, but if she was in a relationship with the [Bloodhound] she wouldn’t talk after he died, at least not quickly. The same was true for the [Bloodhound], both of them were off his list of who to keep alive for information.
[Medic] had to die to end the fight quickly. [Brutal Brawler] was enough of a hint that Santi knew the man wouldn’t be easy to deal with. You didn’t get a class with the word brutal in it by being easy going.
[Quick-Hands] was an outlier, another of those strange classes that could be anything. Likely a rogue or assassin, someone speedy and fragile. The [Guardian] was the exact opposite. The other [Mage] could have a trick up their sleeve that Santi didn’t want to deal with. He decided [Quick-Hands] was going to be his target. He mentally prepared his plan of attack, going over the angles and spells he wanted to use.
Santi sprinted at full speed, straight through the open doors of the bar and leapt off a steel table toward the couple. The moment he made his move they all reacted, but they were too slow. The [Guardian]’s shield came up a second after a comically oversized sword split the [War-Leader] in half at the waist while disemboweling the [Bloodhound].
[Air Shield] stopped a thrown knife from entering the back of his head. Santi grabbed a loose chair and threw it at the [Quick-Hands] while bounding toward the [Medic], who was staring horrified at his two dying companions. A blue magic shield actually managed to impede his strike for a moment, allowing the [Medic] to scramble away even as the shield disintegrated.
[Gust] picked up and threw chairs and tables, slamming into the [Guardian] and [Mage] as the spellcaster tried to duck into the bigger man’s shadow. Both of them staggered backwards and their distraction was enough for Santi to finish off the [Medic] with a single swordstroke. Santi spun on his heel just in time to see a chain wrapped fist come flying at him, wreathed in a transparent violet fire.
[Air Shield] broke instantly on contact, the released winds blowing detritus everywhere as Santi ducked, the fist sailing over his head. With his free hand Santi punched the [Brutal Brawler] in the gut. It was like hitting wood, his hand protested but the wood broke. The melee fight doubled over, a heavy breath whooshing out of him. The man was game though, throwing a knee instantly that connected to Santi’s shoulder, numbing his sword arm.
Santi rolled with the momentum of the blow, rising to his feet and casting [Crosscurrent-Orb] at the assassin. A half dozen knives were sent spinning everywhere as the explosive winds destroyed their trajectory. The metal clattered around him as Santi rose to his feet to meet the fighter.
The man’s strength was easily beyond his and his stamina and dexterity were high enough that Santi couldn’t just rely on pure stats to beat him down physically. Santi used [Air Manipulation] and stole the very air out of the man’s gaping mouth. It wasn’t enough to kill him, but the violation shocked him enough that he wasn’t ready to dodge the thrust of a sword through his gut.
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Santi twisted and tore, the sword emerging from the man’s shoulder as he fell in red ruin to the ground. A crackling bolt of lightning exploded next to him, Santi’s hair rising as he felt the painful current roll over him. He gritted his teeth and leapt for the [Mage] only to meet another blue barrier in mid air.
Santi fell to the ground and rolled instantly, avoiding yet another knife and a thin bolt of lightning. The [Guardian] had positioned himself to be between the two distance fighters and Santi. It was good positioning but Santi could already see the strain on the man’s face. Santi had already broken the man’s skill multiple times, each one of them a painful backlash.
[Gust] amplified by [Air Manipulation] picked up the smaller [Quick-Hands] and [Mage] throwing them both against the far wall and the full floor to ceiling mirrors. The tinkling crash of shattering glass filled the air as Santi sprinted at full speed toward the [Guardian]. The man lifted a heavy sledgehammer and swung as Santi got in distance, but it was easy enough for Santi to shear the weapon in half, the heavy metal head spinning off behind him.
A final azure shield wrapped around the frontliner, covering him completely as he backpedaled. The shield shattered as Santi stabbed the man through the chest, puncturing his heart with a twist of his wrist. The [Guardian] stood straight, pain and fear in his eyes before life fled and he slumped to the ground.
Santi killed the [Mage] before the man was fully to his feet, beheading him in a single strike. A final desperate knife came screaming at him, the faint pink outline of a skill wreathing it. As he went to swat it out of the air, it disappeared. The real knife appeared a foot below the original one and Santi twisted violently to the side, but the blade still scratched his ribs as it passed by him.
“Enough,” Santi spat, closing the distance and grabbing [Quick-Hands] by the collar and pulling the taller man down.
“Fuck you!” the knife thrower cursed as he struggled to get free.
“Stop or die,” Santi decreed. For a moment he continued his pointless struggle, but the fight faded from him as the adrenaline was finally overcome by common sense. His team was dead, the room they had been relaxing in ruined. There were no sounds of reinforcements coming and he was standing by himself with Santi’s blade only inches from his vulnerable flesh.
“A girl was brought here early this morning. Where is she?”
“Up top. Duncan and his lieutenants are up top. In the owner’s booth with the girl and all the other important shit.”
“Duncan?”
“The Prophet! The messenger of our Lord. He saved us all from the monsters and beasts. He led us here and brokered the truce between us and the monkeys.”
So, that was the Apostate’s name. He was the current leader on cleared monster den’s in the area too. It would explain how he had enough levels to challenge Santi and be able to lift a bunch of people into the Acolyte level. Basic evolutions were simple enough to do that a man of his knowledge and skill could pull it off easily enough.
Then why would he need Yesi? If he was already managing the evolutions he could do it himself. Santi pushed all the stray thoughts away, he couldn’t afford to lose focus no matter how much his curiosity was piqued.
“Abraham? Where is he?”
“That asshole? I don’t know. He had a small crew of guys, but Duncan didn’t keep them close.”
“How long has he been working with you?”
“Duncan?”
“No, Abraham. Actually, yes, how did you meet Duncan?”
“He saved us. He came from the South, following the highway. He just knew where we were, the survivors. Bands of us, teams, he gathered us all up. Taught us how to survive and organize and how to evolve. He told us of our Lord.”
“How long?”
“The others, his lieutenants, have been with him for a month. He found us two weeks ago.”
“And Abraham?”
“We made contact when we got here, ten days ago.”
“How many of you are here?”
“People, or with the apes? Cause I don’t know how many of the monkeys there are,” the man was speaking quickly and with a visible sheen of sweat coating his face.
“People.”
“Ummm, there’s like twenty or so here, plus Abraham’s group.”
“Here? There’s more of you?”
“Yeah, Duncan had us set up camps outside of the city, sent scouting teams to the local towns and stuff, try to find other survivors.”
“How. Many?”
“Two hundred or so, I think. It changes constantly. It’s dangerous out there, people die all the time but we’re gaining faster than we’re losing.”
“Fuck. Are they all evolved like you?”
“No, only his group here has evolved. The others are out earning their levels with only a few of us rotating out to check on them.”
“His Lieutenants, how strong are they?”
“I don’t know man. It’s rude to [Identify] and they can all feel when we do it. They’re stronger than Sara, but it’s close.”
“Sara was the [War Leader]?”
“Yeah. Fuck, man. They’re all dead.” He looked around at the destroyed room and his dead teammates that Santi had scattered about in pieces. The fight hadn’t taken long, two minutes and fifty-eight seconds, but the man’s entire life had changed again. Santi killed the [Quick Hands] while the man was looking at his friends, the morph blade puncturing up and through his brain before he knew what hit him.
Santi double checked to make sure he got all the kill notifications from the dead fighters and began looting. None of them had anything really of note, most of them possessing nothing but basic weapons or familial tokens. There was a handful of the white wooden coins which he pocketed, but the rest he left with the dead.
The lounge had been in a state of decay when he entered it, but now it was completely destroyed. Broken stools, chairs, tables, mirrors, and smashed apart liquor bottles were everywhere.
Santi grabbed one of the lanterns that somehow hadn’t been destroyed in the fight and headed out. Now able to see properly, he was able to piece together how to navigate the service tunnels. Everything was labeled and Santi was quickly ascending and entering the stadium at courtside.
The waxed hardwood was covered in intricate symbols. Candles were sitting spaced out, but not lit yet. Figures were walking amongst the seats, but none had given a shout of alarm as Santi started to slowly work his way up the stairs that ran down the center of the seats. If the [Quick Hands] had been right, there was a constant sea of changing faces walking in and out of the place and most shouldn’t know what he looked like. As long as he walked like he belonged he might be able to get to his sister without setting off an alarm.