Haruka’s arm grew numb from killing the rift monsters. Pandora and Aestar didn’t look much better. The stream of monsters was endless. Haruka couldn’t understand how they got inside the city. The gates had contingencies against that type of intrusion. Unless someone intentionally left the gate open, there was no way these monsters could get through.
“I don’t like this,” Aestar huffed as he killed another monster, Pandora stood beside him.
“Me neither,” Haruka agreed. “Unless the rift is inside the city, these monsters should not be here.”
Aestar glanced sharply at Haruka.
“I wasn’t talking about the monsters. I meant the outsider girl. I don’t see why my father would call her a traitor if she wasn’t one.”
Haruka opened his mouth but words didn’t come out. If Aestar hadn’t been told about Keynes and his ability to open the hidden doors and rifts…
Suddenly a thought struck Haruka like a lightning bolt. The feeling had been festering inside Haruka's head since parting ways with Vivena. She sounded strangely unbothered by Keynes’s death. This, coupled with the third outbreak…
“Snap out of this.” Pandora elbowed Haruka. “We need you here.”
Haruka glanced at her critically. She didn’t figure it out yet. Haruka couldn’t keep it a secret at the moment like this. If Keynes was alive, somehow, he would be angry and given his strength, he might come seeking revenge. The time couldn’t be worse for that.
“Vivena was called a traitor because of Keynes,” Haruka said to his cousin. “Our parents wanted leverage against Keynes.”
Aestar not only looked unconvinced, but also confused.
“Why would my father need the outsider?”
Haruka couldn’t tell Aestar the truth without betraying Keynes’s secret. But what if he is dead and only my guilty conscience is foolishly trying to keep him alive?
“He could open the hidden doors inside the rifts,” Pandora said. She didn’t have the same dilemma as Haruka. Haruka sharply turned to his sister.
“What are you doing?”
“He’s dead. It won’t make a difference if others know.”
Aestar raked his fingers through his bushy charcoal hair, then his eyes narrowed and he stabbed his finger at Haruka. Aestar’s expression formed an angry frown.
“What’s the big fuss about?”
“The loot inside these rooms is insane,” Pandora said. “I got [Stamina] and [Double Punch] from just two rooms. Once I advance to Level 3, you two won’t stand a chance against me.”
Aestar whirled to Haruka.
“Why have they allowed the outsider to die inside the labyrinth? He should’ve been brought to the palace and treated with all the honours.”
Aestar’s words surprised Haruka. He didn’t expect his cousin to act this way after what his parents had done. Maybe Haruka’s perception was distorted by the palace’s ruthless scheming and painting Aestar as someone outside of that wasn’t easy now. But then, Aestar was always much more like Pandora who sought only to become stronger. When they were younger Aestar was always complaining about how his parents tried to force him to be like them.
“I think Keynes might not be dead.”
Aestar snorted but Pandora stopped, glaring at Haruka.
“Don’t even joke like this…” she said then added. “What makes you say that? Was it Vivena?”
More secrets. Eh. I haven’t thought it out. How do I explain something like this without telling what Keynes can do?
“Yes,” Haruka said. It was only a half-truth. Vivena’s reaction to Keynes’s death was unnatural. Given their close relationship, she shouldn’t be able to hide her emotions like that. She wasn’t even shocked by the dire news.
“That’s impossible. We all saw that Heerat won the Covenant of Tribes. Your outsider has died in the labyrinth. It is not possible to survive it. The runes inside… they kill everyone no matter their strength.”
Haruka glanced at his sister, her face was ghastly pale, her eyes distant. Was there something Haruka wasn’t aware of? Hopefully not. Keynes was in love with Vivena. He’d only break Pandora’s heart.
“Keynes’s something else, Aestar,” Haruka said. “He’s like you, Perfect State ascender of Level 3 and more.”
“And more? What do you mean?”
“He’s in the Elevated stage like me. Has a few strong skills and items. He should have won the race without issues but somehow he didn’t. Maybe he found a way out of the labyrinth before the race ended.”
Both Aestar and Pandora needed time to process the revelation. They didn’t speak until they got closer to the gate.
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“How has he done it?” Aestar asked eventually. “It’d require more essence that the Capital has at its disposal. Not to mention time and effort. Getting to the Perfect State twice has been a tremendous pain in the neck. I cannot imagine myself gaining the Elevated stage at the same time.
Haruka didn’t answer because the moment his eyes fell on the gate, he couldn’t find words. The gate was wide open. Momentarily, Keynes was forgotten.
“Look at this,” he muttered instead.
“Why is that damned gate open?” Aestar asked. “Where are the guards?”
“It doesn’t matter now. We must close the gate first before we move on and clear the rift.”
They rushed toward the gate, cutting their way through the monsters. The exhaustion was kicking in for real and Haruka knew he wouldn’t be able to enter the rift without a few hours of rest. His sister looked much better because of her passive [Stamina] while Aestar was a second-degree Perfect State ascender with some innate boosts of his own. Seeing the two, Haruka was glad that he had maxed his Strength and Agility twice, it wasn’t anything spectacular but each point counted.
Suddenly, Haruka’s body twisted, evading a spear that slammed into the ground with strength that shattered it. Haruka’s passive [Evade] paid off its dividends, saving his life. There was no way he’d have survived a direct hit like this. Thanking his skill, Haruka immediately moved toward the gate where they’d be able to hide from the thrower.
“That’s one of my father’s top warriors,” Aestar shouted to Haruka and Pandora as they meandered between monsters which tried to tear them apart. “His Talent gives him unmatched aim. He’s Level 3 with twice maxed-out Strength. That man is no joke.”
Haruka narrowly evaded the next spear, using the active component of [Evade] that allowed him to dodge attacks he saw at the cost of 29 mana. When he’d acquired the skill the cost of mana was 33 with the help of the Crown of Insight and Sumak—his spiritual companion—he was able to lower the cost of the skill without compromising the effectiveness. He could push the cost of the skill even lower, but the skill wouldn’t be able to maintain a 100% evasion chance any longer. At first, he’d been going to bring the chance down to 90% and the cost to 20 points but they quickly realised that having a 10% chance of dying wasn’t worth 9 points of mana. Haruka didn’t have issues with mana, having 220 points and regeneration of 9.2 points per hour. With a full tank, he could evade 7 attacks before mana cost got in the way. Even fighting the hordes of the monsters rarely pushed him to use more than 2 per fight.
Two more spears came at them before they reached the gate. One of the spears grazed Pandor’s shoulder while the Aestar managed to block the spear with his shield he kept in his dimensional poach. The shield had a cooldown on some defensive skill Aestar didn’t explain, so he put it back into the pouch.
“What’s going on?” Pandora asked, breathing hard. She started to run low on stamina too, despite her passive [Stamina]. They couldn’t forget that she was only Level 2. Her stats were much lower than Haruka’s. “Why did they attack us?”
Aestar shook his head. He was as clueless as the siblings.
“Maybe he wasn’t aiming at us?”
Haruka could tell that his cousin didn’t believe in his own words and Haruka didn’t blame him. He, too, had a hard time accepting the fact that some of the king’s warriors had attacked them moments ago and presumably, kept the gate open since the onset of the outbreak. Something dire was going on. The scale of betrayal was unimaginable. How many people died because of that single opened gate?
Heat in Haruka’s chest grew hotter as he considered it. No matter what motives those people had, they were traitors and murderers. Haruka didn’t agree with the king and the Capital on many things but killing innocent people was pure evil.
With his stamina running quite low, Haruka decided to put on the rest of his items. If they wanted to clear the rift, they had to take care of the people on the wall first. Haruka put on every piece of armour and jewellery his spirit could handle; most of them were crafted, which meant that they were only increasing Haruka’s attributes. It boosted his stats to 40 points on average. The elevated stats made him feel amazing but the strain on his spirit was substantial. He was on a timer here.
“I will go in first. [Evade] will make sure that their surprise attack is going to fail. You enter when they dump their attacks on me,” he told his sister and cousin, then proceeded to kick the door in. The door being made out of iron-reinforced wood stood no chance against Haruka’s kick.
The staircase was empty as they expected. There was another door at the top of the staircase. Their attackers waited on the other side. Without a second thought, Haruka kicked the door out, then followed outside. Instantly his [Evade] activated, reorienting his body in the air as a spear flew past him. Before the attacker could throw another spear, Haruka swung his rungu, breaking the other man’s arm. Haruka heard a yell of agony, a second later two more painful yells told him that his sister and cousin entered the fight as well.
The four traitors didn’t stand a chance against the trio. They knocked three of them out, leaving the guy with a broken arm awake. They needed answers.
Pandora went to close the gate. A small cabin directly above the gate had a panel with runes that controlled the gate. To operate it, Pandora needed to feed it a bit of her mana.
Meanwhile, Haruka and Aestar began their interrogation.
“Why is the gate open?” Aestar asked, sounding calm, but Haruka sensed rage in his cousin’s aura.
“I won’t tell you shit,” the other man replied, clutching his broken arm.
“You betrayed the Capital, causing the death of thousands. Do I have to tell you what is going to happen to you? If you tell me the truth, I’ll consider letting you go.”
The other man had a ready riposte but hearing Aestar’s proposal made him hesitate. Haruka placed his hand on his cousin’s shoulder. Was he really going to let this murderer go?
“Aestar…”
Aestar raised his hand and Haruka quieted down.
The man with a broken arm eyed them suspiciously now, weighing his chances. Only when they felt the grinding of the closing gate, the other man decided to talk.
“My job here’s done anyway. All I had to do was to open the gate.”
“Why?” Aestar asked, the intensity in his voice made the other man narrow his eyes.
“You aren’t going to let me go. I can see the hatred in your eyes. Fine then. Have it your way. A new king is coming. The old empire will rise once more.”
Aestar knocked the man out with a punch. To Haruka’s horror, Aestar dragged the four traitors to the edge, then pushed them off the wall. Those who survived the fall were killed by the monsters.
“What are you doing, Aestar?” Haruka demanded. “This is not the way of tribes! We don’t kill people.”
“They were no longer people in my eyes. They’ve betrayed us.”
Aestar sounded strangely distant, the incident at the gate had changed something in him. It wasn’t only Aestar, who, for the first time, questioned their entire civilization. Haruka believed that the World Reserve was better than the outside world. Tribes didn’t kill people, they shared their resources to ensure healthy growth, they lived happy lives. They meant to … at least.
“We still have a rift to clear,” Haruka said when his sister returned. Aestar nodded, but there was no conviction in it.
“What just happened?” he asked. “What have I done?”
Haruka was going to answer his cousin's questions when the wall of the system messages appeared. The Capital fell to the dominion monsters.