I Level Up by Killing Gods-Chapter 49: Gathering Necessities

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Chapter 49: Gathering Necessities

The Hollow Chalice stank of burnt oil and desperation. Kael sat in a corner booth, his back to the wall, while Lira slouched across from him, her boots propped on the table.

A cracked lantern swung above them, casting jaundiced light over plates of griddlecakes congealing in grease.

The tavern’s other patrons—haggard scavengers, guild dropouts, and a trio of Razor Teeth thugs sharpening knives—kept their distance. Something about Kael’s stillness, the way his eyes tracked every flicker of movement, warned them he was not a man to trouble.

Lira stabbed a fork into her breakfast, syrup dripping onto the table like amber blood.

"You ever NOT look like you’re planning a murder?"

Kael ignored her, tearing a strip of griddlecake with his fingers. The food was bland, but edible. A luxury after weeks surviving on determination.

"Seriously," she pressed, swirling her coffee. "You’ve got the charm of a gravestone. Try smiling. Or blinking. Both, ideally."

He glanced at her cup, steam curling toward the rafters.

"What’s that?"

"Coffee. You’ve never had it?" She grinned, her silver tooth glinting. "Oh, this is precious. Here." She slid the mug toward him. "Live a little, corpse."

Kael had indeed never tasted coffee, he was too much of an outskirts rat to have such a luxury.

He took the mug and sipped.

The liquid was bitter, acidic, scalding his throat. He grimaced.

This tasted nothing like the coffee on earth, not that he would know that.

Lira cackled. "Perfect. Now you look And sound like you’re dying."

---

They finished their breakfast and left to get the supplies they needed.

Sanctus’s black heart beat loudest in the Shroud Market.

Stalls crammed the plaza like rotten teeth, their awnings patched with Ravager hide and frayed silk. Vendors hawked Etherite shards, blighted artifacts, and weapons of questionable origin.

The air reeked of ozone and sweat, cut through by the tang of fresh Blight oozing from a cart of corrupted produce.

Lira wove through the crowd with the ease of a thief, her oversized coat swallowing her frame. Kael followed, close enough to strike, his hand hovering near the void where his blade would materialize if needed.

Blight-Resistant Cloaks, that would be gotten first.

The vendor was a skeletal man hunched beneath a tarp, his stall littered with cloaks stitched from iridescent scales.

"Genuine Duskwyrm hide," he rasped, holding one of the cloaks up. The fabric shimmered, repelling the market’s grime. "Wards off Blightstorms. Mostly."

"Mostly?" Kael eyed the scales, recognizing the faint pulse of Etherite energy.

The man coughed, phlegm rattling. "Nothing stops the whispers, boy. Not even the gods."

Lira tossed a pouch of broken shards onto the table.

"Two cloaks. And keep the philosophy."

As they walked away, Kael shrugged his on. The scales hissed against his skin, cold and alive.

Lockpicks Next.

The Razor Teeth gang member had a face like a half-healed scar. He leaned against a pillar, picking his teeth with a claw.

"Ten shards," he said, dangling a set of lockpicks forged from Ravager bone.

Lira snorted. "Ten? These are old as shit."

"Take it or get the hell out of my face."

Kael stepped forward. The gang member stiffened, his bravado wilting under the weight of Kael’s stare.

"Two," Kael said.

"Fi-Five."

Lira slapped the shards onto the table. The gang member flinched at its sickly glow.

"Pleasure doing business," she said, snatching the picks.

Next was the Etherite Disruptor.

Lira knew just where to get it.

The Iron Pact cart was parked in a shadowed alcove, guarded by two mercenaries in black tunics. Vials of viscous green liquid—Etherite Disruptor—glinted inside.

Lira crouched behind a stack of crates, her mismatched eyes gleaming.

"Distraction?"

Kael nodded.

She lobbed a pebble at a stall across the street. A crate of Blight-rotten fruit exploded, drawing the guards’ attention.

Kael moved.

His sword materialized in his grip, its blade a silent arc of grey light. He severed the cart’s lock, seized three vials, and dissolved the sword—all before the guards turned back.

"Hey!" one shouted.

"Run," Lira hissed.

---

The alleys of Sanctus were like a maze of filth and decay. Kael and Lira sprinted past leaking pipes and ragged tents, the Iron Pact mercenaries close behind.

"Left!" Lira yanked him into a narrow passage.

A dead end.

The mercenaries rounded the corner, daggers drawn.

"Hand over the disruptor, rats."

Kael summoned his sword again. The blade’s light flooded the alley, illuminating the desperation in their pursuers’ eyes.

He disarmed the first with a flick of his wrist, the sword’s edge kissing the man’s throat. The second lunged; Lira tripped him, pressing her boot to his spine.

"Tell your boss we apologize" she said, grinning. "But we don’t have a return policy."

They vanished into the crowd, leaving the mercenaries cursing in their wake.

---

Back at the inn, Kael laid the disruptor vials on the bed. Lira flopped onto the mattress, her Blight-gray streaked hair fanned out like a tarnished halo.

"Not bad for a corpse," she said.

He stared out the window, where the Shardspire’s jagged silhouette pierced the horizon.

"Tomorrow, we enter the ruins."

"Optimism! I’ll savor it while it lasts."

Something flickered in his mind, restless.

Lira’s laughter faded as she studied him.

"You’re not like the others, you know. The climbers, the zealots... You’ve got hunger. The kind that eats worlds."

Kael said nothing.

But for the first time, he wondered if she saw more than he meant to show.

— —

As night deepened, Kael sat on the edge of the bed, the vial of Etherite Disruptor rolling between his fingers.

The liquid inside glowed faintly, its green hue casting shadows on the walls. Lira had fallen asleep, her breathing steady but shallow, the faintest hint of Blight’s corruption creeping along the edges of her wound.

There was a Vitalite forcefield around most of Sanctus, but the slightest wisps of Blight still thrived here.

Kael’s mind wandered back to the vendor’s warning: Nothing stops the whispers.

Indeed, it seemed as though the Blight within him wouldn’t stop speaking...what happens If he succumbs to their pleas?

He glanced at Lira, her face softened by sleep.

She was reckless, unpredictable, but she had a knack for survival. And she was right about one thing: he couldn’t climb the Nexus alone.

Not Yet. Not Now.

The Titan’s heart was more than a prize; it was a key. To power, to freedom, to answers. But it was also a beacon, and he had no doubt that others would come for it.

The Iron Pact, the Earth Faction, maybe even the gods themselves.

Kael’s fingers tightened around the vial.

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