Kobold Delivery System: The Goddesses Won't Leave me Alone!-Chapter 116: ch:

The hills west of the harbor rose like broken teeth, their paths old and mean and known only to smugglers, shepherds, and men who ran from fires they couldn’t put out. I took them at a dead sprint until my breath burned, then settled into a pace I could hold—one foot in front of the other, heart hammering, mind stripped down to numbers and angles and time. The city fell away behind me, screams thinning, smoke flattening into a low bruise against the sky. Moonrise crept closer with every step, a pale promise sharpening at the edge of the clouds.

The first sign that the Empress hadn’t been lying came an hour in.

The air changed.

It thickened, sweet and metallic, like rain about to fall on a battlefield. My tongue tasted copper. The ground underfoot went from dry loam to slick stone, and the hills folded inward, funnelling me toward a narrow ravine that cut straight down into the earth. Old masonry jutted from the rock like ribs—forgotten service mouths of the eastern aqueduct, sealed decades ago when the new channels were laid and the old sins buried with them.

I slowed. Listened.

Water whispered below. Not a river’s rush—something heavier. Patient. The kind of sound that meant pressure building, waiting for a weakness.

I slid down the ravine, boots scraping stone, and reached the first grate. The iron bars were slick with condensation that smelled wrong. I pressed my palm to the metal. It was warm.

"Moonrise," I muttered, and wedged the prybar under the hinges.

It took less effort than it should have. The grate peeled back with a wet sigh, and black water surged forward—not flooding yet, not fully alive, but eager. I jumped aside as it lapped at my boots, leaving behind a smear like ink that twitched, then stilled.

Down in the channel, something moved.

I dropped in after it, torch flaring to life in my hand. The aqueduct widened into a vaulted tunnel, old stone etched with maintenance sigils long since worn smooth. The water crept along the floor in a thin sheet, climbing the walls where the runes had been scratched out. Where it touched, the stone darkened and pulsed, as if breathing.

Figures rose from it—slow, careful, as though relearning how joints worked. They were people once. Dockhands with rope-burned hands. A guard still wearing half a badge. A child clutching a broken toy boat. Their eyes were gone, replaced by mirrored black that reflected my torch back at me, my own face stretched and warped in their gaze.

"Not yet," I told them, and slammed the first charge into the tunnel wall.

The blast shattered stone and sigil alike. The ceiling sagged, then collapsed, choking the channel with rubble. The black water recoiled, shrieking without sound, and the figures dissolved back into it, limbs unthreading like smoke pulled apart by wind.

I ran.

There were more tunnels. More mouths. Some I collapsed with charges, some I sealed with old counter-wards I half-remembered from lessons I’d skipped to steal bread and run rooftops. Each one bought the city minutes. Maybe more. Maybe less. The black water learned fast—flowing around obstacles, seeping through cracks, climbing where it couldn’t push.

By the time the moon cleared the clouds, my arms shook and my pack was empty. My torch guttered low. The last tunnel lay ahead, wider than the rest—an overflow channel that led straight toward the lower cisterns under the capital walls. The stone here was newer, cleaner. Important.

And Veyra stood in the middle of it, as if she’d been waiting all along.

She wore the Empress’s colors like a joke—white and gold stained with something darker. Her smile was sharp and pleased, eyes bright with the kind of attention that meant she was enjoying herself. Behind her, the black water rose in a slow, obedient arc, cradling her boots without touching them.

"You’re early," she said. "Or late. It’s hard to tell when you’re dying."

I planted my feet, letting the last of my breath settle. "Step aside."

She laughed, soft, almost fond. "You read the letter. You still came alone. That makes you predictable."

"I came to shut this down."

"No," Veyra said, and her eyes flicked upward—toward the city, toward the palace looming unseen beyond stone and night. "You came to choose."

She lifted a hand. The water surged, not forward but up—toward a ring of sigils carved into the ceiling I hadn’t noticed until they flared to life. A gate. Half-built. Hungry. The air around it screamed, a thin sound that set my teeth on edge.

"Break the tunnel," she went on, voice calm as a lecture hall. "You save the lower wards. The gate opens above, and your friends arrive to a palace already hollowed out."

She smiled wider, eyes never leaving mine. "Or you stop me here. The water floods. The city drowns. But the throne room stays closed."

The ground trembled. Somewhere far off, horns began to sound—warning calls, layered and frantic. The black water thickened, rising to my calves, tugging at my boots like hands.

I thought of green flares against dark cliffs. Of silver threads woven into wood. Of a cutter slicing through black water with the wind at her back. Of Sarah’s forehead against mine, Sophia’s warmth in my wrist, Mona’s laugh like a blade finding its mark.

"Always with the knives," I said, and took a step forward.

Veyra’s smile sharpened.

Moonlight spilled through a crack in the stone above us, cold and clean, painting the water in shades of oil and stars. The gate screamed, sigils flaring brighter, and the black water surged—no longer patient.

I drew the last thing I had left: a small flare, green glass scored with cracks. I didn’t light it. Not yet.

"Make your move," Veyra said.

I did.

I hurled the flare—not at her, but at the sigil ring. It shattered on the stone, green fire blooming as the alchemical charge bit into the runes. The gate howled, light stuttering. Veyra snarled, water lashing out like a whip. It caught my shoulder, spun me, slammed me into the wall hard enough to rattle my teeth.

I tasted blood. Laughed anyway.

"Wrong answer," she hissed, and drove the water forward.

I shoved myself upright, jammed my palm into the stone, and cut deep. Blood slicked the rock, hot and real. The ward Sophia had woven answered—faint, distant, but there. The stone thrummed under my hand like a heartbeat.

"Come on," I whispered, to the city, to the ship, to anyone listening. "Just a little longer."

The tunnel began to crack.

Stone screamed. Water roared. Veyra’s eyes widened, just a fraction.

And somewhere far to the west, three green flares burned against the night.