The senior member of the Sun Clan curled his brows. He was not happy with how this newbie was acting.

Twenty cores, a pain reliever, not gonna fix you up or anything, just will make it feel less painful, you’re still dying though," the merchant added.

Kael’s jaw tightened. Twenty cores he could barely manage. Not because it was cheap, but because he had nothing else left worth trading without opening himself up. "Yeah, I’d rather die on my own terms then, give it," Kael said as he placed twenty cores on the table.

He was down to his last twenty.

The shopkeeper handed him a small vial. Kael didn’t even inspect it since another bout of coughs was about to tear through his lungs. He drunk the whole thing immediately.

The liquid hit his throat like a bitter slap, cold at first, then spreading warmth that didn’t heal so much as it dulled the edges of everything. The pain didn’t vanish. It simply stopped screaming for a moment, like someone had shoved a cloth into its mouth.

"Oi, feels like you’re ignoring us pal," One of the people of the sun clan grabbed Kael by the shoulder.

Kael’s head turned slowly, mask still dripping inside, breath still wrong, patience gone. "Get, your fucking hand, off of me," Kael’s words were spoken through spite, spit, blood and anger. He was not in the mood.

"Boss, how about we drag him out, its all fair game then," he said.

Kael immediately flexed both arms, and the gauntlets showed up.

Metal formed over his hands in a blink, heavier now, cleaner, the kind of gear that didn’t look like it belonged to a "newbie." The sudden presence of it made the air shift again. Even the shopkeeper’s gaze sharpened, measuring the risk.

"No... fighting." The shop keeper said.

Just as Kael was about to argue, the man that had grabbed him simply threw him out.

The strength difference was too much for current Kael. It was an absurd amount of power coming from someone who was physically scrawnier than him. But it was still enough to force Kael to fly from the counter all the way to the street outside.

He tumbled and rolled, bloodied and exhausted. His shoulder scraped stone. His ribs protested. The gauntlets clanged once, loud enough to turn a few heads on the street, and Kael hated that too, hated that he’d made noise like a dying animal.

He stopped with one knee planted and one hand braced, trying to rise like he hadn’t just been tossed like trash. The mask tore off his face mid-roll, snagging and ripping away, and cold air slapped his mouth and nose raw.

"Son, of a bitch," Kael coughed as the mask tore off his face.

"Tsk, I knew it was him." Iori said as he walked out.

The Sun Clan members followed, spilling into the street like they owned it. Their boots were clean. Their armor fit. Their expressions were the kind that came from people who had never needed to beg.

"Look, this guy looks like he’s about to die right here, you really want to take care of him," Iori said as he looked at the senior Sun Clan member.

The senior member took a good look at Kael who struggled to stand up. "Looks like he’s right, you’re not worth the price of being healed. I doubt that you were even the one that got the stage cleared. Especially with those things in your hands."

Kael’s breath shuddered. Not fear, anger. The kind that made his vision tighten at the edges. He tasted blood again, but the pain reliever kept it from taking his legs out entirely.

"Then how about you, cough! Get a taste," Kael said as he pushed in the fire rune, the heft rune and the anchor rune in his right hand gauntlet.

The reaction was immediate as a surge of energy moved through his gauntlet.

It wasn’t subtle. It wasn’t gentle. The flow slammed through his arm like a current grabbing a drowning man by the spine, and for a fraction of a second Kael thought he’d forced control back into his own hands.

However, instead of it being threatening, Kael went into an immediate fit of coughing, far worse than anything he had before.

His body folded, shoulders jerking, and the cough tore out of him like something was trying to claw its way free from the inside. His vision darkened and his chest felt like it was about to explode.

’Fucking hell that hurts’ Kael cursed as even with the effects of the pain dampening potion, it was still absurdly painful what he was going through.

He looked at his energy bar, and was surprised to see it change. It was changing color, from blue to red, and was increasing in size.

It wasn’t comfort. It was pressure. Like someone had poured fuel into an engine with a cracked chamber and told it to run anyway.

"Let me take care of this one," Iori said as he grabbed a dagger from one of the other sun clan members.

The blade looked ordinary, which was the worst kind. Ordinary meant it didn’t need flair to kill.

"Hey, why would you get the kill!" the member complained.

"You’re higher level than me and him. If you get the kill, you’ll get nothing for killing a newbie, I’ll at least get the experience and the drops. Also I doubt you’d want to be a red player inside the city?"

The man opened his mouth and closed it. Iori was right.

Iori stepped closer, slow enough to savor it, not slow enough to look hesitant. He tilted his head like he was inspecting a piece of trash on the road, something stuck to a boot. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

"What a shame, you died on the first floor in the first tower, and now you’ll die here. On the second, quite the same. You shouldn’t have crossed the Sun Clan," Iori said as he raised his dagger and dropped it right on top of Kael’s coughing head.