The concentrated beam of the compact flashlight struck Jaxon’s dark-adjusted eyes like a physical blow.
In the subterranean pitch, where human retinas lived in permanent gloom, the sudden glare produced an immediate, blinding white-out. But Jaxon was not an untrained novice.
He snarled, his left forearm snapping up to shield his burning eyes while his right arm whipped forward in a lethal, blind reflex.
The bone dagger left his hand with terrifying velocity.
Arin threw his head to the right on pure instinct. The projectile whistled past his ear, severing a lock of hair before shattering violently against the basalt wall behind him. The kinetic force sent sharp bone splinters grazing across Arin's cheek, drawing fresh beads of blood.
He didn't freeze, and he didn't charge. Rushing a blinded, higher-level fighter on a half-meter-wide wet ledge was suicide.
Deprived of vision, Jaxon lunged forward blindly, his heavy arms extended to tackle Arin off the narrow walkway and drag them both into the void. A Level 3's mass and momentum were closing in.
Arin didn't retreat. Backing up on slick, wet slate meant losing his balance. Instead, he dropped flat to his stomach beneath Jaxon’s outstretched arms.
In that same breath, Mira acted. Having tracked the overflow notch and the slick algae channel the moment their boots touched the ledge, she needed no signal. She drove the heel of her boot straight into the chisel-cut stone lip of the basin, releasing a sudden, heavy sheet of pooled water across the slate.
Arin swept the heavy aluminum barrel of his flashlight horizontally across the rock, striking Jaxon's leading ankle just as the blinded man’s boot hit the surge of running water.
Jaxon’s foot shot out from under him. His forward momentum, intended to tackle Arin, became his own undoing. His hip slammed hard against the outer edge of the catwalk, his center of gravity tumbling past the lip.
"Catch him!" Jaxon snarled, his voice cracking with sudden panic as his body pitched out over the abyss.
His left hand clawed wildly, his nails screeching against the rock before hooking four fingers into the iron grating of the catwalk.
His entire lower body dangled out over the void.
Three meters beneath his hanging boots, the thick, acrid white mist of the chemical canal curled lazily around his ankles. The moment the vapor brushed against the hem of his trousers, the fabric began to blacken, releasing a sharp, sulfurous stink.
Arin rose to his feet, breathing hard, his rusted knife drawn and held in a low, tight grip.
Beside him, Mira stood over the ledge, her blade unsheathed, its tip hovering three inches above the fingers Jaxon was using to cling to the rock.
Jaxon’s face was beet-red, veins bulging in his neck as his arm muscles screamed under the deadweight of his gear. His vision was still swimming with yellow afterimages, but he could clearly see the two figures standing calmly above him.
"Wait—" Jaxon choked out, his arrogance completely evaporating into the cold, damp air. "Wait! Don't! I've got marks—I've got six copper marks in my belt! Take them!"
Arin looked down at the dangling man. His analytical mind was working through the variables without a shred of emotion.
Level 3. Member of the Vanguard. If he lived, he would report to his group that a newly spawned player with clean rations and a high-efficiency light source was wandering the drainage cleft.
Dead men filed no reports.
Arin looked at Mira.
Her face was an unreadable mask of cold stone. She didn't hesitate. She didn't preach. She simply turned her wrist, aligning the point of her steel with the knuckle of Jaxon’s anchoring index finger.
"The Vanguard took three of ours at the river last cycle," Mira whispered softly. "Tell them their water tax is paid."
She drove the blade down.
The steel punctured straight through the tendon into the stone beneath.
Jaxon released an ear-splitting shriek as his grip shattered.
His fingers peeled away from the rock, and his body plunged backward into the darkness.
Splash.
The sound from below was not the clean splash of water; it was a thick, wet thud, like meat dropped into motor oil.
Within two seconds, a massive geyser of caustic, white chemical steam erupted violently from the surface of the canal, boiling upward toward the ceiling. A muffled, bubbling scream echoed through the culvert—a sound of liquid flesh and collapsing lungs that lasted less than four seconds before cutting off into dead, hissing silence.
> [PLAYER JAXON DECEASED]
> [PVP CONTRIBUTION DETECTED: 45%]
> [EXPERIENCE GAINED: 24]
> [EXPERIENCE: 42/60 TO LEVEL 3]
Arin stared down through the rising plumes of acrid smoke, his stomach tightening into a hard, cold knot.
His hands were steady, but the reality of the notifications was chilling.
Forty-five percent contribution for a sweep and a light beam. The system didn't care who struck the final blow; it calculated causality. It rewarded the tactical orchestration of death.
Mira smoothly wiped her blade on the leg of her pants and slid it back into her sheath. Her breath came slightly faster, but her hands showed no tremor whatsoever.
She turned to Arin, her dark eyes reflecting the fading white vapor.
A new notification flashed between them:
> [VARIABLE SHIFT DETECTED]
> [PLAYER: ARIN VALE ↔ PLAYER: MIRA]
> [CURRENT TRUST: 5 → 12]
> [STATUS: PROVISIONAL COMBAT PARTNERSHIP ESTABLISHED]
"You didn't hesitate with the light," Mira said, her voice quiet against the hiss of the canal.
"He was standing on algae," Arin replied, picking up his fallen flashlight from the rock and checking the lens. The glass was intact. "His boots were smooth. It was the only probability that favored us."
Mira stared at him for a long moment, then shook her head with a faint, bitter smirk.
"You're a strange one, Arin Vale," she said, turning toward the overflowing stone catch-basin. "Fill your bottles. Jaxon was supposed to strike his check-in chime at the secondary intake in twenty minutes. When he misses it, and that steam hits the upper ventilation ducts, every Vanguard patrol on this shelf will know someone just died down here."