Chapter 289: The Power of the Acid Arrow

The criminal writhed on the floor, a raw howl echoing off the ruins of the old structure. Blood streamed from the stump where his hand had been, spattering the gray stone a vivid red. His eyes, glassy and blown wide, flicked upward, and terror swallowed his face whole. His pale chin trembled as he stared up at the two figures looming over him, Luke and the armored knight at his side.

The knight’s black armor and helm crowned with two burning red lights like live coals made the criminal’s breath hitch. For a moment he thought he was looking at a Midnight Warden. Luke leaned in, the weight of his kukri resting against the man’s throat. The cold edge made the criminal flinch.

“Who sent you? Was it Bartholomew?” His voice was low and even, sharp as the blade itself.

“B-Bastion? No!” The man lifted the bloody stump as if it could shield him. “Help me, please, it hurts like hell!”

Luke answered with a flat punch to the face. The sound cracked through the narrow alley.

“Answer. Who sent you?”

“Nobody! All right? We just heard about the new Safe Zone and came for the chests!” Blood flecked his lips, hands shaking.

Luke’s expression didn’t change. He twisted the blade and drove it into the man’s thigh. The scream was almost animal. Another punch, something in his nose snapped with a wet pop. Luke pressed a finger to the man’s swollen eyelid, the nail digging into tender flesh.

“Nobody? You really going to lie to me? I’ll rip your eye out with my fingers,” he murmured, too softly to sound like a threat. It came out like a promise.

“Wait!” the man gasped. “I’m not from Bastion or any of that crap! We’re just a big gang going after the loot! I’m not alone, there are a lot of us out here. Please, don’t kill me, I’ll cooperate!”

“There are more of you?”

“Yes! Come on, I’m talking!”

Luke exhaled slowly. He stepped back, easing the blade.

“All right,” he said at last.

But before the man could register relief, Luke reversed the kukri and drove it clean through his skull. By reflex the man tried to raise the hand he no longer had. He was dead before he hit the ground.

[You have slain a human…]
[+1 Soul Fragment acquired]

Luke wiped the blade on the corpse’s cloak.

“Well. If there are more bastards out there, I’ll just pick another prisoner,” he muttered, stepping away.

Eleanor appeared out of the shadows, bow already in hand, eyes scanning. Snow clung to loose strands of her hair.

“I’m going to see where the rest of the attacks are happening,” Luke said, sliding the kukri back into place.

“I’m coming with you.” She adjusted the quiver on her back.

They ran side by side through the narrow streets. In moments, bells began tolling from different corners of the Safe Zone, iron voices echoing off stone walls. An alarm. A warning. The attackers were everywhere. Luke frowned. This wasn’t random. It was coordinated. Whoever planned it not only knew about the Safe Zone, they’d timed it perfectly.

Maybe Bartholomew is behind this, pulling strings through some gang leader, moving pawns around the board. If that’s true, there’s a good chance these goons don’t even know the real objective behind tonight’s attack.

It didn’t matter. For Luke, only one thing did: helping. The more allies who fell, the harder it would be to survive what was still coming. He climbed the ruined structure in a rush, using broken beams and loose stones as makeshift steps. Across from him, Eleanor had already drawn an arrow, sighting along the direction where one of the bells was ringing.

“I’ll go ahead,” Luke called back, his voice low and hard. “I’m faster.”

He didn’t wait for an answer. His boots hit the parapet and, in one smooth motion, he triggered the Spider Leap. The world tilted as he sprang, cape snapping open to catch the air. He glided from rooftop to rooftop, each landing a springboard into the next jump. From below, he was just a streak of black darting across the buildings, fast, predatory, relentless.

When he reached the source of the alarm, chaos waited. Haven soldiers crouched behind piles of rubble, trying to weather a barrage of fireballs. Farther ahead, a knot of raiders had broken from the main fight and were swarming a Safe Zone chest, cracking it open like carrion birds picking at a carcass. Classic misdirection: noise on one side, theft on the other.

Five of them were already pawing through the loot.

Luke pulled a bow from his inventory. Time to test something new. These idiots would make perfect targets.

[Mana Points (MP): 4759/4780]

He began shaping an Acid Blood Arrow, Dark Blood merging with Mother Freya’s blood. Two dark liquids coiled together into a spine of venomous thorns. He pushed further, flooding it with mana until it quivered on the edge of collapse.

The blood stopped drinking mana. The arrow had formed, different now, blacker at the tip, trailing a smoky haze as though the air itself was corroding around it.

[Health Points (HP): 4200/4200]
[Health Points (HP): -100]
[Health Points (HP): 4100/4200]

[Mana Points (MP): 4759/4780]
[Mana Points (MP): -1500]
[Mana Points (MP): 3259/4780]

Instead of the arrow consuming 1,000 mana as it normally would, it took 1,500 to conjure. Yet Luke could feel something was different now. The tip of the arrow was even darker and releasing a black vapor, as if the acid itself were evaporating. Luke’s mouth curved into a thin smile. The acid’s power no longer just pulsed inside the arrow, it was swelling, saturating every inch of it. Its glow had turned a sickly, lethal green, pure acid given form.

He drew the bowstring back slowly, feeling the pressure build, mana coursing through his veins as the weapon trembled with potential. His breath stilled. For a heartbeat the world narrowed to a single point: the raiders clustered around the chest.

He released.

The arrow didn’t just fly; it hissed through the air like a living thing, cutting through the darkness. When it struck, the world cracked open in an explosion of dark green acid. The thick cloud rolled outward, choking and corrosive, devouring air, stone, and flesh alike.

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The raiders screamed, clutching at their throats as the burning worked its way inside. Panic shoved greed aside, breaking their formation. On the rooftops, the fireball casters spun toward the chaos just in time to see a black shape drop among them. Luke landed on the tiles with both kukris drawn, descending like a verdict delivered in steel.

[You have slain a human…]
[+1 Soul Fragment acquired]

[You have slain a human…]
[+1 Soul Fragment acquired]

From the chest came more strangled cries. The green mist ate everything. Bodies staggered, clothes and flesh melting off bone before they toppled.

[You have slain a human…]
[+1 Soul Fragment acquired]

[You have slain a human]
[+1 Soul Fragment acquired]

[You have slain a human…]
[+1 Soul Fragment acquired]

[You have slain a human…]
[+1 Soul Fragment acquired]

[You have slain a human…]
[+1 Soul Fragment acquired]

The stench of acid thickened the air. Even at a distance Luke could see shredded faces, exposed tissue, pale bone gleaming through. The acid hadn’t only eaten them from the outside. Their screams made it clear it was devouring lungs and organs too.