Chương 80: Chapter 79: Addiction

Lio huffed in annoyance as a heavy silence filled the cavern, broken only by the ragged breathing of the wounded behind him. Still, he didn't waste another second staring at the empty space. The mysterious duo was gone, but the immediate crisis remained. Senna continued to be dead to the world, slumped awkwardly against the stone. Ophila was in even worse shape. By now, a large pool of dark blood had pooled around her clothes, her skin turning even more impossibly pale, into an ominous shade of grey.

William was still upright, but he was having to lean heavily against the cavern walls just to keep from collapsing. They couldn't stay here. Ophila was literal minutes away from bleeding out to death. Lio limped over—his leg muscles absolutely lacerated—to the massive, mangled form of the Akkorok. The giant creature was completely incapacitated from the previous clash, but somehow, it was barely clinging onto life. But not for long.

Quickly, Lio brought his Adamantine knife down, driving it deep into the monster's main body, skewering it and finishing the job. As the creature went limp, Lio used the razor-sharp edge of his blade to slice several long, incredibly thick strips of its durable, sinewy hide. It was crude, but the tough skin would serve its purpose.

"William! All of you too, get over here now!" Lio barked, gesturing to the remaining five children who stood trembling in the shadows. The children stumbled forward in a daze, their eyes unfocused from the sheer exhaustion and terror tormenting their young minds. Lio didn't waste a second. He grabbed Ophila, carefully hoisting her onto his own back despite the agonizing protest from his legs. Using the long strips of monster hide, he bound her tightly to his torso, ensuring she wouldn't slip.

Next, he turned his attention to the five terrified children. Working quickly, Lio pulled two of the smallest children against his chest, wrapping more of the thick hide around them until they were completely attached to him.

"Hurry up!" he commanded the others. He grabbed the unconscious Senna, hoisting her up and tying her securely to William's back. He then took the remaining three children and strapped them tightly to William's front and sides, turning the boy into a makeshift human bag.

"Hold onto them," Lio ordered, grabbing William firmly by the collar of his shirt and giving him a hard shake to snap him out of his daze.

"And brace yourself." There was no time to look for a safe exit or a path around. The only way out was straight up, through the massive hole left by the Akkorok on the cavern ceiling above. Lio focused, scraping his body for all his remaining energy, activating both [Augmentation] and [Mach Heart] at the same time. The internal pressure in both of his thighs spiked violently, the very few remaining muscle fibers tearing and snapping under the unnatural strain as he forced them to act as explosive pistons.

He could literally hear the bones in his legs groaning under the immense weight of nine people. Boom! The ground beneath them shattered into dust as Lio launched them skyward. They shot into the dark, vertical shaft. As their upward momentum began to slow, Lio kicked off the side rock walls with a violent impact, maintaining his kinetic energy to propel them to the other side. Crack! Boom! Crack! It was brutal and agonizing.

With every step against the stone, the agony in Lio's legs grew more blinding, but his cold expression never wavered. He repeated the cycle three more times, until they finally breached the upper rim of the chasm, crashing hard onto the ruined wooden floor of the lodge. Lio didn't pause to catch his breath. Dragging William—who was in shock from the sheer speed of the climb—by the collar, he hauled the staggering boy and the unconscious Senna out through the collapsed doorway and into the open streets of Trestfall.

Outside, the settlement was a nightmare. The air was thick with the choking stench of burning ash and smoke. Shrill, inhuman shrieks echoed between the crumbling stone buildings as varying monsters roamed through the settlement, hunting down the few residents that remained. A small pack of razor-limbed scavengers noticed their sudden arrival and immediately turned, snarling as they began to close the distance. To Lio, these creatures were manageable.

He reached for his knife, preparing to clear a path towards an apothecary or a medical station, a place where he could get supplies and ingredients to treat Ophila. Then, his concentration was broken as warm fluid suddenly soaked the back of his shirt. A choked gasp left Ophila's lips. The crude bindings of Akkorok hide shifted as her body went completely slack against him. Lio's eyes widened as he realized what had happened. The immense G-force of the vertical wall-jumps had been too much for her fragile state.

The deep injuries—insufficiently treated by William—had catastrophically torn wide open. Shit! He quickly cut the bindings, catching her as she slipped from his back. Dropping to one knee, Lio supported her head. Ophila was rapidly slipping into severe hemorrhagic shock. Her skin had turned blue, her lips trembling as her eyes rolled back into her head. Her pulse beneath his fingers was slowing, dying out like a spent candle.

"William! Apply some pressure!" Lio commanded. But before the exhausted boy could even move, the sky above them roared. Lio glanced up just in time to see the massive tear in the artificial sky above Trestfall widen, the shimmering edges curling outward. From the pitch-black void, a second wave of monstrosities began to pour into the streets. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Pinned down with Ophila bleeding out in his arms, Senna unconscious, and William completely immobilized by exhaustion, Lio's mind flashed through his rapidly dwindling options. He had barely any muscle fibers left in his legs to activate [Mach Heart]. Suddenly, a figure darted into the chaos from a side alley, placing himself directly between the horde and Lio's party. It was a young man with curly brown hair that hung just above his eyes. Ergyn. And he hadn't come alone.

"Clear a path! Hold the line!" Erygn shouted. A squad of Trestfall guards rushed in from the alley behind him, quickly forming a hasty phalanx with their shields to hold back the advancing tide of monsters. A massive beast lunged at him, but Erygn didn't flinch. Using True Mind to perfectly stabilize his focus, he gracefully sidestepped the lethal strike, then slashed out with his sword to sever the creature's head in one clean swoop.

Without wasting any time, Erygn immediately stepped back from the frontline and rushed over to where Lio knelt. When his gaze went over to Ophila's pale, lifeless features and the massive pool of blood soaking Lio's shirt, the young captain's composure shattered, his ocean blue eyes filling with worry.

"Is she…"

"She's still alive," Lio stated flatly.

"But we can't get to an apothecary."

"The apothecaries have already been all destroyed," Erygn quickly corrected him.

"You need to get her to a bunker we have for the citizens. The practitioners are all still safe there." Lio scowled.

"How far away is it?" Ergyn hesitated.

"It'll take around ten minutes for us to push through."

"Ten minutes?" Lio's cold mask cracked just enough to reveal the sliver of exasperation. Useless. He looked down at Ophila. By now, her pulse was practically nonexistent. Ten minutes was an eternity. She had two, maybe three minutes left before her brain suffocated from the lack of oxygen.

"That's too long," Lio said coldly. If only he could reach an area where he could get access to medical ingredients, he would be able to save Ophila.

"Where is the bunker?" he demanded.

"Give me the exact location."

"It's built outside of Trestfall," Ergyn answered rapidly, pointing a hand toward the outskirts.

"It's located on a ridge against the eastern Floor wall." Then, his brows furrowed, his earnest face filling with distress as he realized what Lio was implying.

"But the streets are choked! It's best that we protect you! Maybe if we—""Again, it'll take too long," Lio interrupted. He carefully gathered Ophila into his arms, hoisting her limp body against his chest. He raised an eyebrow at the guard captain.

"Take care of my party members. And the children as well. Get them to the bunker safely." William, slouched against a nearby stone wall and barely clinging to consciousness, managed a weak croak.

"Lio, wait, what are you doing?"

"Just paying my dues," Lio muttered. He didn't wait for Erygn's protests as he turned his gaze toward the horde of multi-limbed monsters. He squeezed his eyes shut. What he was about to do went against every survival instinct he had. [Mach Heart]. The moment the rune flared to life on his wrist, Lio snarled. His leg muscles—already chewed into ragged ribbons—shrieked as the violent, unnatural compression forced them to densify once more. It sounded like thick, wet ropes were violently snapping.

The agonizing pressure radiated straight past the tissue and directly into his bones. For a second, Lio couldn't feel his lower half at all. He realized grimly, fighting through the dark spots swarming his vision, that if he pressed it even a fraction too much, he was going to be struck by perhaps permanent paralysis. Boom! The cobblestones beneath his boots shattered into fine powder as Lio launched forward, becoming a streaking blur of pure motion.

Every single step resulted in a detonation of pure, blinding agony. It felt as though someone had driven red-hot iron spikes directly through his kneecaps and straight up into his spine. His vision swam, everything becoming a meaningless blur of strange colors. Crack! He barely managed to avoid a massive beast, but the sudden change in trajectory caused a sickening pop to sound from left femur.

The blood vessels in his calves ruptured under the immense internal pressure, staining his trousers rec, but he didn't dare slow down. In fact, he couldn't. If he broke his momentum now, his shredded muscles simply wouldn't be able to continue and dissolve into paralysis. Gritting his teeth, Lio held Ophila tighter, forcing his legs to move faster. But as the street blurred around him, an intrusive question flickered to life inside his mind. Why? Why was he doing this?

Why was he subjecting his physical body to this level of injury, driving himself to paralysis, all to save a single life? In fact, when he had first met Ophila, his very first instinct was thinking whether it would be more efficient to kill her. He was a creature of absolute pragmatism. And so, he knew that right now, the ends simply did not justify the means. One human life meant nothing. He had seen thousands of them snuffed out across his loops, and he would see thousands more.

Yet here he was, shattering his body to save her. As he tore through the ruined streets, the thoughts kept arriving, surprisingly clear through the foggy pain. If someone were looking at him now, they would probably misinterpret this desperate sprint as a bright testament to human emotions. They would think that beneath his frozen exterior, Lio had finally developed a heart. But… But Lio knew himself far too well. He was too smart and too old to fall into any sort of self-illusion.

He didn't truly care about Ophila. No. But he did care about the anomaly. For hundreds of years, everything had been exactly the same. Every floor was identical, every person who died was identical, and the monsters that appeared before him acted the same. Lio had been a ghost simply going through the habits of a dead world. But Ophila? This anomaly? Because of her, Sparrow had appeared. Because of her, an advanced secret organization had shown up.

The absolute perfection of his loop had been destroyed, becoming a chaotic storm. The sheer unpredictability of it was like a drug. And that stimulation… Lio had become entirely addicted to it. The terror of not knowing what happened next, the pain of a broken body, the frantic calculations required on the spot to survive an unmapped ambush… It was the most intense invigoration he had felt in a millennium. That was why he couldn't let Ophila die.

If she died here, the variable might disappear, and the next loop would inevitably sink back into the same mind-numbing monotony. I won't let that happen. A manic fire ignited behind Lio's dead eyes. He truly welcomed this agony. He craved this pressure. And holding the dying girl even tighter against his chest, Lio continued running.