Chapter 331: Duel

The merchant was behind them.

The final safe zone was still ahead, and they had spent enough time in Vanitas.

The problem, as always, was that leaving Vanitas was not difficult once the conditions were met.

Reaching the next lantern was.

Kael stood under a leaning archway at the edge of the shop street, one hand holding the torch, the other opening and closing inside his gauntlet. The safe glow from Baltak’s shop did not extend far beyond the door. Outside, Sector Three waited with cleaner roads, taller buildings, and a kind of silence that felt disciplined rather than empty.

He checked the mini-map.

His mouth tightened.

The closest lantern sat deeper northeast, bright and tempting in the fog of war, but the area around it was packed with red dots. Not scattered monsters wandering randomly through ruins. These stood around the lantern in patterns that looked almost deliberate. A few shifted slowly, as if patrolling. Others remained fixed near the safest approach roads.

"Problem?" Yenna asked.

"Closest lantern looks surrounded."

"How surrounded?"

Kael glanced at the map again. "Fully."

Yenna clicked her tongue. "Knights."

"Could be."

"It’s Sector Three. It’s knights."

Kael had heard her explanation earlier, but hearing her say it with that certainty made the word settle heavier. Knights. Not blind mobs. Trained monsters. Organized monsters. The kind of enemy that made raw stats less comfortable.

Yenna moved beside him and looked down the street, though she could not see what he saw. "Use that strange map of yours. The one Baltak mentioned. Find a route with the least fighting."

Kael gave her a look. "You say that like I can open the whole floor."

"Can’t you?"

"No." He tapped his temple lightly. "The map is powerful, but it can’t see too far ahead. Fog of war blocks most of it. It scans around me to a certain range, and only what I’ve revealed stays clear."

Yenna frowned. "How much of this place have you revealed?"

Kael checked the completion number.

Then sighed.

"Zero point six percent."

Yenna stared at him.

Kael stared back.

"This place is stupid huge," he said.

For the first time since they left the shop, frustration showed openly on her face. Not fear, and not panic, but the tired anger of someone who knew too much about a place that refused to become smaller no matter how many times she survived it.

"Zero point six," she repeated.

"Yeah."

"And you already recorded seven safe zones."

"Also yeah."

She looked toward the dark streets ahead. "Vanitas is insane."

"I figured that out around the time a rat the size of a car tried to eat me."

"That was Sector One."

"Exactly."

Yenna exhaled through her nose, forcing the frustration down. "So we’re blind beyond your range."

"Mostly," Kael said. "But don’t be too negative. I can still find the path of least resistance. Or least battle. Whichever one Vanitas accidentally allows."

Kael swept the map carefully, not looking for the closest road, but the quietest one. Several routes toward the lantern were terrible. One path had clusters of red dots too close together, likely patrols or something worse. Another curved through a building-heavy district, which Yenna had already warned him against. A third looked open but had several large red marks spaced like checkpoints.

Then he spotted one possibility.

A narrow route between two broken rows of buildings, curving around a collapsed plaza and toward the lantern from the west. Only two red dots appeared along the direct path. No clusters. No moving patrols. No large swarm.

Kael frowned.

That looked good.

Which made it suspicious.

"I found a route," he said. "Only two red dots on the way."

Yenna’s face did not brighten.

"That bad?" he asked.

"You cannot trust Vanitas like that."

"I can’t trust anything here."

"No. I mean that specifically." She tightened the cloak around herself. "Vanitas makes sure all paths to a lantern are equal in misery and pain. If one road has dozens of enemies, those are usually straightforward enemies. If another road only has two..."

"They’re annoying."

"Very."

Kael looked back at the two red dots.

They were not moving much.

That bothered him.

He began adjusting his rune loadout.

Frost had been useful. More than useful. But Frost cost too much internal energy when layered with Heft, Execrate, and Exploit Weakness. Sector Three was not the place to waste power before understanding the enemy.

He kept Heft ready.

Fire replaced Frost.

Not because Fire was better in every situation, but because it was more efficient for quick impact and pressure. If the knights were as strong as Yenna implied, he needed options that could punish openings without draining himself dry.

Execrate remained available.

Exploit Weakness remained available.

Anchor stayed beneath everything, quiet and essential.

"You’re changing something," Yenna said.

"Rune setup."

"Less Frost?"

"Too expensive to spam."

She nodded once. "Good. Knights punish exhaustion."

The street narrowed as they left the shop district behind. The neon glow died quickly at their backs, swallowed by the disciplined gloom of Sector Three. Their torches burned steady, but the light felt smaller here, less because the darkness pressed like in Sector Two and more because the buildings seemed built to deny comfort. High walls. Narrow windows. Iron doors. Carved stone faces with their eyes scratched out. Every few steps, Kael saw marks along the walls that looked like sword gouges, some shallow, some deep enough to split stone.

The two red dots remained ahead.

When the street opened into a small square, Kael saw them.

Both stood tall.

Taller than him.

Larger too, not in the messy bulk of a beast, but in the shaped mass of armored bodies made to endure war. Their armor was thick, heavy, and blackened with old scars. Scratches covered the plates. Tears cut through the cloak remnants hanging from their shoulders. Rust clung to the edges, but not enough to make them look weak. Instead, it gave the impression of armor that had survived too many battles to care about being ugly.

Each held a sword the size of a tree trunk.

Not exaggerated by fear.

Actually massive.

The blades were broad, dark, and worn along the edges, with tips dug into the ground before them. Both knights held the hilts with two hands, heads bowed slightly beneath heavy helms. Their visors were closed. No eyes showed. No breath steamed through the slits.

They looked like statues guarding a road no one was supposed to take.

Then one lifted its head.

The other followed.

The moment they noticed Kael and Yenna, they did not rush.

That made Kael more nervous than if they had.

The two knights lifted their weapons from the ground in one smooth motion. The weight should have made the movement slow. It did not. Both brought their swords up and held them in both hands, blades angled forward in a clear challenge. Then they waited.

Kael glanced at Yenna. "What’s going on?"

"Duel," she said quietly.

"Duel?"

"They’re asking for a duel."

Kael looked back at the knights. "Monsters ask?"

"Knights do." Yenna’s voice had lost its casual edge. "If you try to gang up on a knight, you’ll regret it. When fighting them one on one, they’ll make sure you die quickly."

"Sounds comforting."

"It is, compared to the alternative."

"You fought them before?"

"Yes. A couple times." Her eyes stayed fixed on the closest knight. "But these guys are a bit special. I’ve never seen anything their size before. I made it to Sector Three before, but I never got to explore it much."

The closest knight took one step forward.

The ground gave a dull sound beneath its armored foot.

Yenna drew her sword.

The curved blade came free in a red line, catching the torchlight and turning it sharp.

She pointed it at the closest knight.

"No matter what happens," she said, "don’t help me."

Kael looked at her.

"If you do," she continued, "the whole damn sector will come crashing on us."

His grip tightened around the torch. "What if there is no option but to help?"

"Then do it quick, do it fast, and run like the wind. They can hold a grudge."

"That sounds like experience."

"It is."

The closest knight bowed its head.

Not deeply.

Just enough to acknowledge the challenge.

Then it moved forward.

The second knight lowered its sword again and stepped back, still watching. It did not leave. It did not relax. It stood outside the duel’s immediate range, a silent witness with a tree-trunk blade and all the patience of a grave marker.

Kael backed away as well.

Far enough not to be mistaken as participating.

Far enough that the strange rules of Sector Three, whatever governed these knights, would not decide his presence counted as interference. He kept his torch raised, but angled away from Yenna’s fight so its light covered the edge of the square without making him look like he was assisting.

Yenna and the knight faced each other.

The square went still.

Then the fight started.

Kael could only stare at the absurdity of what was going on.