The Luminaires looked pathetic huddled together, pressed into something that barely passed for a defensive position.
Kael's hand rested on his sheathed knife as he studied them.
And yet, pathetic as they were, it was a reminder of how much the psychological weighed against the physical in real combat. Perhaps more. If every one of them found the courage to rush him at once, Kael was certain he would be the one running. But they wouldn't. He knew that too.
Becoming a vendor was profitable, comfortable even. But it was a pale substitute for the real thing. Each and every one of them hid behind a thin veil of pride, wrapping themselves in the dignity of civilised trade to disguise what they truly were. Cowards. People unwilling to put everything on the line for what they actually wanted. Kael didn't hold it against them. But he didn't respect it either.
What he saw were people who had chosen a smaller life, a safer game, and called it wisdom.
When their time came, could they honestly say they had lived true to themselves? That they had chased what they wanted without flinching, without compromise? No. They couldn't. When death arrived, as it did for everyone without exception, even the paragons, the people standing before him now would meet it with regret already rotting in their chest. They would beg for another chance. Swear that this time they would do it differently. This time they would live without restraint. This time they would be honest about what they wanted.
But there would be no second chance. There never was.
Kael pocketed his hand and stood there, hidden in the dark.
How should he kill them? They looked harmless now, but if he started picking them off one by one, the will to survive would override whatever fear held them in place. If it came to that, he wasn't sure he could manage.
He ran his tongue along his teeth as his mind churned.
His eyes narrowed shortly after.
There, furthest back in the group. Cold beads of sweat ran down a young Luminaire's forehead. His breathing was uneven, his hands shaking the way someone fighting through great pain would. He had dropped to all fours, chest heaving, looking moments away from losing everything in his stomach.
'He must be reaching his breaking point.' Kael tilted his head.
He hadn't moved at all, yet the young man's mind had already spiralled into something unimaginable. By now he probably no longer thought of Kael as a person, but something else entirely. A Dreadborne hunting them through the dark, or maybe a beast running on pure instincts.
Kael settled into a low crouch and simply waited.
However the next few minutes unfolded, it would only work in his favour if their minds deteriorated further. So he gave them the time to do exactly that.
The young man looked around, his eyes searching the nothing of the endless dark. Then he began to crawl toward a stall to the side. The Luminaires around him paid no attention as he brushed past their legs.
When he finally reached the stall he clawed at the display case.
'A mundane bow?' Kael's full attention settled on him.
The young man's eyes were wide and empty of any reason as he pulled at the case until the bow clattered to the ground. He grabbed it loosely and began to crawl again. Not back toward the group, but deeper into the market instead.
After a while he stretched an arm out ahead of him, feeling through the dark. When his fingers finally found the wall at the far end he dragged himself forward and sat against it, resting the bow across his lap.
Kael was certain it was a completely ordinary bow, with a single arrow beside it. So why was that where the young man's mind had gone when it was on the verge of collapse? It wasn't impossible that he had simply lost all reasoning and grabbed the nearest thing associated with a weapon. But it was equally possible the bow meant something else entirely. Perhaps the young Luminaire had a ranged ability that required one.
With that thought Kael rose to his full height and drew his hand free, ready for whatever came next.
'Could he even hit me in the darkness?'
The thought dissolved as quickly as it formed.
It didn't matter. Kael wouldn't risk it. Blind or not, a single lucky shot from that bow could find something vital. At the worst of times the heavens seemed to have a sense of humour after all.
"D— Don't come close, whoever you are." another Luminaire called out, though it sounded even less convincing than before.
Something snapped at those words.
The young man raised the bow and pulled the string taut, pointing the arrow straight down the corridor in Kael's direction.
'He's completely lost it.'
It was plain to see. His mind was gone. He was aiming straight through the crowd of his own people without a trace of concern for any of them.
Kael watched as the young man's breathing stilled completely.
He was aiming.
The moment his fingers released, something changed.
It was a simple draw and release, but before the arrow had even fully left the bow its momentum already exceeded anything Kael could throw at full strength.
Whoosh.
The arrow launched.
A miniature shockwave rolled through the corridor, blasting dust and debris into the air. And in that same instant something shifted. Faint, but undeniable.
The arrow had become something close to a mote. Or at least it carried the same sensation as one. Rank one, but unmistakable.
Then, as though a million invisible threads had been sewn into the young man's skin, the arrow pulled. And it pulled hard. With a wet, sickening tear, skin and muscle ripped free from his body in ragged strips, trailing blood through the air as the arrow carried it all forward.
What remained of the young Luminaire slumped.
The torn flesh and blood chased the arrow as though drawn by some unseen force, defying all reason as the remnants of the young Luminaire caught up to it, coating the shaft in a deep, glistening crimson.
Kael's eyes widened.
The moment the two combined the arrow climbed to rank two. With it came speed, more than before, more than seemed possible.
One. Two. Three.
It refused to stop. It punched through one Luminaire and swept past another, and wherever it went that invisible force pulled without mercy. Five collapsed in an instant, stripped of flesh, reduced to ruin before they could even register what had taken it.
Streams of what had once been human spiralled in its wake, reaching for the arrow, feeding it. The arrow climbed to rank three. Its speed had surpassed what even Kael's eyes could comfortably follow, reduced now to a streak of deep crimson burning through the dark.
It passed through the last ten Luminaires in a single breath.
With so much flesh, it jumped a rank completely, instantly advancing to five.
The remnants of the Luminaires surged desperately toward the arrow, but it had reached a speed so immense that even its own fuel could no longer catch it.
The arrow was no longer wood. The crimson had deepened and hardened into something that resembled an unknown metal. It left ruin in its wake without exception. Stalls tore free from walls and floors under the sheer wind pressure, and shortly after, thick cobblestone slabs peeled loose from the ground below. All of it came screaming toward Kael like the leading edge of a calamity.
There was no time to think. Instinct took full control.
Kael whipped his arm up, Thoughts draining instantly as Point Aegis activated.
Red sparks bloomed outward like a flower, bathing the entire tunnel in an ominous red. A metallic ring exploded out from the point of impact as the two forces collided, screeching through his ears and down his spine.
The arrow didn't slow.
It paused for only a heartbeat upon connecting, then, as though it had somewhere deeper to be, the outermost layer peeled away from the arrow head, revealing what was beneath. Sharper. Denser. It pushed further into his palm, and when it met new resistance another layer shed itself, driving it deeper still.
Upon reaching the fifth layer the head punched through the back of Kael's hand. And then Point Aegis could no longer resist.
The arrow had barely slowed as it tore free. It seared past his cheek, ripping skin as it went, whipping his hair violently to one side. Moments later the blood that had never managed to catch up shot straight through his hand in pursuit, a fine crimson mist chasing something already long gone.
Kael's eyes had never managed to follow the full event. Only when it had passed completely did he register what was coming next. A mountain of rubble, surging toward him.
He turned and raised his arm.
It washed over him like a wave, wood and stone battering against his coat, skin and bones.
Behind him the arrow continued its merciless path, stall after stall crumpling and spilling its contents into the dark. Only when it met the stone stairs did it finally stop, though not without its say. The impact detonated outward, a wall of air that sent everything trailing behind the arrow crashing to a halt in a chaos of splintered wood and shattered stone.
Kael dropped to one knee, pressing his ruined hand against his chest hard.
'What the hell was that?'
His jaw tightened.
He was certain. Certain it had been a rank one Luminaire. Certain it had been a mundane bow, a mundane arrow. So why? Why had it climbed to rank five? Why had it torn through every remaining Luminaire in the market without slowing? And why, of all things, had it not killed him?
"Fuck."
Before he could collapse fully he caught himself on his elbow, and coughed a mouthful of blood onto the stone beneath him.
This was it. He could feel it. The same cold pain he had felt before, somewhere deep, past the blood loss and the burning in his hand. Something had cracked. Point Aegis had taken a fatal blow, and his soul with it.