The Crack In Heaven [A LitRPG Progression Fantasy] Chapter 42: Chapter 42: The Man Who Walked Into Fire

Read chapter 42 of The Crack In Heaven [A LitRPG Progression Fantasy] by Adamus_Auguste on NovelPedia.

Chapter 42: The Man Who Walked Into Fire Old Fen leaned on his rusted chair, shadows cast by the lamplight on the table clinging to his wrinkles. "How many bearers does she have?" Across from him, Joss Renn lowered the interlocked fingers he had been pressing against his forehead. He glared at Fen's mottled beard for a second, then sighed. "Eight bearers." Old Fen's shoulders slightly relaxed, only to tense twice more when Joss continued. "Two infamous ones on the verge of becoming binders. And she's a binder herself. The remaining ten are the worst scum Veston has ever puked in decades. Deserters, abusive officers whose crimes would make rats faint. You get the idea." Old Fen groaned. The chair did too when he shifted. "That brat? How is she a binder already? I thought only Brannick could bring us down... It'll be hard." "But not impossible." Joss drummed on the table, his pensive frown deepening. Fen's eyes lit up when he saw it. "The priest who believes no one noticed him? Is he your trump card?" "Samuel?" Joss held Fen's gaze, then laughed. "Kythra's priests would rather ally with evil spawns than unlicensed truth binders. You know it. Everyone does. No, we're alone, unless..." Fen leaned on his arm as Joss paused. "Unless?" "A freak lives down the street—tall guy, more hair than visible skin. He killed twelve beggars on his own. Not something a normal man pulls off any other day, especially not without a single injury. He has a truth. And since I'm right, we'll have seven bearers if he joins us." Fen let himself sink into his chair. His fingers wrapped around his forehead, the two missing ones more visible in the light. "The bastards we hired pace around our fifteen deaths. They'll flee if we leave, and I'm not sending one of our truth bearers to a man who killed twelve others effortlessly." Joss cocked his head, his lips curling. "We? Since when does recruiting a man need two?" "Hahaha." Fen's laugh was cold. His hand wrapped around his sword, his grey eyes sharp as if he had unsheathed the blade. "Trying to leave the building before it burns? We're in this together, Joss." "And where would I go?" Joss spread his palms. "Garrick already holds my information network and your tunnels. Tell me where I'll hide if I dip on you." Fen kept glaring, but his hand loosened around his sword. "Look. We can hold on with our thirty-seven men and your truth. But we'll lose. That's a fact." Joss lowered his hand, slowly, like the blade hanging over both their necks. "Now, we can either fight knowing we'll die, or try to even the odds. Your choice." Silence thickened between the two men. Eventually, Old Fen knocked his blade against his hip with a grunt. "You'll join me in Kraghor's realm in less than a day if you flee. Go. Get that freak on our side before Silma attacks. Your men stay." A pouch clinked on the table, the leather deflated around the few coins it held. Joss picked it up and untied the laces. Sighing, he emptied the pouch into his own. A gold crown and a half in total... He scowled at their glint, his eyes shifting on the scales minted on two tokens for a second too long. Then, he rose. "We walk on paths long woven by Morvana. I doubt our threads will break today. Wait for my good news." "I didn't know you worshipped the goddess of fate." "And I didn't know you were an information broker. Say, you really don't know where the rat-man went?" "For the hundredth time, my men found his room empty." "A shame." A smirk stretched across Joss' face as he left without turning. The building indeed burned, and he wouldn't join Fen's ashes. The men who paced in the corridor paused when he passed. Though their legs trembled, their faces lit up. Yet, he didn't give them the speech they dreamed about, didn't even glance at the bandages wrapped around their burns or arrow wounds. The stench, though, followed him to the ground floor. He gestured at the ten men in front of the iron pipes stretched against the doors. "Let me out. Barricade the