The Crack In Heaven [A LitRPG Progression Fantasy] Chapter 16: Chapter 16: A Path Carved in Fragments

Read chapter 16 of The Crack In Heaven [A LitRPG Progression Fantasy] by Adamus_Auguste on NovelPedia.

Chapter 16: A Path Carved in Fragments "No, friend. I know what it is that we paid." Riccardo gazed at Giovanni, his blistered fists clenched over the table. "You do?" "Giovanni smartest!" Tonio patted Giovanni's back with a gentleness that didn't match his rat-man's furred muscles. Across from them, Kael left the sweat-drenched sheet to join them at the table. He sat on a rock, elbows pressed against the stone, hands crossed beneath his chin, and back leaning forward. Giovanni let the silence linger for a couple of seconds. No, he didn't. His fingers, barely kept from clenching, twitched in self-reproach as his mind churned for the right words. At least, that's what Kael felt. Eventually, Giovanni's voice cracked with the answer. A painful crack that mirrored the arm that fell off his shoulder. "It's so normal that it has no name I know of. I wouldn't even have thought about it if not for the lad. Listen, last night, flesh squirmed with pus around your wounds, and illnesses took over your skin and mind. But today? You're back to how you were before—to your normal state. That's what we paid for, this basic ability everyone has without noticing it." Kael frowned. So did the others. Giovanni bit his lip, but without teeth, Kael jerked back when they vanished into his mouth. "Easy. It's not conceptual at all. Look at us." Giovanni's lips returned with a soft plop as he drank from his tin of stale water. "We drink poison but never fell ill. Our wounds never bled either. But did we truly heal ever?" He shook his head when Riccardo's eyes widened. "You get it. The truth of the survivor keeps us alive by making our bodies adapt, by making them live with what tries to kill them. At the price of rewriting our normal state constantly." "Fuck!" Riccardo slammed the table. Blisters burst open, raining corrupted blood everywhere. "It was our power all along. By Kraghor's frost, this truth is a curse." Kael remained silent, lost in his racing thoughts. When he read in his ledger that body-related prices existed, he thought they were better than what he paid. After all, trading a powerful truth for an eye or a hand was much better than losing the warmth of his memories of his mom. Now? He labelled the truth of the survivor a scam. His endurance, even if passive, was stabler, without side effects, and made his muscles last longer physically while reducing his need for food. Not just a scam. It was junk. The comparison made him consider another question. Had truths a cost-based hierarchy, or were Giovanni and his friends unlucky? He was on the brink of understanding the core of prices, yet it slipped between his fingers like steam. He missed a piece, an important one. His eyes trailed to Tonio's gray fur, lean muscles through the holes in his ragged tunic, and red eyes. Something didn't add up. With a raised hand to focus attention on him rather than Riccardo's outburst, he asked, "It makes sense, but Tonio looks like a... Well, a rat. Why only him? Why didn't his condition worsen like yours if his normal state changes?" Tonio blinked without a trace of understanding in his red eyes. "That..." Giovanni lifted his sagging temples only to massage the sunken eyes hidden beneath. "I told you Garrick's men experimented on us." For a moment, Kael scowled. Then, he nodded. "I remember now. Sorry, more than half of what you say is quite hazy." "Ah! Fever's fault, not yours. Anyway, they injected the blood of a beast called a rhinoceros into me. What was it for you again, Riccardo?" Riccardo clicked his tongue, his face distorted in rage. "A pangolin or some bullshit like that." "Where did they even come up with names like that?" Giovanni snarled. "Tonio was given rat blood. A ton of it. Punishment for planning to rebel against Garrick, they said. A humiliation on the very grounds he built into a haven. But do you know what rats are best at?" "What? Why beast blood? What is this madman trying to do?" An icy shiver ran down Kael's spine. "One question a