CHAPTER 142: [ELI DID WHAT?!]

’Fuck...fuck...FUCK!’

Kairo’s grip on Eli tightened, iron around the boy’s fragile frame as the pull of the water clawed harder at his legs.

The weight was unnatural. Wrong.

Too many hands. Too many bodies. Slick, clammy—like the corpses of drowned things, all desperate to drag him down into the black.

His jaw locked, teeth grinding as his black eyes cut into the swirl beneath them.

’Again. This is happening again.’

The memory seared hot in his mind—the leeches, the swarm, the drowning pull of things that shouldn’t exist.

And now it was happening all over. He was being dragged under like a fool.

Because he hadn’t listened.

Eli’s voice rang back in his skull, brittle and weak, but clearer now than it had been before.

"Stop. Don’t go there."

He’d thought it was just madness. Just another trick of the octopus twisting the boy’s head. But no—Eli had warned him. And Kairo had ignored it.

The taste of that realization was jagged, bitter, like chewing on glass.

The water writhed. The phantoms writhed with it.

No longer faint shades, no longer hollow echoes—they had mass now.

Their forms thickened into bodies, limbs sharp and skeletal, faces stretched into warped skulls with jaws that snapped too wide.

Tails lashed out behind them like broken sirens clawing their way from the abyss, every motion accompanied by the glow of eyes—red, burning hotter and hotter the more they swarmed.

"Che." The sound hissed out from between Kairo’s teeth, sharp as a blade’s edge.

He locked Eli higher against him with one arm, the boy’s bound wrists digging into his chest. The water was up to his thighs now, hands dragging, tugging, tearing. He had no blade. No blood to spare.

Not a single weapon.

All he had left—were his own fucking legs.

A growl rumbled deep in his chest as he twisted his hips, boot flashing out beneath the water.

CRACK.

His heel connected with a phantom’s skull. The impact reverberated through the flood, a dull, heavy sound, and the creature’s head snapped back with a muffled screech that churned into bubbles.

Another surged up instantly. Kairo’s other leg lashed out—boot smashing into its jaw.

He kicked again. And again. Each strike precise, merciless. His legs were pistons, breaking bone, crushing ribs, forcing them back long enough to breathe. Water frothed white around him, splashing up to his waist as bodies broke and reeled in the current.

But it wasn’t enough.

For every phantom he shattered, two more clawed up his legs. Fingers scraped like nails across stone, tails coiled around his boots, dragging, dragging, dragging.

"Damn pests," Kairo spat, his voice venom in the roar of the cavern. His balance wavered against the current, but his arms never loosened around Eli. Not once.

’...Kicking won’t buy us enough time.’

Still, he kicked. Because what else was there? If all he had left was brute force, then he’d grind them to dust with it until his legs snapped in half.

And then—

Kairo’s eyes cut to Eli.

The boy wasn’t thrashing. Not anymore. He wasn’t screaming, or clawing, or spitting curses like before.

His body trembled, but his expression... his wide yellow eyes...

He wasn’t lost in rage.

He looked awake.

Not in body, not fully—but in thought.

Something was working behind those eyes.

The water boiled around them, frothing with movement.

Hands clawed up from the dark, tails whipping like knives, skull-faces twisting into shapes too grotesque to belong to the living.

Their fingers no longer pulled Kairo downward—they were climbing. Grasping. Reaching.

For Eli.

’Again?’

Kairo’s jaw locked, his teeth grinding as realization snapped into place. The slick grip that had been dragging at his legs shifted higher, scraping at his waist, his side—sliding toward the boy bound tight against his chest.

’They’re still after him.’

Why?

Heat exploded through his veins, rage sharp as ice, burning hotter than the suffocating cold around them.

His hold on Eli tightened to an almost bruising force, anchoring him closer, as if he could fuse him into his ribs and keep him there.

His free hand lashed out, seizing a phantom’s wrist. The bone was spongy, half-real, but real enough to break.

SNAP.

The sound cracked like thunder through the water. The phantom shrieked, a warped gurgle of bubbles bursting in the dark, before its body dissolved into black froth.

Another surged in instantly, its red eyes glowing like coals. Kairo twisted, his boot flashing out, slamming into its jaw with such force the shock rattled up his spine. His balance wavered, but he wrenched his leg free and drove it down again—merciless, mechanical, precise.

Phantoms broke and scattered, only to reform again, endless.

Kairo’s lungs burned—not from air. He could last far longer without it, far longer than most hunters. His body was trained for this. But Eli’s wasn’t.

The boy was too fragile. Too soft. He wouldn’t last.

Even if he wasn’t thrashing anymore, even if the rage and madness seemed to have dulled into trembling silence—Kairo couldn’t risk it. Every second mattered.

He kept moving, his legs pistons, crushing skulls, breaking jaws, shattering whatever dared crawl close. His aura flickered faintly with the strain, but his focus didn’t break.

His arm cinched tighter around Eli’s body, a steel band locking him in place. He held him like a shield, like a lifeline—like he could protect him from the abyss itself with strength alone.

And then—

Movement.

Not from the phantoms.

From Eli.

The boy’s head shifted against his chest, slow, deliberate. His trembling eased, not gone, but steadier—controlled. His wide yellow eyes tilted upward, glassy yet sharp, locking on Kairo’s face.

For the first time, Kairo faltered.

His black eyes narrowed, tension flaring sharp in his gut.

’...What is he—’

Eli leaned closer.

Kairo stiffened, instincts screaming at him to brace. A headbutt. A bite. Another frenzy. He was ready for all of it.

But no.

It wasn’t an attack.

Warmth.

Soft.

Kairo’s entire body froze, stunned, as Eli’s lips pressed against his.

For an instant, everything stopped.

The water. The claws. The crushing dark. Even the phantoms.

Gone.

His pulse spiked violently, hammering against his ribs, shock splitting through every wall of composure he had built. His brain—his body—refused to move.

Eli.

Elione Noa Ahn.

Was kissing him.