CHAPTER 201: WHERE YOU PULL HARDEST

Dylan shook his head sharply. Fear mingled with a new, raw adrenaline that his core seemed to amplify. Every heartbeat pounded like a hammer blow in his chest, yet also like an overheated engine, ready to explode.

In that instant, without hesitation. Julius’s words had etched themselves into his mind with the coldness of a blade.

They raced down a steep slope, sliding over dead leaves, thorns tearing at their clothes. The ravine unfolded before them—a dark, deep gash in the landscape, split by a furious torrent whose roar rose like a warning. It was indeed a bottleneck. A perfect trap.

"Now!" Julius bellowed, his voice ragged from exertion and the wind howling through the pass.

And yet, he still hadn’t mentioned jumping.

Julius spun abruptly, driving his sword into the damp earth. With a swift motion, he tore a small metal sphere from his belt—a magnetic pulse grenade, recognizable by its blue-ridged casing.

He activated it with a press of his thumb and hurled it not toward the ravine ahead, but behind them, onto the path they had just descended, where the first pursuers emerged from the undergrowth—silent and deadly as serpents.

"Down!" he roared, throwing himself to the ground and dragging Dylan with him.

The explosion was muffled, almost stifled, but its effect was immediate and terrifying. No flames, no violent blast. Just an invisible wave of energy, an electric crack splitting the air. The impact wasn’t lethal, but it was disruptive enough.

Muffled growls, rare curses in the usual silence of the Net, rose from the assault team caught off guard. The invisible rays had fried their systems, blinding and paralyzing their precision, leaving only close combat as an option.

"GO!" Julius bellowed, surging up like a wounded but determined beast. He pointed his sword toward the steepest side of the ravine—not toward the obvious ford below, but toward a rocky overhang halfway up, barely visible beneath a cascade of thick vines. "UP THERE! JUMP!"

Dylan didn’t hesitate. The fear was still there, icy, but it was now drowned out by the survival instinct his core pulsed through him. He took a running start, his battered feet finding improbable purchase on the slippery rock.

He leapt into the void, arms outstretched toward the dangling vines. The emptiness swallowed him for an instant, the roar of the torrent swelling in his ears.

His fingers clamped down with desperate strength on the wet vines, tearing his palms but holding him suspended. He swung wildly, scrambling for footing against the rock face.

A sharp whistle split the air near his ear. A bullet? A dart? He didn’t have time to see. Below, Julius fought like a demon. Three Net soldiers, stripped of their crossbows but armed with short blades and long, razor-sharp claws, encircled him.

Julius’s sword was a flash of steel, parrying, countering, slashing open an arm, forcing another back. But he was alone, wounded, and the Net was like an organism—for every cell neutralized, two more seemed to reform.

A fourth attacker appeared at the top of the slope, calmly aiming a metallic handgun at Julius.

Dylan grabbed a rocky outcrop, hauling himself onto the narrow ledge. He was out of immediate reach, but powerless. Julius was below, trapped. Dylan’s heart hammered wildly, his core burning like a coal in his chest. A helpless rage, mixed with visceral terror for the man who had pulled him from the hell of prison, consumed him.

"JULIUS!" he screamed, uselessly, the roar of the torrent drowning his voice.

The man glanced up for a split second. Their eyes locked. In Julius’s bloodshot gaze, Dylan saw no fear. Only cold, calculating determination—and something that looked eerily like acceptance.

"Keep moving, you sack of bones!" Julius growled, deflecting a strike that would have slit his throat by a hair’s breadth. "Don’t you STOP!"

Dylan clung to the ledge, hands bloodied, heart drumming like a war chant as his core burned in his chest. Below, the fight was turning into a massacre. Julius, backed against the slippery ravine wall, swung his sword like a madman. The short blades and steel claws of the Net soldiers gleamed wickedly in the dappled light filtering through the trees.

A claw scraped against Julius’s guard, sending sparks flying—less than a second before another blade nearly impaled his side. He dodged just in time, countering with a slash that gutted one attacker. A crimson geyser sprayed, staining the dead leaves. But they were too many. Too fast. Too coordinated, like threads of the same deadly web.

The fourth man, positioned above, calmly cocked his heavy crossbow. The locking mechanism clicked ominously. He took aim at Julius’s broad back as the man parried a claw aimed for his eyes.

"JULIUS! BEHIND YOU!" Dylan roared, his voice hoarse, cutting through the torrent’s thunder.

Too late. The crossbowman pulled the trigger. The dry thunk of the released string was followed by a deadly hiss.

Julius, in a fluid motion that defied his wounds, pivoted—not to flee, but to shove the man he was fighting into the bolt’s path. The projectile buried itself with a wet thud in the soldier’s chest, hurling him backward. Julius seized the opening to drive his sword through another attacker’s throat.

But the move had unbalanced him. He stumbled over a treacherous root, his blood-heavy sword pointing downward. The crossbowman was already reloading, his deft fingers slotting another bolt with icy efficiency. The two remaining soldiers lunged, claws raised to tear him apart.

Dylan saw red. A wave of explosive heat surged from his core, flooding his veins with raw, uncontrollable power. He didn’t think. He acted. With a bestial roar that shook the air, he wrenched a jagged stone from the ledge and hurled it with all his strength—not at the soldiers, but at the crossbowman above.

The rock flew like a cannonball, narrowly missing its target but smashing into the crossbow with a dull crack. The wood splintered, the string snapped violently. The man let out a stifled curse, staggering back from the impact, his weapon now useless.

The respite was brief but crucial. Julius, seizing the moment when the claws hesitated, charged—not forward, but toward the edge of the ravine, where the furious torrent plunged into a dark abyss. He cast one last look at Dylan, his bloodshot eyes gleaming with something strange—a mix of defiance, exhaustion, and a dark satisfaction.

"Watch, you sack of bones!" he howled over the tumult of the waters, raising his sword not in guard, but in a final challenge toward the soldiers rushing him. "The web tears where you pull hardest!"

Then, before the claws could reach him, he made a prodigious leap backward—into the churning, foaming void. His body vanished instantly into the raging waters and the icy mist rising from the gorge.

A heavy, brief silence fell over the ravine. The Net soldiers froze for a moment at the precipice, peering into the torrent as if hoping to see their prey emerge. But nothing. Only the water, cold and merciless, roared below.

Their leader, the crossbowman, his face impassive beneath his hood, slowly turned toward Dylan, still clinging to the ledge. His steel-cold eyes locked onto him. He pointed a black-gloved finger.

"That one," he ordered tonelessly, without anger, without haste. Just an implacable command. "Alive. The Master will want to question him."

Dylan felt his blood turn to ice. His core pulsed, flooding him with animal fear. He was no longer a helpless observer. He was prey. And the Net was closing in.

He didn’t have time to think. The two claw-wielding soldiers, abandoning the gorge’s edge, were already scaling the rock face toward him, their fingers gripping holds with reptilian agility. The crossbowman adjusted a new weapon—a short javelin with a blackened tip, likely poisoned.

Fear gave way to brutal urgency. Dylan scanned the ledge. Behind him, the cliff rose sheer and impassable. To his right, the ravine yawned into emptiness. To his left, a narrow ridge of loose rock seemed to trace the cliffside, vanishing into denser, darker foliage.

The web tears where you pull hardest. Julius’s last words echoed. He hadn’t said to flee up or down. He’d said to pull. To force the trap.

Dylan took a searing breath, feeling his core pulse in defiance. He wasn’t Julius. He wasn’t a warrior. But he had rage. And he had height.

As the first soldier, claws gleaming, hauled himself onto the ledge, Dylan didn’t retreat—he lunged toward him with a raw scream, swinging his gnarled club like a mace. The unexpected move caught the man off guard.

The club smashed full-force into his helmet with a sound like a cracked bell. The soldier staggered, blinded, and Dylan, using his momentum, shoved past him—heaving with all his might toward the edge.

The man let out a choked cry, flailing before disappearing into the ravine. The second soldier, halfway up, hesitated, his gaze flicking to the crossbowman’s unreadable face.

It was the only opening Dylan needed. He bolted left, leaping onto the narrow ridge, his battered feet desperately seeking balance on the slippery stone. The javelin whistled through the space he’d occupied a second earlier, embedding itself in the rock with a sharp thunk.

He didn’t look back. He ran. He ran along the ridge, toward the deep shadows of ancient trees that seemed to plunge their roots into the ravine’s very bowels.

The roar of the torrent faded, replaced by the ominous silence of the deep forest and the ragged sound of his own terror. He had pulled at the web. He had torn a thread. But the Net of Death was vast. And now it knew it was hunting prey that refused to die.