Kanos held his breath. His hand pulled a thick line, forming a tiered steel cylinder on the paper.
The monster's roar and the clash of steel behind him sounded like a mini apocalypse, but Kanos forced his brain to go deaf. The tip of his wooden brush, soaked in thick red blood, glided rapidly. He pictured a pile bunker—an insane spring-powered steel stake launcher that could shatter steel plates as thick as a refrigerator.
The frame was almost done. The red lines on his paper began to glow a dim blue. His brush tip just needed to pull one straight line to close the trigger lever.
Suddenly, a strange coldness pierced the back of his hand.
Not heat. Cold first, then a second later followed by an explosive pain that turned his vision white.
SHCK.
Kanos screamed. His voice cracked, sounding more like the howl of an animal being crushed to death.
A hunting knife was driven straight through his right palm. The iron blade tore through flesh, pierced bone, ripped through his sketchbook, and lodged deep into the rocky dirt floor. Fresh blood spurted everywhere, staining the paper and his own face.
His wooden brush rolled away. The blue lines on his sketch immediately dispersed, reverting to a messy puddle of spider blood because the frame failed to close.
"ARGHH! Bastard!" Kanos collapsed onto his side, his body convulsing violently from the pain. His left hand reflexively tried to pull the knife out, but the sheer agony left his fingers merely trembling in the air.
Kanos looked up. He thought a small monster had slipped past Belida's fight.
But no. A pair of dull leather boots stood right next to him.
Kanos dragged his gaze upward. Garrick stood there. The brown-haired man no longer looked panicked. His breathing was steady. His short sword was neatly sheathed at his waist. His gloved right hand was still resting on the hilt of the knife pinned through Kanos's hand.
Garrick squatted down slowly. His face leveled with Kanos's, who was tearing up from the agony.
"Shh... keep it down, Nos. He'll hear you," Garrick whispered.
"G-Garrick? What are you doing?!" Kanos spat, blood spilling from his mouth because he had bitten his own tongue when he got stabbed. His eyes bulged in disbelief. "Pull it out! My hand!"
The warm smile that had made Kanos feel safe for the past two days... was completely gone. Garrick's face was now flat, cold, and his eyes looked at Kanos exactly like looking at trash on the side of the road.
Garrick's left hand casually reached into Kanos's cargo pocket. He pulled out the remaining bottles of high-tier spider blood they had painstakingly collected earlier.
"You really do remind me of my brother, Nos," Garrick said. His voice was incredibly quiet, contrasting with the roar of the Obsidian Goliath currently battering Belida a few dozen meters away. "Equally stubborn. Equally naive. Believing there are actually good people at the bottom of this filthy hole."
Kanos tried to kick Garrick with his right foot, but Garrick easily pressed the knife hilt deeper. Kanos screamed again, his body instantly arching in a spasm.
"The difference is," Garrick continued, wiping Kanos's blood splatter off his own cheek. "Two years ago, my brother died because I was too late to use him as bait. Back then, I was still hesitant to sacrifice my own flesh and blood for treasure."
Garrick stood up slowly. He stared at the monster blood bottles in his hand with a satisfied smile, then stashed them into his backpack.
"But you," Garrick looked down, his smirk looking as cold as ice. "You are the perfect bait. Ah, our big guy over there is also a pretty tough bait to chew on. The two of you are giving me enough time to run off with the rest of the loot in that crevice."
From the center of the cave, a smashing sound made the ground shake.
Kanos forced his head to turn. Belida was thrown hard, crashing into a stone pillar. The makeshift armor on his arm was completely shattered into iron shrapnel. The giant man coughed up a lot of blood, trying to stand by leaning on his greatsword, whose tip was already dulled.
When Belida looked up, his eyes caught the scene in the corner of the room. He saw Kanos sprawled out with his hand nailed to the ground, and Garrick standing casually next to him.
"GARRICK!" Belida roared. His voice was full of explosive rage. "What are you doing, you bastard?!"
Garrick just chuckled softly. He gave a two-finger salute toward Belida.
"I'm just taking my guide's fee, big guy!" Garrick shouted back. He walked backward toward the collapsed boulders at the entrance. "The gap in the rocks there can't be pushed by a human, sure, but I brought enough gunpowder bombs to blow up the rest of the debris and escape through the top gap."
Garrick stopped for a second near the pile of rocks. He looked at Kanos one last time.
"Have fun with your new pet. Too bad your hand is crippled, Nos. Otherwise, you definitely could've drawn a coffin for the two of you."
Without looking back, Garrick quickly scaled the pile of rocks and vanished behind the cloud of dust.
Kanos was just left there. His right hand—the only tool that made him useful in this damn world—was pierced by a knife and nailed to the ground. His blood flowed heavily, forming a small puddle on top of his ruined sketchbook.
In the middle of the room, the Obsidian Goliath roared again. Its glowing red eyes now slowly shifted from the half-dead Belida... toward Kanos, whose scent of blood was starting to sting the air.