I Level Up by Killing Gods-Chapter 56: Winds of Change

Sanctus Nexus had not changed.

Six months had done nothing to scrub the stench of ozone and desperation from its streets. If anything, the city had festered—its forcefields flickering under the weight of perpetual Blightstorms, its guilds warring over scraps of power like starving jackals.

Kael strode through the market district, his squad’s blackened armor and featureless masks drawing wary glances from the crowds.

The Earth Faction’s insignia—a clenched fist crushing a chain—gleamed on their pauldrons, a warning to anyone foolish enough to interfere.

"Contact in three minutes," Kael said, his voice filtered through the mask’s modulator. "Stay sharp."

His squad fanned out, blending into the chaos. Only one lingered—Lerai, his mask tilted slightly askew, revealing a sliver of his boyish grin.

"Relax, Captain. We’ve done this dance before."

Kael didn’t reply.

The mission was simple: infiltrate the Iron Pact’s underground refinery, sabotage their Blight distillate operations, leave no survivors.

Simple, but not clean.

The Pact had fortified their holdings since the Earth Faction’s last purge, and the refinery’s defenses were rumored to be half-machine, half-Ravager.

’Like stitching rot to rot’, Kael thought.

Lerai adjusted his mask, the motion casual, but his eyes hardened.

"They’re here."

---

The rendezvous point stank of burnt oil and betrayal. A narrow alley, its walls streaked with Blight-mold, led to a rusted door marked with the Pact’s jagged sigil.

Kael’s squad assembled in silence, their breaths syncing to the rhythm of distant machinery. Lerai crouched beside him, his gloved fingers tapping a restless beat against his thigh.

"Remember Black Haven’s simulations?" he whispered. "Old Instructor Velora would’ve pissed herself seeing us now."

This was a joke, Lerai knew Kael would not have any of these memories. He was barely in the academy for a week before he had disappeared into the hellhole of Nexus.

Kael almost smiled.

He knew Lerai was far from formidable when they met, if not they wouldn’t have been in the same class for low ranks

Infact six months ago, Lerai had been a twitchy first-year with a knack for setting fire to his own robes during Etherion drills. Now, he moved like a blade—honed, lethal.

The First Reach Trial had carved the hesitation out of him.

"Focus," Kael said.

The door creaked open. A Pact enforcer stepped out, his rebreather hissing. Kael’s dagger found his throat before the man could scream.

"Go."

The refinery was a cathedral of decay.

Massive vats of bubbling Blight distillate lined the walls, their fumes twisting into spectral shapes overhead. Conveyor belts rattled, carrying raw Etherite shards to be corrupted into weapons.

And everywhere, the thump of mechanized defenses—automatic crossbows mounted on skeletal Ravager limbs, their targeting lenses glowing red.

Kael’s squad moved like smoke.

Two members disabled the sentry drones with magnetic pulse grenades while Lerai scaled a support beam to plant charges on the ceiling.

Kael watched the shadows, Aether’valis a dormant itch in his palm.

"Clear," Lerai hissed, dropping back to the floor. "Charges set. Detonate on your mark."

A clang echoed from the catwalk above.

Kael looked up.

The refinery’s overseer stared down—a hulking figure in grafted armor, his right arm replaced by a spinning drill-bit coated in Blight.

"Earth Faction dogs," he spat. "You die screaming."

Lerai sighed. "Great. Another charmer."

The fight was chaos.

Kael parried the overseer’s drill-arm, sparks flying as Aether’valis ground against the Blight-coated metal. The squad scattered, engaging Pact enforcers while Lerai ducked crossbow fire to reach the detonator.

"Captain—!" A squad member went down, clutching a bolt embedded in her thigh.

"Hold the line!" Kael barked.

The overseer laughed, his breath reeking of rot.

"Your world’s faction’s weak. All rules, no teeth."

Kael feinted left, then drove his blade into the man’s armored knee. The drill-arm whirred past his ear, close enough to shear off strands of hair.

"You talk too much."

Lerai’s voice crackled over the comms. "Fire in the hole!"

The charges detonated.

The ceiling collapsed, crushing vats and machinery alike. Blight distillate flooded the floor, its acidic fumes melting through boots and bone. Kael yanked the overseer into the path of a falling beam, the man’s scream cut short as steel met flesh.

"Fall back!"

The squad retreated, Lerai covering their exit with a volley of Etherite shards. Outside, the Blightstorm raged, its winds howling like the stromlands itself.

---

They regrouped in a derelict safehouse, its walls shuddering under the storm’s wrath.

Kael removed his mask, the air biting his sweat-streaked face. Lerai slumped beside him, blood seeping through a gash on his forearm.

"You’re getting slow," Kael said, tossing him a medkit.

"Says the guy who almost lost his scalp." Lerai grinned, wincing as he cleaned the wound. "Still, not bad for a ’worthless rat from the outskirts,’ huh?"

The old insult—hurled at Kael during their academy days—landed differently now.

A joke. A badge.

Kael snorted. "You’ve improved. Marginally."

The squad chuckled, the tension bleeding away. They were strangers once, bound only by the Earth Faction’s chains. Now, they moved as one.

Lerai leaned back, staring at the ceiling. "Think the academy’s changed? Velora still terrorizing first-years?"

"Doubt it."

"Yeah. Some things never die."

---

Later, alone on the safehouse roof, Kael watched the storm. The Earth Faction’s orders weighed heavy—another mission tomorrow, another guild to break.

He’d climbed their ranks swiftly, his brutality earning him command. But Sanctus was a hydra; cut off one head, two grew back.

Footsteps approached. Lerai joined him, maskless, his face older than Kael remembered.

"You ever miss it?" Lerai asked. "The academy, I mean. The simplicity."

"No."

"Liar."

Kael said nothing.

The truth was, he missed the ignorance.

The days when his biggest worry was surviving the next Void Breach he might have had to enter, not the Earth Faction’s hunger for conquest—or the whispers that still curled through his dreams.

*...they will chain you...*

The Null’s voice, faint but persistent.

*...break them first...*

Lerai nudged him. "Come on. The squad wants to drink their weight in synth-ale. Try not to look like you’re planning a massacre the whole time."

Kael followed him downstairs, the storm’s roar fading behind.

But the chains tightened with every step.

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