A Black Market LitRPG

Kyle didn’t bother replying, immediately dropping the mortar mounted on his shoulder and picking up his heavy variant rifle and firing straight into Nox.

Nox’s arm shields blocked his face, while the rest of his body was covered in armour that was all linked to the same engraving, absorbing the kinetic impact of the projectiles. The stopped projectiles all collapsed to the floor like a waterfall.

The two Nest squads took the advantage their boss gave them, attacking Feldon’s men while they were distracted by Nox.

“Ignore him, kill the rest!” Kyle ordered as he, too, began to fire on the Nest squads instead, shredding anyone who was exposed. It was a basic space combat doctrine to ignore the defensive bulwark ships.

However, Nox suddenly rushed forward with the same speed with which he managed to intercept the explosive mortar round, dashing right at Kyle and jabbing with the sharp tip of his arm shield.

Kyle was forced to use the rifle to block the incoming hits, the sparks along the edge of the barrel dazzling from the friction. Good thing I made this rifle sturdy. He wielded the rifle as a short staff, parrying the hits coming in.

Just as he blocked yet another forward stab, a hidden blade from under the arm shield suddenly stabbed forward, slicing Kyle’s cheek and earlobe before Kyle managed to push Nox away.

What?! Kyle had never received a debuff before, but he had no time to think, with Nox capitalising on the shock to push his advantage, delivering a kick to Kyle’s left knee to cripple him.

However, Kyle’s legs barely buckled, allowing Kyle to quickly backpedal and make some distance while the wound on his cheek and earlobe began to bubble with a greenish liquid, seeping into Kyle’s bloodstream.

Necklace of Healing! The green aura surged around the wound and enveloped the green poison, but there was no notification of debuff removal. Already Kyle could feel his body being slightly more sluggish. I need to buy some time.

“Don’t bother!” Nox yelled, immediately chasing Kyle as they fought through the length of the warehouse.

I don’t have an antidote vial on me – I’m at a disadvantage here. Kyle began to take the combat seriously, treating Nox as an equal foe. Kyle had never really faced someone of his own strength level before, and now he was seriously feeling the pressure.

As Kyle blocked a few more hits and tried to counterattack, he noticed that the strength of Nox’s hit was not as strong as he expected. Nox’s reflexes on the other hand, seemed to be far beyond Kyle’s own reflexes, easily dodging every stab and swing that he tried.

Nox’s fighting style was unique, using the sharp edges of the arm shield and the hidden blade to slice and dice as he continued to throw punch after punch at Kyle, no longer trying to kick Kyle’s legs in close-quarter combat.

Just as Kyle swung the rifle at Nox’s head, Nox ducked and crouched to the floor before launching his foot up towards Kyle’s chest. Kyle quickly pulled back his rifle to block the hit, but another retractable blade was hidden in Nox’s shoe, firing outwards and lodging itself into Kyle’s right shoulder between the gaps of the armour.

Kyle’s mind began to falter, his thought process beginning to diminish as his combat stats began to plummet. But Kyle immediately grabbed Nox’s leg, before performing a body throw and slamming Nox into the ground.

The impact was absorbed right into Nox’s armour, dissipating as Nox immediately twisted his body to deliver yet another kick with his free leg, forcing Kyle to let go of Nox and dodge in anticipation of yet another hidden blade. Sure enough, the hidden blade was fired, nearly missing Kyle’s nose as he avoided it in time.

“Give up.” Nox was now sure he had a clear advantage, noticing Kyle’s reflexes getting slower, the speed of the parry dropping fast. “And here I thought you were strong.”

Just as he stepped forward to deliver another stab, Nox’s eyes flickered to the right as he quickly raised his arm shield, blocking an explosive mortar round that flew straight at his head. The blast knocked both Nox and Kyle back and apart from each other.

Feldon grunted as the recoil from the mortar knocked him back, his hands injured from the lash back.

Penchant for Violence!

Kyle’s combat stats became higher than before, his mind clearing up as he recovered faster than Nox, allowing Kyle to quickly lunge at the fallen Nox and pin his limbs down with his knee in an expert martial artist move.

“Crazy!” Nox grinned, with sudden spikes sticking out from the armour and jabbing Kyle’s knee and arm.

“Like that is going to stop me.” Kyle delivered a heavy-handed punch to Nox’s face, smashing his nose and teeth in with a single hit. Underneath all that armour, Nox was not as tough as Kyle, allowing Kyle to hurt him easily.

However, before Kyle could deliver yet another heavy-handed blow, the armour of Nox suddenly began to glow hot red, scalding Kyle’s skin and forcing Kyle to get off. Nox quickly recovered, but his eyes were bloodshot as his nose was completely caved in, with half of his teeth missing, blood flowing freely from his mouth.

Nox panted visibly, with the engraving on the armour beginning to die down. That must have taken a lot of arcia energy out of him. Kyle prepared to counterattack, but instead of Nox facing Kyle head-on, Nox began to retreat to the remaining two Nest Squads, who were still locked in a fierce firefight with Feldon’s men.

“Dei plo yh Ahent Blhack.” Nox tapped the shoulder of one of the Nest squad leaders, barely able to speak properly, with his nose and mouth heavily injured.

“Yes, sir! Protocol C!” The squad leaders ordered, with their men immediately taking out a black metal mask, placing it on their faces and sealing their noses, mouths, and ears.

Feldon was confused. “What the fuck are they doing? Men, flank them now!”

“No, get out of here, quickly! Fuck the equipment!” Kyle’s eyes widened as he understood what was going to happen.

A Nest hitman unveiled yet another black device, activating it. Immediately, a black fog-like cloud began to spread across the room, expanding quickly from the pressurised canisters.

Feldon’s men did not react fast enough, assuming it was a simple smoke device. However, as they inhaled the smoke, their eyes began to water uncontrollably, along with their throats searing with pain, causing them to cough violently while they attempted to outrun the smoke.

This is My Turf! Aero Shoes!

Kyle immediately created an invisible barrier around him, sprinting towards Feldon and grabbing him. The skill allowed him to block the flow of air but allow those whom he recognised as an ally in, allowing him to protect Feldon from the smoke as they scampered for the side exit, with all of Feldon’s men dying in writhing pain as they tried to claw their skin out.

Kyle quickly pushed Feldon into the exit tunnel, grabbing a nearby arctech pickaxe and slamming the walls of the tunnel as hard as he could, blocking off all light and preventing the smoke from getting through. Tendrils of black fog still continued to seep through the rock, with Kyle urging Feldon to continue running down the tunnel.

“This tunnel leads back to the main sewer, correct?”

“Yes, but with Nest Squads crawling all around, how are we going to get out?” Feldon understood the smoke to be some sort of chemical weapon. If the noxious black gas cloud was now purging the entire catacombs, it was unfeasible for any of Kyle’s forces to fight back.

“Get on the arctech radio and ping them - we need to flee as deep into the catacombs as much as possible. Abandon the bases unless we can seal them from the gas cloud.”

“Yes, sir.”

Feldon spoke quickly on the radio as they moved with haste, jogging down the tunnel. The tunnel shook violently as yet another explosion rocketed through the catacombs, Kyle unsure of the source.

Their footsteps echoed through the tunnel, leading towards a T-junction. There was light coming in from the left, illuminating the tunnel for them. “Left to the main sewer!” Feldon pointed out before Kyle grabbed him and pulled him back.

“What’s on the right?” Kyle asked, noticing that the design of the passage on the right was completely unique to the catacombs. There were a few specks of green further into the passage, but Kyle could not see clearly.

“I don’t know; we haven’t explored it yet. We only dug this exit tunnel out two days ago.”

“Okay, go left.”

Just as they turned out to the main sewer, they could see masked Nest squads along the length of the sidewalk, fumigating the entire area, the black cloud expanding rapidly towards them.

“Hey, that’s Kris Greyborn! Kill him!”

“Get back inside!” Kyle grabbed Feldon and flung him back into the exit tunnel before swinging the arctech pickaxe as hard as he could on the side of the walls.

However, the walls did not collapse fast enough, with the edge of the black cloud beginning to reach Kyle. He held his breath and continued to smack as fast as he could, throwing rapid swings before finally managing to collapse the entrance, preventing the Nest hitmen from chasing.

Despite the rubble blocking the entrance, the gaps between the rock still allowed gas to seep through, with Kyle motioning to Feldon to run ahead towards the unique passageway. As soon as they reached the narrow part of the tunnel, Kyle quickly collapsed it once again, blocking a good chunk of the smoke.

However, Kyle still involuntarily inhaled a bit of the smoke, feeling his entire airway from his nose to his lungs burning as it seared his insides. His eyes began to water uncontrollably as he pushed himself, running with Feldon as far away from the smoke as possible.

Necklace of Healing!

The green aura enveloped Kyle’s body, but it failed to dispel the chemicals that were already in his body. All Kyle could do was to wait for his regenerated cells to continuously react with the chemicals in the violent reaction, which would eventually die out.

Kyle was experienced with planetary and space chemical warfare, but he never expected it for Nest to deploy it so efficiently, as though they had been trained to do so for a long time. Who the hell is behind them?

Feldon panted rapidly as he laid down to rest, his chest heaving and muscles burning from the sprinting just now. Kyle sat down crosslegged, continuously channelling the Necklace of Healing off cooldown while sipping on a health potion vial, trying to combat the chemical smoke within him.

It took nearly ten minutes for the pain within Kyle’s veins to die down, allowing him to finally breathe properly. Feldon had already recovered, his eyes wandering around the unique passage that they were in now. The green specks Kyle had spotted previously turned out to be luminous gemstones embedded at specific junctures between the walls and the ceiling.

There were engravings everywhere that looked like paintings, like a grand epic that spanned the entire length of the passage. Feldon couldn’t see the end of the passage, the darkness only being dotted by green specks that led into infinity. “What in the world is this place? Did the Versians build this area?”

Kyle groaned as he stood up, the effects of the chemical smoke and Nox’s poison still affecting him. He glanced at the engravings, at first thinking it was arctech engravings. However, he soon recognised them, his heart nearly stopping as the realisation hit him.

Just as he took one more step further to inspect further the carvings on the wall, a new System message appeared.