System Breaker: Surviving Apocalypse with Nine-Tailed Kitsune-Chapter 22: Intruders

Victor shook awake to the sound of muffled voices. His vision was dark for a short while, but between that disorientation, he could hear a conversation between a male and a female, as well as a faint crackle of what sounded like fire.

His eyes fluttered open a couple of times as he pushed himself off the ground. Above him, stretched a ceiling of jagged rocks, the same on all three sides, with only one side left open where the forest still loomed, though significantly darker than he remembered.

His eyes widened as he turned toward the conversation that was taking place.

"Why not?" A female figure with silver white hair and two tails said, wrapping her arms around Damon.

Staring deep into Damon’s eyes, Kitsune batted her long eyelashes, her arms wrapping tighter around him with each passing second. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Victor, misreading the situation, or perhaps reading it perfectly fine, pulled the knife from his belt, jumping to his feet, ready to help Damon, who only now realised he was awake.

"You’re awake," Damon said as he pushed Kitsune to the side.

"Th-this!" Victor’s eyes snapped between Damon and Kitsune a couple of times, his arm holding the dagger trembling.

"Oh..." Damon realised, "It’s... she’s a... beast." He found the word after a moment’s pause, nodding to himself with satisfaction. "She’s a divine beast of mine."

He barely finished his explanation as Kitsune, now leaning onto him from behind, wrapped her arms around his neck, squeezing a little too tightly to be seen as playful. A smile on her face basically spelt out danger.

Victor stood there flabbergasted for a couple of moments before he finally began to connect the dots.

"Your two-tailed fox... its..." he pointed toward Damon, or rather, Kitsune, who was still standing behind him.

"Y-Yes," Damon replied as Kitsune finally let go of her grip on him.

"I’ll let you two catch up..." her voice purred in his head," Then, after we get out of this rift, I will have my way with you."

Her giggle echoed in Damon’s head as she turned back into her fox form.

Damon ignored her last remark, as he coughed the knot in his throat from her arms suffocating him.

He then spent the next ten or so minutes telling Victor all he needed to know. Nothing more, nothing less. He told him about Kitsune being his companion, what happened after he lost consciousness, how Damon dragged him through the forest, fought off a level 17 boar-like monster and finally found the cave as the night had fallen across the forest.

"W-Wait, there is nighttime in rifts?" Victor asked, surprise flashing across his face.

It was no wonder he was surprised. Even Damon was until Kitsune explained to him how the higher the rank of the rift was, the more it took on the characteristics of the two worlds it connected. Which also came with a realisation that this wasn’t the lowest-rank rift as they had expected.

"There is..." Damon finally replied, "But don’t mind that. Right now, you should focus on resting and using the stat points from your level-ups to raise your mana. You do know about mana backlash, right?"

Victor nodded. "Yes, when I first tried to use my ability without having enough mana, I passed out for about half a day."

"Good. Then you know you should only use it in life-or-death situations."

Before Victor could reply, a sudden, distant howl cut through the silence of the night. Both their heads turned toward the opening, staring as if something would walk in at any moment, but what followed was the usual eerie silence.

Damon let out a breath he was holding and turned toward the small fire near them.

"I cooked some boar... monster, meat. It’s not that bad, actually. You should have some. You will need strength." He pointed toward a few skewers with grilled monster meat.

Victor didn’t even hesitate for a moment. Being used to eating canned food and whatever expired products he would scavenge, monster meat seemed like a delicacy to him.

Damon watched him eat for a moment before raising to his feet, his head tilted slightly at the low ceiling of the cavern.

"You’re going somewhere?" Victor asked, still chewing on the skewer.

"I am. The night is still young, I’m going out for a hunt."

***

[You have slain a Level 17 Wild Boar]

[You have reached Level 16. You have received 1 Stat Point.]

Damon panted slightly as he pulled his tachi from the boar’s lifeless corpse. It was a third boar he had slain in this rift, so it was no surprise he didn’t get the monster index bonus, which had been +6 vitality for the first kill.

He wiped a single drop of sweat from his brow before taking a look around. He could see well despite the darkness, perhaps something to do with the whole mana thing, but he could clearly see the outline of the trees and bushes, despite there not being any source of light.

Still, despite being able to see, there wasn’t much to be seen in the first place. The forest was again calm, too calm.

But he had no time to curse that eerie calmness this time.

Suddenly, the jagged lines across the sky, the same lines that had guided him to the rift core, pulsed violently, sending a wave of black light, darker than the darkness around them, down across the treetops.

Damon blinked. "Did the lines just now... move?"

"They did," Kitsune replied, unusual surprise woven in her tone, "Just now... someone, or something, had entered the rift.

Tightening the grip on his tachi, Damon frowned. "Someone else had entered?"

But not giving him even a moment to ponder, the jagged lines pulsed once more, sending another wave of darkness across the forest. Its unmistakable meaning sent unease through Damon’s mind as he realised two beings had entered their rift.