A Black Market LitRPG

“The Wardens…?” Kyle muttered weakly.

“You’ll see them soon enough. But to make things easier, let’s remove your limbs first. Don’t worry, I consider myself to be pretty good at chopping things off.” The man nocked back his arm with the lightning sword.

“I consider myself pretty good as well.” Negation Field!

Kyle nearly gagged as his own system began to flutter randomly, the poison beginning to rage even harder through his reduced stats. But he did not let it show on his face, putting up a facade that he had the overall advantage.

The channelling of arcia energy through the lightning sword began to sputter out, as the flow went completely haywire and wreaked havoc within the man’s body, causing him to stagger backwards and writhe in pain immediately.

Good thing the passageway is tight – if I had stayed in the cavern, it would be over for me. Before the man could recover from the recoil, Kyle mustered what he had left of his strength. He quickly launched himself upwards, grappling the man and pinning him to the ground in an expert move.

This time, as the man tried to activate his armour to push Kyle off, the arctech engravings failed to activate once again, the surge of arcia energy sending a backlash again into the man’s body, damaging his internal organs.

Kyle rested his knee on the man’s chest, preventing him from getting up while grabbing the lightning sword into his own hand.

Interesting weapon. Kyle hurled it as far away as possible, pre-empting a possible counterattack by the man. He quickly delivered a heavy-handed punch right into the man’s face as hard as he could, but to his surprise, he could not break the nose and teeth out as easily as he did to Nox.

The punch seemed to have shaken the man out of his stupor, prompting him to lift both legs upwards with his sheer core muscles and lock them around Kyle’s neck, attempting to twist.

Just like that, the two men were caught in a scuffle between them, each trying to get the upper hand on the other. Kyle held the advantage now, with him being on top and using his weight to pressure the man onto the ground and restraining his movement. However, Kyle’s strength was diminished from the poison, allowing the man to find opportunities and lapses in Kyle’s judgement.

A minute passed as they tried to smack each other into submission like a brawl in the pub, their bodies shuffling on the grimy surface of the passageway that still had residual light from the charging by the man’s arcia energy.

I can’t hold the negation field for that long. Kyle instantly decided to attempt to kill the man, strangling him by the neck with as much force as he could muster.

At first, the man was unwilling to surrender, his body thrashing wildly as he elbowed Kyle multiple times, but Kyle held on tight and continued to squeeze with every fibre of his being, overcoming the base stats of the man with sheer grit and determination. Kyle pushed his mental strength to the brinks even as the poison ate into his flesh from within, forcing the man down and choking him.

Soon, the man began to gasp for air, his limbs flailing. “S-s-stop! I’ll talk, I’ll talk!” The man dug his nails into Kyle’s arms as he tried to wrestle out of the choke.

“Who are you? What is your name?” Kyle interrogated.

“Let me go first!”

“Like hell I will. Maybe it’s time to find out how much EXP you are worth.”

“Soren, my name is Soren!”

“Soren. Nice to meet you. Who are the Wardens?”

“I… I can’t tell you.”

“You seemed fine name-dropping them. Are you sure you absolutely can’t tell me?”

“I really can’t! If I do I… URK”

Kyle’s grip tightened, choking the life out of Soren, who desperately tapped on his arms.

“Ready to talk?”

Soren nodded his head vigorously as his face began to swell slightly from the continuous choke. Kyle released his grip slightly again, allowing Soren to talk.

“We’re the association of System Users on the Continent of New Neadrsa!”

“New Neadrsa?” Kyle had never heard the continent’s name before, but the idea that there was an entire organization of System users just like him and Soren irked him far more.

It was not that Kyle was not expecting it, but if it was that difficult for him to take down a single member like Soren who was still young, how terrifying must be the older generation? Speaking of which…

“Who the hell is Mother? How many siblings do you have?”

“Mother is Mother; what are you talking about? And I don’t know the exact number – I can only tell you how many I’ve met.”

Kyle’s eyes squinted in obvious distrust. “Fine, what is Mother?”

“Eh? She’s a System User. She’s the head of our clan.”

“Clan? How many siblings?”

“Err… five? Ten? Twenty?”

“Why are you unsure of the number?”

“I only know those at the same age as me! Which is five.”

“You’re telling me your Mother gave birth to five children in the same year. Is this a joke? Maybe I’ll just kill you now to save time.”

“WAIT WAIT! Isn’t that the norm?!”

It is the norm in the Galactic Era with artificial birth – but not here. Unless… Kyle decided not to press that issue any more, focusing on questioning. There was only so much time till the negation field ran out.

“Name all of the siblings that you know.”

“Bekin, Liyana… I don’t know the rest. I’ve only seen their faces!”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Well fuck you the-GUK”

Kyle tightened and loosened his grip again. Keeping one hand on Soren’s neck, he used the other hand to beginning stripping out the armour pieces of Soren, dismantling them and tossing them as far as he could.

“Robbing me while I’m still alive? Not cool, man.”

“I think we’re past that after you tried to kill me.”

“It’s the protocol of the Wardens to capture or kill any rogue transcendents. Can’t have System Users going wild around the continent.”

“Who is in charge of the Wardens?”

“For a rogue transcendent, you’re completely out of the loop. Where the fuck have you been hiding? The Dreyfus pits? Some random island in Proco? You’re fucking insane.”

“Answer. The. Question.”

“OW OW! The Archivist, the Archivist! He’s the leader?”

“Who the fuck is the Archivist?”

“I don’t know myself, I never met him! But no one has seen him for the last hundred years!”

“So he might be dead for all you know.”

“No no no, he’s definitely alive. For sure.”

“Fine. How many System Users are there on the Continent?”

“Uhh… Five hundred? I really don’t know the exact number, but we’re usually spread out all over.”

Five hundred – that’s a deadly force. “What’s the history of the Wardens?”

“You keep asking these questions that I don’t know myself! What do I look like, some old fogey?”

“You’re going to look like one if you don’t answer properly.”

“He won’t need to.”

Kyle suddenly turned to see a sudden kick aimed right at his head, forcing him to let go of Soren and roll away, avoiding the leg that smashed right into the wall, cratering it.

He assumed a fighting posture to see a man dressed in a full khaki explorer style, taking a health potion vial and delivering it to Soren.

“Rayner, kill him now!” Soren screamed.

“My priority is your protection, sir. Your death will be untimely and most unfortunate. But I will try.” Rayner stood up to his full height as the health potion began to heal Soren slowly.

Kyle quickly bent down to grab his warhammer that lay on the side, but he still had the negation field on. I can’t use any of my skills now – maybe I can-

Rayner’s fist was suddenly already in front of Kyle’s face, landing squarely and smashing it in. Kyle was sent toppling to the ground, forced to drop the warhammer onto the ground which clattered with a loud crash.

“Mother will not be pleased to hear of your loss to such an untrained transcendent who can hardly use skills.” Rayner walked up to the fallen Kyle.

As soon as Rayner got into range, the apparently injured Kyle suddenly roared back to life, recovering into a standing position and throwing a flurry of punches, all of which was parried by Rayner with ease. To Kyle, it felt like he was fighting one of those dummy robots that were prevalent in his Dynasty training.

Then I know exactly how to take you down. “Got you.” Kyle grinned as he lunged for the legs, catching Rayner off guard. Kyle hoisted him high above his head and slammed him down, the sound of metal cracking and circuits fizzing.

The moment Kyle tried to lift him up again, Rayner’s body suddenly twisted unnaturally, grappling Kyle from an impossible angle. Prosthetics?!

Kyle was flung into the wall, the impact hitting him like a head-on truck as he landed onto the floor, his eyes darting for anything that could serve as a weapon.

Rayner stood up slowly, checking his back. “Minor damage sustained. Accepta-“

A lighting sword was thrown straight at Rayner, impaling him through the shoulder as the sword lodged itself into the wall along with him. Before Kyle could capitalize on the surprise attack, Rayner detached his arm without hesitation, the shoulder circuits chopping off cleanly and revealing the mechanical interior of Rayner’s body. “Replacement for left arm needed. Mother will not be happy.”

He charged at Kyle, counterattacking with his own follow-up combo.

The strength of Rayner was even higher than that of Soren, with the mechanical prosthetics dealing much more damage to Kyle’s arms as he tried to block, his bone nearly fracturing from the hits that were coming in faster than ever, straining Kyle beyond what he was capable of now.

As Kyle was pushed further back, the negation field finally stopped affecting Soren, but Soren did not dare to activate his skills again in fear of a backlash.

I can’t keep this up! Kyle had already been pushing his limits in the fight against Soren, fighting with the debilitating poison in his body and the minute amount of Agent Black still remaining. Granted, he had already gotten used to the poison through the clearing of the trial, enabling him to be more effective at the lower strength level.

Kyle would have been able to fight off any cyborg singlehandedly if he still had his designer genes from his former life to enhance himself biologically.

However, Rayner did not seem to hold the same arrogance as Soren did, focused on capturing Kyle by maiming his limbs with repeated strikes. Kyle intended to capture Soren, but with the appearance of Rayner, he might be the one getting captured instead.

No choice then! Kyle attempted to counterattack, pushing back against Rayner slightly and earning a few direct hits. He finally managed to position himself where his warhammer fell, picking it up and swinging it hard at the passageway wall.

“Are you fucking crazy?!” Soren yelled at Kyle. “Don’t damage the dungeon!”

Kyle didn’t listen, avoiding Rayner’s attempts to stop him and continued walking backwards, taking every opportunity to smash the passageway.

Finally, one of the hits began to collapse the entire passageway, the ceiling visibly about to fall in. Rayner immediately abandoned his attempt to capture Kyle, sprinting back towards Soren and carrying him out to safety through the opposite end.

Kyle too, started running back to the original cavern, as the passageway behind him fully collapsed, cutting him and Soren off. He realised how far he had come in the fight with Soren, having passed more than five junctions in order to get here.

As he backtracked his way, he noticed that there were multiple doorways that seemingly led to other trials or were locked tightly, barricaded by a stone surface with an obvious high-tech metallic surface underneath. Feels like a façade.

Kyle deactivated his negation field, healing himself slowly as he winced with each step, the bruises and multiple bone fractures across his entire body hurting him immensely. But what hurt him, even more, was the knowledge that there was an entire organisation of System users out there – and he had just been exposed.

Could he defend against the next System user that tried to attack him? He noticed that Rayner did not use any special skills but was instead a cyborg. With the way he fought, it means that there is a Galactic Era factory somewhere on the continent that is able to manufacture components for him.

Whatever Kyle had planned for the Seven Snakes, Raktor, and Versia had to be completely recalculated. Until I grow stronger – I can’t reveal myself as much any longer. Kyle needed raw strength and power on an individual level. Eventually, he would need it on an organisational level to ensure that his Seven Snakes would not be suddenly wiped out by the Wardens.

Reaching back to the original cavern, he spotted Feldon resting against one of the obelisks inside the rest area, the sword still sticking out through his front. A puddle of blood surrounded him as Feldon weakly grinned at Kyle. “Heya, boss. Did… did you get him?”

“I did not. And don’t try – you’re not going to die on me. I still have work for you to do.” Kyle immediately activated the Necklace of Healing on him, relieving Feldon’s pain.

“I’m going to have to slowly pull out the sword, okay? Stay calm.”

Kyle slowly inched the sword out, healing and ensuring Feldon still had enough blood to remain conscious. In a slow, excruciating five minutes, the lightning sword was finally pulled out, clanging on the floor as Kyle poured a health potion vial directly on the wound.

Feldon soon fell asleep, knocked out from the severe blood loss and numbing effect of the health potion, resting on the ground. Kyle carried him to a better location on the central stage, away from the pool of blood.

Kyle let out a deep sigh, collapsing to the floor as well as sheer exhaustion from the fight began to overwhelm his entire body. However, before he knocked out, there was one last thing to check.