Awakener's Guide to Climbing the Tower

Caius remembered Misha dying more clearly than he remembered her living. He hated himself for that.

There had been years before the end, conversations, arguments, training sessions, and meals eaten in silence because neither of them had particularly enjoyed talking while exhausted. There had been stupid things too. The exact expression she made whenever someone said something so profoundly idiotic that correcting them no longer felt worth the effort.

He should have remembered those first. Instead, when he closed his eyes, he remembered blood and her body collapsing, her heartbeat slowing while he was still inside, and his own consciousness trapped somewhere behind her eyes, helplessly listening as each breath took longer than the one before.

Caius looked up and saw the Primarch’s hand was inches from his face. It was close enough that the hooked black nails filled most of his vision.

His staff-spear trembled between both hands. His left arm had gone numb sometime during the last exchange and he had ignored it.

His right knee was worse and he ignored that too. There was always something else to ignore. Pain, blood, the ugly way his lungs refused to fill completely, Hiiro lying motionless somewhere behind the monster, and Misha coughing hard enough that Caius could hear the wetness in it even over the Primarch’s breathing.

He especially ignored that because if turned around, if he saw the blood–No.

The Primarch pressed down and his arms bent while stone cracked beneath one knee.

Caius clenched his jaw. His skill was not enough and apparently, he already knew that. Lightning had stopped mattering. Every spell he had thrown at the thing after its evolution had amounted to little more than irritation.

He hated enemies like this. There was something insulting about watching years of training become useless.

The Primarch’s mouth stretched wider, three of them now and all were smiling.

Caius had seen many things smile before killing someone. None of them had ever improved the experience.

His fingers loosened around the staff-spear. For half a second, he thought about not being the House Solmere’s heir, not a War Magus, not a regressor, and not someone who knew things other people didn’t. Just eighteen, tired and terrified, and very much aware that he did not want to die again.

How embarrassingly ordinary.

In the end, he closed his eyes.

"CAIUS!!!"

Her voice reached him through the pressure. He could hear panic in it and that frightened him more than the hand above him. The Misha he knew did not panic easily, not–

He opened his eyes, amber burning in them as he saw the Primarch’s other hand descended. The purple lightning around him vanished. The change was so sudden that even he felt the absence.

Then something deeper answered, a pressure that had been sleeping there since the timeline broke.

The air behind him split and a black line appeared across the avenue. It was perfectly straight, too perfect for the ruined world around it. Two enormous scales materialized behind him. They unfolded into existence as though they had always been there and the world had simply stopped pretending otherwise.

「 〔SYSTEM NOTICE〕

External Chamber Resonance Detected.

Constellation: LIBRA

Contract Record: INVALID

Attempting historical verification... 」

Caius sucked in a breath. So it still remembered him.

The creature in front of him was too strong. That fact should have ended the matter. Something inside him rejected it.

He opened his mouth. "Equalize."

Amber-white lightning exploded and it burst from his body in a perfect ring.

The Primarch’s descending hand stopped and Caius felt the exact moment the difference between them narrowed.

The monster pushed but something pushed back. No–that was wrong. It did not push. It weighed, measured, and demanded equivalence so for one impossible second, the pressure crushing Caius and the force opposing it became equal.

The Primarch’s arm snapped backward as if it was corrected. As though the world itself had looked at the imbalance and found it offensive.

Slowly, Caius rose and straightened his staff-spear in his hands while amber light crawled over the metal. He watched the Primarch stagger one step. Only one.

Caius was annoyed. All that for one step while his body was already objecting his original strength. His ribs burned, and blood ran from his nose.

The scales behind him stopped at a perfect level. Then the Chamber opened. Everything remained exactly where it had been, only another place unfolded over it.

Black stone spread from beneath Caius’ feet, smooth and polished. It rolled across the fractured road in concentric circles, passing through rubble without disturbing it. Gold followed, thin lines carved themselves across the black surface.

The ruined buildings dimmed, not gone but only reduced to blurred outlines behind immense black pillars rising through them.

The pillars climbed beyond the rooftops, higher and higher until Caius could no longer see where they ended. Then golden chains hung between them, each link carried tiny inscriptions like names, weights, promises, and debts.

Then the sky disappeared and above them stretched an endless black expanse with thousands of scales hanging within it. Some scales turned in the dark, others were large enough to hold buildings. Some remained level, some tilted, and some moved without anything visible resting upon them. Every motion sent a faint metallic sound across the Chamber.

Caius’ throat went dry. He remembered his Libra Constellation Soul’s abilities but he did not remember this. Something was different.

The Primarch’s six arms twitched. One head turned, then another, and the third face stretched strangely beneath translucent skin. For the first time since evolving, the creature hesitated.

「 〔CONSTELLATION CHAMBER〕

Domain Authority Established.

Activation Command: «Equalize»

Governing Principle: «EQUINOX»

—

The Scales have been established.

All recognized forces will be weighed.

Excess will be restrained.

Imbalance will be returned in equal measure.

The greater the imbalance, the heavier the price.

—

Chamber Stability dependent on Constellation Soul Output. 」

Caius read the final line twice. There it was, the cost. There was always one. Anything powerful enough to save a person conveniently came attached to instructions explaining how it might kill them later.

"KRUUAAAAAGH!!!"

The Primach moved and swung its upper arm. It was still too fast for him. Caius saw the strike coming and knew he would not avoid it.

Then one of the scales overhead tipped and the arm slowed.

His eyes widened. So that was how the Chamber intended to interpret equilibrium. It was not equality of strength, that would have been impossible. It was relative correction, force measured against force. Excess shaved away until response became possible.

It was useful and at the same time, dangerous.

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