Awakener's Guide to Climbing the Tower

Caius knew he was running out of time. He tightened both hands around Valecyr, and lightning burst from his palms, racing down the staff-spear before tearing into the last bridge of flesh still feeding the gong.

The tissue blackened, crimson filaments spasmed, the Primarch convulsed, then the gong began striking itself in rapid pulses as the internal structure destabilized.

Gong.

The Chamber trembled with the sound.

Gong.

One scale shattered overhead.

Gong.

A black pillar cracked from top to bottom.

「Chamber Stability: 7% 」

Then the final connection burned through, and the gong dropped free. For the first time, the bronze structure hung completely separate from the Primarch’s living mass.

Crimson threads shot toward it at once, stretching desperately across the gap before falling short. The Primarch screamed, all three faces convulsing at once, and the sound carried something new beneath the rage... fear.

The realization gave Caius enough strength for one more movement. He tore Valecyr free from the body, reversed the staff-spear, and raised it above one shoulder. His entire body shook, yet the amber light still filled his eyes.

Pouring everything he had left into Valecyr, Caius saw the purple lightning return beneath the amber-white glow, his own strength beneath the borrowed authority, the boy he had been beneath the man who remembered dying, every failure he carried layered beneath futures that had not happened yet. He gathered all of it into one final strike and drove the spear forward.

The spearhead punched through and the gong shattered.

Crimson light burst from the empty cavity in the Primarch’s chest cavity and illuminated the entire Chamber for one terrible second.

The Primarch froze, all six arms stopped moving, and the roar died halfway through its throat. Black tissue across its body sagged. The stored material beneath its skin shifted visibly–half-absorbed limbs, ribs, fragments of faces, pieces of Vestiges packed into a body that had never truly digested them. Without the gong holding the assimilation network together, those pieces began collapsing inward.

One arm detached, it hit the floor. When Tobias released his restraints, the enormous corpse fell and the impact shook the failing Chamber.

「 You have killed a Primarch Vestige!

EXP +1,630 」

Caius remained standing for one second, perhaps two, before Valecyr slipped from his hand and his knees finally gave out beneath him.

"Caius!"

The golden chains around Misha vanished at the same time.

She broke into a run despite the pain that tore through her injured leg the moment she pushed off. Caius fell forward, and she barely reached him in time, catching one arm beneath his chest as the impact drove her wounded knee hard against the floor. Agony shot up her leg and into her hip, but she held on and managed to keep his face from striking the floor.

His head lolled against her shoulder, blood stained his mouth, and more had dried beneath his nose and along one ear. His breathing came shallow and fast, every breath weak enough that something cold closed around Misha’s chest.

She adjusted him in both arms, then slapped his cheek lightly. "Cai, stay with me."

When she received no response, her fear sharpened.

"Caius!" She slapped him harder.

His eyelids finally moved, barely.

"Don’t you fucking dare."

A breath escaped him, followed by words so faint she almost thought she had imagined them. "Still... alive."

Relief hit her so hard that it twisted into anger before she could say anything else.. "This bastard..."

The corner of his lips twitched, as though he were trying to attempt something resembling a smile. Then the tension left his body all at once, and he went limp in her arms.

Misha’s expression changed when she felt it. "Caius?"

She pressed two trembling fingers beneath his jaw. Her shoulders dropped only slightly when she felt a weak pulse. Then slowly, she pressed her head against the side of his head and closed her eyes.

The Chamber began dissolving around them, black pillars broke into golden dust, the enormous scales overhead fractured and disappeared, then the polished floors beneath them lost its impossible reflection as the ruined avenue of Exodus gradually bled back through it.

Then Tobias’ voice came from behind her. "He’ll be fine. The kid has grit."

She looked back and saw his temporary vessel had begun dissolving from the feet upward, breaking apart into grains of brown-gold that drifted away before touching the ground. The oppressive aura that made the Chamber feel as though a mountain had entered a courtroom was gone. What remained was Tobias.

The old man folded his arms as his gaze shifted toward Caius. "He knew how to access a function you have never unlocked in this timeline."

"I noticed that too." She let out a sigh before slowly lowering her gaze.

Caius Solmere lay unconscious against her, a boy she had doubted, a boy who apparently remembered a version of her that she herself had never lived. Somewhere in that dead future, Caius had eventually become part of her Soul Inventory.

She had never imagined she would actually meet someone like him. Regressors was the sort of thing that belonged in the comics she loved reading, stories where someone died, woke up years in the past, and carried knowledge of a future no one else remembered. It had always sounded exciting when she was reading it from the safety of her bed. Seeing the reality of it now felt considerably stranger.

’So this is what it feels like to meet a real protagonist,’ she thought. Somehow, it was a lot less glamorous than the comics made it look. That thought still felt impossible but apparently he had been carrying an entire dead history inside his skull while pretending half of his suspicious behaviour was simply personality.

Her eye twitched in annoyance. "When he wakes up... I’m going to kill him."

"That seems somewhat counterproductive after spending this much effort keeping him alive."

"I’ll stabilize him first, then kill him."

"Ah."

Misha adjusted Caius more securely against her chest while the last remnants of Libra’s chamber peeled away.

"You told me not to trust anyone from the Four Families."

"I did."

"But... Caius... and Elyes too," she paused as she lifted her gaze to him. "They’re both from those families."

The lower half of Tobias’ vessel had already disappeared. He regarded her for a moment before answering, "A family name tells you what someone inherited." His expression had softened again before he continued, "It can tell you the house that raised them, the expectations placed on their shoulders, the enemies they were born with, even the sins people will assume belong to them before they have committed any of their own. But a name does not tell you what they chose when nobody was there to choose for them so judge the inheritance carefully." His gaze landed on Caius. "And judge the person by what they do with it."

The last of his vessel broke into brown-gold light.

Misha remained kneeling in the ruined street, surrounded by corpses, with Caius held against her while the dead Primarch lay several meters away.

"Misha..." A familiar voice came from behind her.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!