Ezekiel Thorn let out a long sigh.
In truth, he did not mind that his mark had been washed away. He did not mind having fought the damned innkeep and his husband, he didn’t mind needing to trail through the undergrowth of the third floor. All of that was perfectly acceptable to him, because all of it was proof.
Proof that he was free.
However long he crawled around the dirty paths of the third floor - he relished every moment of it. Even when he lost his way to track the rookie, having to spend days trawling through the muddy forest, constantly faced with challenges far greater than the average climber. After all, that was only fair, right?
All of that he took in strides. But when Respitia contacted him again, demanding to know how he had not succeeded yet, how he’d lost to someone so much weaker than him, how he’d failed in his mission, and that he was a pathetic, worthless wretch of a man… that made him sigh.
It was a little tiring. He sighed, again.
The mage, another scithian, laid a cool hand on his shoulder. Her eyes were the same pale blue as the crystals behind her back, looking like the ocean on a bright day. “Are you ill, old man?” she asked, fake concern in her voice. “Perhaps you ought to let me test a few spells on you?”
Ezekiel brushed her hair from his face, strands of blue-white that felt cold to the touch. “No, Serra, I do not need your assistance.”
“Shame,” she said. Then she leaned back, stretching, pushing her gloved hands far above her as her wings spread wide. She gave a satisfied hum as her spine popped once, and then turned to the woman in armor. “Igrys, come here. I need to test something.”
The tank, for her part, looked up and huffed in annoyance. She had black hair and red eyes, pale skin and wide shoulders. “Pay me,” she said simply.
Serra pouted in reply. “Fine, then I’ll just cast it on you over there!” she huffed.
For a moment, Igrys’ eyes went wide. She rose to her feet, quickly brandishing her shield. A moment later, a spell smacked against its surface, covering it - and the woman behind it - in a thick layer of clear ice. Serra smiled proudly. “I call this one the popsiclifier!”
Their spellblade, a feryran woman with reddish hair and dark eyes, smacked the mage on the back of the head. Her skin was covered in the bio-metal plates that was common for her species, which meant that even the small smack was probably uncomfortable. Not that high-level climber bones were much softer than metal.
“Owwww,” Serra whined anyway. “What was that for??”
“Stop casting spells on our party,” Railles, the spellblade, chided her, with a gravelly voice. Ezekiel eyed her for a long moment, finding no concern, and instead, a face filled with annoyance at the inconvenience. He smiled. She was the most like him, then.
He didn’t care in the slightest if anyone in his temporary team died. They could all fall off the tower if they wanted to. No, they were bound by convenience. Serra owed him a favour. Igrys and Orri, their sumeen clothmancer-diviner, were paid handsomely. And Railles, the grey-skinned spellblade, was here because Respitia had traded her a major request to the tower for it.
As Serra stuck her tongue out at the spellblade, Igrys broke from the ice, asking if she could strangle the mage. Gently, Ezekiel had to turn her down, and request Serra stop her wanton experimentation. Then, finally, when the bickering died down, he turned to the quietest member of their party.
“Any news?” he asked the clothmancer, Orri.
The sumeen hummed, then slowly tilted its head in a manner not unlike a bird’s. A shiver ran down Ezekiel’s spine as all six of those sight-holes fixated on him. He never liked the sumeen. They were too… alien. Barely people. But he could work with one at least.
Orri hummed again, noting his discomfort but disregarding it. The clothmancer replied easily. “No, something is shrouding them right now.”
“That makes no sense,” Serra supplied instantly. “There’s nothing on a floor this low that should stop your scrying.”
“And yet, here we find ourselves,” the sumeen replied casually. “With my scrying stopped.”
Ezekiel huffed in annoyance. “What’s blocking you, then?” he asked.
“Mana,” Orri replied. “A dense, thick sheet of mana. An amount that would burst my vessel a hundred times over. An incredible amount of it, even.” Their voice was calm, melodic as always, and yet, Ezekiel tensed at its description.
There was only one thing that could mean. “Tower’s Wrath,” he whispered. “But… who? Which other Eye is pursuing Ion?” That last question was leveraged at Respitia rather than anyone present, really. He grit his teeth when the uptight creature he served refused a reply. “Damn it,” he cursed. “I was looking forward to the fourth floor.”
Now, he’d have to fight someone there. Great, just great.
- - -
Flamando, once the mana subsided, found himself on the fourth floor. Instantly, he slammed his fist into the ground, shattering it. “Damn it!” he cursed. “Falling piece of falling shit. Tower’s Wrath. Tower’s damned Wrath!” He slammed his fist into the ground again, sending bones and debris flying.
The fourth floor. The Grindstone, the Graveyard. Bones littered the fields around him, the tower having deposited him miles away from any fully fledged city. Of course it had. It wanted him to cool off. To put his limiters back in place.
He could feel it, too. The dense knot of mana behind his head, like an eye, watching everything he did. As if the tower was chiding him for his loss of control. Flamando tightened the magic inside his flaming head, forcing the sphere that he used as an anchor for vision to compress.
It turned from red to orange and yellow, then glimmered with a faint green, tightly webbing into itself. Flamando took a long moment - the equivalent of a deep breath - to calm himself. Just the fourth floor. They’d be here soon. And then he’d find that rookie and toss the falling bastard off the side of the tower.
Until then, at least, with what this floor was, he didn’t need to worry about boredom. There were always plenty of bodies to be shattered deep in the Graveyard. As soon as the rookie came up, it was over. Ion would be dead. Dead, damn it.
- - -
PoV: Snow Okiyama - Ion
The good news is that we’ve found out that for tougher people, the spiderweb does not cut through their bones.
On the other hand, we’ve also found out that Norman can get really, really whiny about having a good chunk of his arm cut through.
Which, I suppose, is fair. Despite that… “Stop squirming so much, it’s making my spells not take hold as well.”
“It fucking hurts, damn it!” he says from teary eyes, his voice grinding out between clenched teeth.
Another blast of mana from me mangles the legs of another spider who was trying to get close. A moment later, Opal’s on top of it, plunging their sword into its head, finishing it off. “Sorry, can’t spare the focus for pain suppression right now,” I tell Norman, pouring more healing into his flesh as it stitches back together.
It’s the truth. With [Observation] running to find any threats, and [Deconstruction] or [Suppression] lashing out to deal with them, I can’t focus on much else other than healing him on top of that. Norman squirms some more, moaning and whining about the pan, until his flesh is mostly intact again.
By then, Amelie is in the queue, sporting two wounds in the side of her neck, dripping venom. “That looks bad,” I say.
She shrugs. “Doesn’t hurt that much. I think it’s paralytic.”
“Hmmm,” I hum, setting about healing her. There’s something more peculiar about the wound - and her skin. She’s already sealed off most of the poison. Only a tiny amount actually entered her body, she must have woven some kind of water-tight fabric around the fangs when she got bit. A small smile spreads on my lips. “Impressive.”
Amelie grins, then huffs haughtily, flicking her hair back. “Hmpf! Of course. I still can barely feel my arms though, so…”
“On it, on it,” I say, applying the spell and watching as her flesh mends. First, it fuses together at the bottom of the wound, climbing upwards, until the skin itself stitches together almost like fabric. Thin strands of it interlocking with each other until it’s mended again. “Huh,” I say.
“What?” Amelie asks, trying out the range of motion of her shoulders, as her puppets swarm and take down another spider.
I tilt my head. “Your skin. It’s different.”
She blinks for a moment, running a finger across it. “I can’t feel anything.”
“Might be related to your mantle?” I suggest.
“Huh,” she says. “Maybe.”
“A little bit of help!” Thatch calls, smashing his fists into another spider, making me look over.
Right. Oops.
With a quick cast of [Suppression], the arachnid slows down to a crawl, and Thatch quickly pulps it. Seeing the punch is strange. His fist hits first, then there’s a short pause before I see a flash of mana and feel a bit of force and heat wash over me. Just enough to send my hair flying.
Bile fights against the spiders, too, corralling them with earthen walls. They’re making it a little harder on him to build a quick “labyrinth”, since they can climb over the sides, but despite that, the very existence of it seems to slow them down and disorient them, making it easy for organised legions of puppets to swarm and disassemble them.
It makes me think that a team up of Bay and Amelie could be quite scary, couldn’t it? Hm. Something to consider. A little later, the wound on Amelie’s shoulder is gone, and with all the damage dealt with, I get to actually properly engage in the fight. I summon a few needles, long, thin pieces of mana, imbued with my skills.
They hover around me, lancing out at spiders, leaving thin wounds. But the weakening effects seep deep into their bodies, and [Deconstruction] unravels their ligaments. Joints freeze up when hit, becoming stiff and immobile. One of the spiders spits more steely thread at me.
It’s thin and wiry, but…
My mantle whirs. The archive already has a recording of the thread. A web of it blooms in front of me, easily catching the glob of venom-coated string. The spider hisses in annoyance, but a quick pulse of mana and its face crumples inwards. When it staggers back, one of Opal’s echoes activates, cleaving its thorax in half.
I can feel the broken bits of my mantle trying to manifest, and as more spiders crawl towards me, I pull the remnants of Philia’s golden sword from it. The paladin wielded the flaming weapon with grace, and I can feel the power even while holding this replica in my hand. It’ll be enough, more than enough.
When one of the arachnids leaps at me from the back, it goes poorly. Two needles pierce it, killing its momentum before it’s properly off the ground. Instead of jumping, it becomes a graceless tumble, and a cut from the golden sword finishes the thing off.
[You have killed a lv. 44 Webweaver]
More of them hiss and click at me. I smile faintly. “Kuro, now.”
The shadow slithers down from my face, unmaking itself and becoming liquid as it crawls over the ground. A needle immobilises a spider, and Kuro instantly jumps it. Darkness covers its skin, then shifts and convulses, blooming into a dozen inward-facing spikes, making the beast crumple to the ground.
I step forward, deploying a sweeping field of [Suppression], brushing against the things. They suddenly slow, as if caught in molasses. There’s not even any need to hurry as I step forward and cut through them like wheat.
[You have killed a lv. 39 Webweaver]
[You have killed a lv. 45 Webweaver]
[You have killed a lv. 44 Webweaver]
They shatter. One by one, they break. Their bodies betray them, their magic falls apart as soon as they try to cast it. They’re reduced to nothing more than insects - metaphorically, I mean. Mundane things, bereft of their monstrous strength.
I, a person with a particularly pointy stick, walk through the horde of monsters and kill them.
[Level Up! 54 > 55]
Opal pops in next to me, humming. “Scary,” they say chipperly. “Something odd about seeing things so ordinary.”
“That’s me,” I say, smiling a little. “Ordinary Snow. I turn things near me back to base levels. Nothing special about it.”
My friend snickers. “Yeah, you’re tooootally the most normal person I know.”
“Me too,” I say, smiling. Then, I unsummon the sword, and draw my mantle back into its half-manifested stage, runic geometry swirling around me. I draw it a little higher, hiding my mouth, and Kuro wraps back around my face, forming the high collar that hides half my face. It’s cozy, almost.
The spiders are dead and broken around us, Bile and Norman panting, Thatch meditating, Amelie already analyzing the thread, and Opal standing next to me. Already, the corpses are being dissolved into more ambient mana, fed back into the tower’s spawning cycle. I steal a bit of venom, though, putting it into containers of solidified mana.
Despite keeping an attunement loop active on my vessel, and another instance of [Suppression] on my physical body, I have enough mana left to sustain the bottles after surpassing the recent mana threshold. I take a long breath.
In front of me, the golden lines on the floor light up. Slowly, the tower’s grace crawls across them, forming patterns and runes so intricate I still can’t begin to understand them. Nor should I, I think. The tower wants its secrets. I’ll have them soon enough.
For now, I simply wait, toying with the skills in my archive until everyone is ready to leave. And then, all at once, we step into the ascendancy well, up to the fourth floor.
[Ascend?]
As if it had to ask. I nod, ever so faintly, and see my vision go white.
[Challenge: Duo’s Duel. A hunt you must escape, a memory takes shape. Two hunters once climbed up as well, prove that you can show them hell.]
And then, there’s a sandstone floor beneath my feet. An arena. Opal by my side. Facing Ezekiel and the cloth mage, from back when they were younger.
A smile creeps onto my face. What a kind gift. Thank you, dear tower. I’ll take them into my archives, too.
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter