The Fractured Tower

Lightning leaped from one beast to the next. It arced across twenty feet of empty air to a third, finally fizzling out there, only for a second arc to strike the same monster from a different angle. In less than a second, a dozen instances of Chain Bolt tore through the entire herd, killing almost all of them despite Sorin’s attacks being solely directed at the lead charger.

They were quadrupeds equipped with massive, wickedly ridged horns, hooves that could smash stone, and a pelt that required focused effort to pierce. Individually, they weren’t much of an issue despite their formidable offense and defense. But there was never one charger. It was always twenty or thirty of them galloping across the savanna in a stampede that threatened to turn anything that got in their way into a streak of bloody gore.

Their thick hides did very little to protect them from repeatedly being shocked by lightning, and Sorin’s tactic of darting between the monsters to deliver electrically-loaded lunging strikes obliterated the entire herd in moments. Only a lucky handful managed to stagger away, usually those on the outer edges who’d been shocked two or three times, enough to hurt but not to kill.

Then there was the one in the middle, the herd leader, who was a full two feet taller at the shoulder and whose horns looked like they weighed thirty or forty pounds apiece. While the outliers were staggering away, smoke still rising off their wounds, the lead charger’s horns merely crackled with electrical discharge. It lined itself up with Sorin, lowered its head, and galloped forward.

Its hooves cut through its dead brethren without concern, spraying blood, guts, and gore up to splash against its belly and stain its fur with every step. So great was its momentum that anything caught in its path was sure to be annihilated. The monster rushed forward with all the unstoppable weight of a landslide bearing down on Sorin.

It made it halfway there before a spike of raw force impaled it through the throat, its own momentum driving it deeper and deeper.

More of a distraction than a challenge, Sorin thought as he examined the dying monster. I think I’ve gained all I can from this place.

He claimed a fragment of its horn for the Rebound soulprint that had helped protect it from his lightning. It was a situationally useful soulprint, but at D-rank, it wasn’t powerful enough to earn a spot in his soulspace. If he’d been required to take the full horn, he’d have left it behind. That was a choice he’d been forced to make too often over the last few weeks.

His biggest regret about being forced into the trial alone was that he’d left behind a fortune in raw materials. The charger pelts alone were incredibly valuable, never mind the horns on the leader. That didn’t even get into the thousands of monsters he’d killed over the last month. Feathers, talons, claws, fangs, leather, and more, all left for the tower to reclaim.

His bags were so overstuffed at this point that he’d been forced to start leaving soulprints behind, and that just tore at him. Admittedly, they were the more common F- and E-rank ones that weren’t all that valuable to begin with, but it was the principle of the matter. Once he’d reached the point where he was so overburdened that he physically couldn’t haul any more around with him, he’d started actively avoiding monsters whenever possible.

The charger herd was an exception for two reasons. The first was that they were incredibly mobile, and while he could have simply hid and waited for them to move on, there was also every chance that they’d come back later. If he had to fight them, he wanted it to be his ambush, not theirs, that initiated the battle.

The second was the more important reason. Less than a thousand feet away was the wide, shallow cave that the guardian made its lair in. It wasn’t home at the moment, and when it did return, Sorin didn’t want any complications arising from more monsters wandering into the battleground. He doubted the fight would remain confined to the cave itself.

So he’d started actively hunting everything nearby, which included the charger pack only because they’d wandered through the area he was preparing twice already. The drawback of his strategy was that all the fresh blood and meat was attracting scavengers, though perhaps not as many as usual. Sorin could only assume that the lion itself had taught the other monsters to be wary of loitering in its hunting grounds.

He didn’t have to wait long. After barely an hour—and three different monster attacks that forced him to relocate each time simply to not have to sit with the smell of the kills nearby—something prickled at the edge of his awareness. It was immediately obvious that the approaching monster was the guardian, and equally obvious that it had noticed him noticing it. The guardian slunk past him, its gait still somehow liquid despite standing over ten feet in height and close to fifteen feet long, unconcerned with his presence as it approached its cave.

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Sorin watched the massive lion walk by, enter the cave, and flop down onto the cool stone. It yawned, revealing incisors longer than daggers and a tongue big enough to completely cover Sorin’s face. Then it shook its head, sending a ripple through its golden mane, and locked eyes with Sorin from across the savanna.

Yep, that thing is just as intimidating as I remember it being. Size might not be everything, but it’s pretty easy to picture those claws ripping me to shreds, just like it did to Samael.

It wasn’t often Sorin was nervous about approaching a fight. The trial was supposed to be challenged by a team of rank 10s, and that meant he was, theoretically, far more powerful than the magnificent beast lounging in the shade of its den. But sometimes the tower didn’t play by the rules, and if there was ever a spot it would discard the established expectations, it was here.

Not that it would be the first time. Manticore on Floor 1. Earth elemental basilisk on Floor 3. Kraken and triton on Floor 9. None of those were survivable by normal climbers of that rank, and we still don’t know if the tower put them in our way on purpose or if it was some sort of fluke.

When Sorin didn’t move, the lion let out a huff and settled into place. It rested its head on its paws and watched him lazily, eyes half-lidded and its tail occasionally flicking behind it. Monsters rarely showed fear, at least not against a climber they hadn’t personally tested and found too strong for them, but this behavior went beyond even that.

Lack of fear was normal; lack of aggression wasn’t. Even the monsters that were smart enough to wait for an advantage before attacking still made the effort to get into an advantageous position. The guardian’s body language instead said, Approach. Or don’t. I don’t care. It acted more like an animal than a monster.

Could it actually be just a massive lion? If it’s not a monster, it can’t be the guardian. I don’t want to kill it if it’s not really a monster. But everything about this trial is themed around this thing. The lion’s key. The lion’s hunting ground. The lion guardian. Maybe there are multiple lions and I’ve got the wrong one.

But that didn’t make sense. Sorin had thoroughly scouted the trial searching for a place he could safely rest. It was bordered by an ocean on three sides, with only the north side being the stone bluff. He’d even climbed to the top of it and found nothing but barren rock stretching out forever. The water was infested with man-eating fish and the top of the bluff saw such a drastic temperature climb that Sorin wasn’t sure if dehydration would kill him or if he’d literally cook himself to death trying to stay up there.

It was clear that the savanna he’d been living in for almost a month was the entirety of the trial grounds, and there was only one lion. The tower hadn’t even seen fit to give it a full pride, which Sorin felt he probably ought to be grateful for. One lion was enough. A dozen lionesses fighting in concert with it would be unwinnable, not that he loved his odds against a single opponent, either.

He was overthinking things. It was many times the size of a normal lion. He’d watched it tear into Samael. It was obviously the guardian. Of course it was in no hurry. Sorin physically couldn’t escape the savanna without going through it. There was no reason for it to challenge him; its purpose was to be challenged.

I’m just delaying, he realized. Even now, he wasn’t confident in his victory. If he spent another week or two, he could probably push up to rank 26 or 27. But even as he considered that plan, he rejected it. He was tired. He needed rest. He needed a real meal. He was getting weaker from the strain of the extended climb faster than he was gaining strength from growing in ranks. No more excuses. One last fight. Then the tower will let me out and I can use Liminal Gateway again.

Sorin stood up and drew his sword and started to advance on the cave. The lion regarded him languidly, then climbed to its feet and pawed out into the sunlight. It paced forward to the halfway point, meeting Sorin there and only stopping when there was less than ten feet between them.

“You helped me kill Samael,” Sorin told the lion. “Or I guess maybe it’d be better to say I helped you kill him. You did most of the damage. I just dragged him back when he tried to run away.”

The lion, much like the tower itself, said nothing. It merely regarded him steadily, its eyes locked onto his face. Somehow, that was much more intimidating than if it had been snarling at him. But at the same time, it gave him the smallest sliver of hope that he might learn something about his situation.

“I don’t know if you can talk, but I’m sure I have to beat you to leave. You’re the guardian, after all. Is there anything the tower wants me to know, some message you’re supposed to pass on? I’m trying here, but I’m still not sure what exactly the plan is. It’s not often I meet a monster that doesn’t immediately try to kill me, so I just thought I’d take a minute to ask. This might very well be my last chance to get some answers.”

The lion yawned and stretched slightly, claws popping out of one of its massive, wagon-wheel-sized paws. They scored the ground, carving furrows two inches wide and six inches deep. The message was clear: the lion was here to answer his challenge, not his questions.

“Well, when you get to wherever it is you monsters go after you die, you tell the tower that I’m game to cooperate, but I really need it to meet me half way and tell me what it wants. I’m tired of making guesses.”

Sorin nearly dropped his sword when the great beast inclined its head in a single, precise nod. So you’re aware. The tower is watching this. God, the implications... No, sort it out later.

His earlier lethargy fell away from him and his trepidation vanished. Meeting the tower’s challenges and overcoming them was what he lived for. Once he stopped thinking and analyzing and just let himself live in the moment, he found the clarity of purpose the last month had slowly beaten out of him.

Brandishing his sword, he fell into a ready stance. “Let’s begin.”

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