Low-Fantasy Occultist

Chapter 425

Nick stood before the pedestal in the middle of the Wardroom, feeling strangely sad.

The crystal pillar, intended to be the core of the Tower’s magic, was completely pitch-black. It thrummed with a sickly mana that made the air in the large circular chamber feel dirty, even though there were no stains, and dozens of floating runic matrices orbited the dais, all contaminated by the same dark corruption.

Considering that he had just exorcised a Lesser Demon, a creature comparable to the one Marthas faced all those months ago, he should have felt jubilant. It proved that his long, difficult journey was paying off and that he truly had become something special as he prepared for the next challenge.

Yet all he could feel was pity for the wonderful magics of the Tower being tainted, and trepidation for the metaphysical battle he was about to face.

There was really no other way he could handle this but to confront the corruption directly, unfortunately, as he lacked the arcane knowledge needed to influence the Tower’s enchantments from the outside. Now that he could see the situation, he realized he was even more pressed for time than he had thought.

With a steady breath, Nick stepped onto the white marble dais, gripping the Shard of Human Ambition firmly in his left hand. The wood felt warm, vibrating with a strange resonance that seemed to intensify as he approached the blackened crystal.

I am not a healer of minds, he thought, sending a thin pulse back to the staff in reassurance. But I know how to cut out rot, and I happen to have a very sharp scalpel.

Pressing the tip of the Shard directly against the corrupted glass, he reached deep for any trace of mercy and pity he could muster and cast. “[Stream of Consciousness].”

Unlike before, he didn’t bother to be gentle. The Tower could withstand anything he could dish out, and he needed to push hard to reach its core, so he summoned and sent a conceptual wedge into the crystal, riding the fierce gale of spiritual wind straight into its inner space.

The physical world vanished, replaced instantly by a new pressure. It wasn’t too hostile, not yet, but its sheer force was enough to nearly drown him out, and it took him a few moments to regain himself and open his mind’s eye to his surroundings.

Scenes slipped past him—some too quick to understand, while others stayed long enough for him to recognize people and places. He glimpsed flashes of Tholm, decades younger, fiercely arguing over a glowing map. He saw generations of apprentices laughing in the grand halls, the careful carving of the foundational stones, and the bloody defense of the Tower during forgotten sieges when Berea was just beginning to rise.

But the wind pulled him deeper, past the modern era and the founding of Alluria itself, into the deepest layers of the spirit's memory, until the chaotic storm of images finally calmed down.

When he next stopped, Nick stood on a vast, endless plain of sun-baked sand. The sky above was a brilliant, unblemished azure. Dominating the horizon, rising so high it seemed to cut through the heavens, was a gigantic ziggurat made of golden bricks.

Even without any reason for him to know, he was sure this was the First Tower. The original, ancient expression of humanity's collective urge to reach the heavens.

Only now did he realize he’d seen it before, during the forging of the Shard, but his mind had been too busy containing the wild energies at the time and had failed to fully understand what it meant.

When he looked down at his left hand, he noticed that the Shard was no longer just a staff; in this strange mental space, it radiated the same golden light as the ziggurat, a fragment of this very place. A physical manifestation of the same drive that had built the First Tower.

Its name, which had long seemed somewhat grandiose, suddenly felt completely fitting. It truly was a Shard of Human Ambition.

Before he could fully grasp the implications that came with that, a tearing sound ripped through the mindscape.

Nick looked up and saw that the flawless azure sky suddenly started bleeding. Strange fissures tore across the heavens, weeping a thick, tar-like darkness that poured down upon the golden ziggurat.

Where the black sludge contacted the bricks, the gold deteriorated, revealing that the Abyssal influence was not merely breaking down the Tower's modern wards but also consuming the essence of the genius loci, distorting the natural human aspiration to ascend into an infinite, suffocating greed and overwhelming despair.

The golden structure trembled, emitting a low, resonant groan of pure agony that vibrated in Nick's teeth. The spirit was weakening. Despite its immense power, it was too vast and passive to combat an infection of this scale on its own without guidance, and any Archmage that might have led its resistance was beyond reach.

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Was this really what Hone wanted? How could any human being allow this to happen?!

Whatever the situation was, Elias Hone had been the one to let this madness into the Tower, and even if he hadn’t wanted its complete corruption, maybe believing he could restore it once he took control of the upper levels, it was happening because of him.

For that fact alone, he had to die.

Nick wouldn’t have accepted any other outcome anyway, but now he was fully committed, body and soul, to seeing it through. No traitor to humanity could be allowed another breath. No, not just to humanity. To life as we know it, to the World itself.

Watching the tarry sludge spread like a localized plague across the upper tiers of the ziggurat, he knew he would have to step in, even if he lacked many of the advantages an Archmage would have.

The immense power the Master of the Tower wielded could have allowed him to share some of it with the construct, causing it to fight back, and their knowledge and privileges would have let him access its innermost secrets and use its weapons against the corruption, but he had none of those.

Slamming the glowing base of the Shard into the sun-baked sand, Nick actively unspooled the boundaries of his own soul, reaching out to tether his mind directly to the failing genius loci.

"Come here," he snarled, his voice echoing across the endless desert. The moment he came into contact with the corruption, he began pulling at it, tearing chunks away from the ziggurat.

The abyssal sludge, sensing a mortal soul suddenly connected to its prey, shifted its focus. It reversed its flow, pouring off the golden bricks and rushing down the length of the ziggurat, surging directly toward Nick.

The overwhelming weight of the encroaching Abyss threatened to fray his sanity. It was the concentrated malice of a Greater Demon, thousands of years of corrupted greed and existential decay pouring down on a single human mind.

But as the tidal wave of darkness loomed over him, threatening to drown his soul completely, Nick didn't feel despair.

Through his connection to the ancient spirit of the Tower, he felt the unbroken chain of human history. He experienced the exhilarating rush of millions of mortals who had gazed at an impossible sky and refused to submit, the resonance of the Shard, burning like a second sun in his hands as it rejoiced in once again being part of the entire that had given it life.

The darkness descended, trying to lay its claim upon his expanding soul, and Nick could only smile as his eyes blazed with a crimson glow.

I’m not the prey you think I am. To be an Occultist is to walk the edge of the Deeper Mysteries and the Horrors from Beyond. You won’t find any purchase here.

SYSTEM NOTIFICATION

Your trait [Blasphemy] has repelled an Abyssal Invocation.

Your trait [Blasphemy] has repelled an Abyssal Invocation.

Your trait [Blasphemy] has repelled an Abyssal Invocation.

Your trait [Blasphemy] has repelled an Abyssal Invocation.

…

..

.

Again and again, the waves of corruption crashed against him, battering his soul, yet through it all, Nick kept pushing his spirit further, trying to expand his connection to the Tower to embrace everything.

If it had been him before the Sunlands dungeon, before he strengthened the structure of his innermost sanctuary, he would have failed then and there.

Oh, his trait would have still protected him from the demonic taint, but he would have been forced to witness the Tower’s fall, unable to do anything beyond just stand there.

Now, with the Tree of Life supporting his soul, he could dare to do more.

Nick had no clear idea of how long it took. In this conceptual space, time was somewhat meaningless because past, present, and future events blended together. Everything was one, and trying to grasp the flow would have made an already impossible task even harder, so he didn’t bother.

Instead, he focused on his bond with the Shard, and through it, to the Tower.

His mind slipped into a strange meditative trance, while he remained aware of the howling madness surrounding him on all sides, whispering his greatest fears and promising to fulfill his every desire, all the while eroding, digging deeper, and remaining completely detached from it.

His entire focus was on expanding his concept of personhood to include his ideals, and since the Shard already contained a part of himself, it was not impossible to use its connection to add more to it.

First, he handled the easy parts. The desire for growth that led to the First Tower being built was already strong within him and needed only a little adjustment to become part of his soulspace.

That alone was enough to push back some of the corruption. A few of the golden bricks regained their luster, and more became impenetrable to the sludge.

But it was not enough, and so he moved on to the next step.

Second were the aspects already reflected within himself, but not in enough measure. His curiosity to explore the unknown was strong, and he used that to fuel his desire to share with others and to build something greater than the sum of their parts.

SYSTEM NOTIFICATION

Your trait [Blasphemy] has repelled an Abyssal Invocation.

Your trait [Blasphemy] has repelled an Abyssal Invocation.

Your trait [Blasphemy] has repelled an Abyssal Invocation.

…

..

.

More and more notifications flashed by. Every time he expanded his reach to include another brick, [Blasphemy] would protect it from further corruption, allowing the Tower’s natural defenses to purge the taint.

And as it did so, since it was part of Nick’s soul, he changed with it. It was inevitable, considering the magnitude of what he was doing. He had known it would happen, yet feeling parts of himself grow to accommodate it was still disconcerting.

Again, he ignored it all. The Tower was starting to fight back thanks to his support, but it wouldn’t win as things stood. It had regained just enough of itself to stop further corruption, and while that was already a significant achievement, it wasn’t enough.

I need to do more. What other methods are there to push humans beyond their limits that I haven’t used yet?

The answer to that shouldn't have been surprising, although he was unsure how to incorporate it.

Just as there was much light within humanity that drove it forward, there was also an equally strong darkness, but that seemed too much like demonic taint for him to use here.

However, Dissatisfaction, Pride, and Regret were all parts of the human condition he couldn’t ignore if he wanted to fully embrace the entire Tower, and so, with a thrill of trepidation, he took the plunge.