The Fractured Tower

Book 2, Chapter 26

The arena appeared empty, but they all knew better than to trust that. Much like the dust ghoul from Floor 2 and so many of the monsters on Floor 3, this guardian was adept at moving through the dirt and sand. Technically, the team had a plan, but it mostly boiled down to tagging the monster with a few shots to make sure they didn’t get locked out of the portal and staying out of Sorin’s way.

He took the lead, marching right up to the center of the arena and waiting for the guardian to appear. It took only a few seconds for it to respond, probably having sensed Sorin moving overhead the same way he could feel it below his feet. Earth Warder showed him not the monster itself but the void in the dirt that shifted around its body, flowing like water out of its way with every twitch of a limb.

“Three… Two… One,” Sorin counted down.

Right on cue, a twelve-foot-long lizard with scales the color of old bricks and rust exploded out of the ground. Sorin hopped to the left the instant before it made contact, and instead of its mouth full of jagged little triangular teeth ripping off Sorin’s leg at the knee, it snapped closed on nothing but air. Before it could even reorient itself, he was there with his sword. Leathery skin flapped open and blood gushed out into the dirt where he sliced open its belly.

Sorin retreated back out of its range with Speed Burst, giving Nemari and Yoru time to pelt it with magic. Vendis, as it turned out, had picked up some support spells to strengthen the front line in addition to being ready to heal any unexpected injuries, so he was covered. That just left Rue and Odric with the most dangerous task of getting close to the monster while Sorin distracted it.

Sand swirled up around the lizard, billowing outward in a stinging, high-velocity cloud that would have flayed the flesh off a normal person. That was bad enough on its own, but this particular guardian was actually primarily known for its fire-based attacks.

“Better hurry,” Sorin called out. He was suppressing the skin-flensing sandstorm as best he could, but he hadn’t put any anima into enhancing Earth Warder, and the guardian’s terrakinesis was approaching C-rank levels of strength. Pushing back against it resulted in a reduction of speed but nothing more.

Rue got in and leaped, landing on its back and stabbing both swords down into muscle. The lizard, predictably, didn’t care for that. Flames roared out of its open mouth, mingling with the sand and turning it all into a super-heated storm of scintillating light. They’d discussed this tactic beforehand, however, and Rue knew to get back out before she got caught in it.

She still got blasted, but Odric was there to channel healing magic into her. By the time Rue hit the dirt and started running, she was back up to full speed. The lizard tried to curl around its own body to chase after her, but Sorin got in its way.

Force Edge was too weak to penetrate its skin, and he didn’t need it as a distraction, so Sorin focused on pushing anima into Earth Warder and Iron Bulwark to keep himself safe. Thermal Insulation also helped keep him from getting burnt where the white-glowing sand pushed past his control, but even with all that, he wasn’t safe where he was standing.

I think that’s enough for the tower. We’ve all participated and should be able to pass into the Antechamber together.

Still Winter unfolded around Sorin. Instantly, the temperature plummeted, and the sand started falling out of the air. The lizard, bloody mess that it was, hissed angrily at Sorin. It seemed torn between advancing to attack him or fleeing out of the radius of cold it had found itself caught in. Perhaps if Sorin had stood still, it would have decided to run.

But he didn’t, and it didn’t. Flames billowed up its throat, and it turned its head to bathe Sorin in them. Speed Burst got him out of the way with plenty of room to spare, and by the time the little pulse of anima wore off, his sword was already halfway through the back of its neck. It sliced cleanly between two vertebrae, and the only thing that prevented him from beheading it in a single stroke was its legs collapsing when he severed its spinal cord.

Dispassionately, Sorin ended its life with a second strike. Anima pushed into him, but not nearly enough to give him another rank. The floor guardian wasn’t even as strong as that basilisk had been, probably not even tougher than some of the armored monsters down by the elemental font. Sorin would need a few dozen kills just like this one to push to the next rank.

The pain of ranking up washed over him and everyone else, which was somewhat interesting to see. Nemari weathered it the best, surprisingly, but Sorin supposed she’d been the one who’d been injured the most. With all her near-death experiences, she’d probably gained some perspective on what true pain really was.

Yoru and Vendis also handled it with clenched teeth and grim stoicism. It was only Rue and Odric that showed any big reactions to it, both of them groaning in obvious pain and ending up on their hands and knees.

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“God damn, that gets worse every floor,” Rue muttered once the pain ended. She looked around, then blinked when she saw everyone else looking back at her. “Well, I thought it did.”

“It does,” Sorin said. “Never gets easier, only hurts more.”

They hadn’t gotten lucky on the previous two floors, but this time Sorin sensed something buried in the corpse. It wasn’t a soulprint—portal guardians never had one—but if he was right, it would be valuable anyway. “Rue, do you feel that in the body?”

“Some sort of nodule?” she asked as much as stated. “Anima-dense, whatever it is.”

“Right about… here,” he said, running his hand over the monster’s flank.

“And down a foot,” she agreed.

“Let’s find out what it is.”

A few quick slashes carved away a majority of the meat. Then he took a knife to dig deeper, with Rue helping him pinpoint what he was looking for. After a minute, he pried loose a calcified lump. “Some sort of tumor, it looks like.”

“What’s it good for?” Nemari asked. “Besides selling, that is.”

“Mostly just that,” Sorin replied. “Probably get the most for it selling it to an alchemist directly. They’ll grind it up and use the powder as a base for something or another.”

“It’s a versatile reagent,” Yoru added. “Good for a filler when they’re out of something specific they’d normally use, which makes it sell for that much more.”

“The real prize is on the other side of that portal, though,” Sorin said. “Let’s go find out what it is.”

* * *

Something strange was going on here. The Sorin who’d just easily dispatched a powerful portal guardian a few minutes ago wasn’t the same man Yoru had met in the secret North Wood Ruin back on Floor 1. He looked the same, acted the same even, and the rest of his team had a realistic, albeit impressive, level of growth.

But not him. Yoru recognized that frost domain Sorin had unleashed to counter the ember storm lizard’s fiery abilities. It came from a D-rank soulprint, which was impossible for a rank 3 to absorb. And yet, that was exactly what Sorin had been. Yoru had excellent range, and he’d been close enough to all of them to know that they were appropriately ranked for the floor.

Did he somehow rank up and then double back for his team? But how would he hide that? That’s impossible… No, it’s not. Samael is rumored to possess the same ability. There’s some connection there that probably explains why he’s so interested in Sorin.

Yoru firmly reminded himself that whatever was going on between those two was no business of his. He was here to make his way to the Floor 4 portal hub, and that was it. This was just to keep himself from getting behind schedule waiting on a new batch of—hopefully more loyal—mercenaries. He’d already sent the message to his attendant back on Floor 0 to start the interviews for a team of rank 4s when he’d summoned his porters and guards.

But still… How did he get so strong so fast? And is it something I can copy? I’ll be damned if some no-name climber beats me to the Wall. He probably doesn’t even know what he’s heading for.

He exchanged a glance with Vendis, who’d no doubt noticed the same thing Yoru himself had. Vendis was very knowledgeable and perceptive that way, had in fact been trained since he was a child to be Yoru’s right hand once the time to start climbing came. They’d talk about it later, probably once they’d parted ways with this team. Yoru was eager to hear his healer’s thoughts on the matter.

For the moment, the Antechamber awaited. Though he hadn’t been prepared for the first one—a fact that he could look back on and realize was his own damn fault—he’d gone through the Floor 2 portal and knew what to expect.

Or at least he thought he did. When he actually walked through, he was surprised to find not individual pedestals with small chests for each of them, but a single wide dais big enough for all of them to stand on. A quick look around confirmed that he wasn’t the only one confused.

“Is this… normal?” Nemari asked. “I thought there would be, you know, soulprints or materials or weapons—stuff like that.”

“It’s unusual,” Sorin said. He opened his mouth like he was about to say more, but then he caught himself and stopped. Instead, he silently circled around the dais, first peering down at it, then looking up at the ceiling above.

“There’s no portal out,” their team’s big healer mentioned.

“It would appear that we have a puzzle to solve,” Yoru announced, stepping forward to take control of the situation. He’d never heard of anything like this, but as he was undoubtedly the most experienced of this group, it would fall upon him to shed some light on the mystery.

“Oh, no, I wouldn’t say it’s a puzzle,” Sorin remarked absently. “We just stand on the dais as a group and the tower takes care of the rest. It won’t be anything detrimental, but I can’t tell what exactly will happen.”

“Best guess?” Nemari asked.

“Some sort of tower blessing that will raise our baseline in some way. Could be raw strength, or maybe dexterity. It might even enlarge our soulspaces. There really isn’t any way to tell ahead of time.”

“Preposterous. There’s no such thing,” Yoru objected.

Sorin stopped studying the dais and looked at him. “Do you think? Because we’re standing right in front of this, so I’d say the evidence is irrefutable.”

“We are standing in front of something, but not necessarily what you think it is.”

“Why do you think it’s a blessing?” Rue asked, now joining Sorin in walking around it.

“It’s a thing the tower does sometimes, though I’ve never heard of one in the Antechamber. Usually they’re at the end of hidden trials. Sometimes you can find them in ruins. Well, no point in waiting. We might as well hop up there and see what this one does.”

With that, Sorin stepped up onto the dais. It began to glow with a soft, warm, red light as lines lit up around the base. He held a hand out to Rue, who joined him. The glow got just a little bit stronger. After a moment’s hesitation, the other two joined them.

“Shall we, sir?” Vendis asked softly.

“It would seem we don’t have much choice. The tower won’t let us out of the Antechamber until we do what it wants,” Yoru said. “Hopefully our new friend is correct in his assumption of the dais’s purpose.”

With gritted teeth, he walked over and mounted the dais. Vendis joined right behind him, and the Antechamber disappeared in a flash of red light.