The spectre had seen me as soon as I came up from the lower floor. Before I could even leave the staircase it already fired projectiles at me. I evaded the first shot and managed to leave the stairs before the next shot was fired. 

Upon surveying my surroundings, I notice that the spectre was flying close to the ground. Until then, all spectres I had seen had been flying just beneath the ceiling. This was just too good of an opportunity to let it pass. After evading one more shot I charged at it in the interval between its attacks.

I wasn’t carrying any weapons, because they would have slowed me down too much while avoiding the hunting parties. Besides, I with my current strength I was perfectly capable of killing a skeleton by ripping it apart with my claw hands.

I quickly passed the distance between us while accelerating. I was planning to begin with ramming the spectre so it wouldn’t be able to regain its balance and float away as easily. Of course I didn’t know how exactly spectres were flying, but it never hurts to mind all possibilities. 

But just when I jumped off, I suddenly felt a strong wind blowing against me. Its force slowed me down and in my surprise I forgot to grab the spectre when we collided. I heard a crack and we bounced apart. It immediately began to rise upward, apparently unaffected by the three ribs that had partially broken off. 

Dammit! I had lost the chance to kill a spectre. And now I had to deal with its retaliation. I turned and rushed towards the stairs, but the spectre had already recovered and fired a projectile at me. But just when it was about to hit me it suddenly stopped in mid-air. Then it simply fell to the ground.

Strangely I still felt an impact that threw off my balance for a second. But I soon recovered and continued running. At the staircase I hesitated for a second before going upwards. I would definitely need magic to defeat the spectres in the castle and if everything failed I could still jump at this one from above.

While climbing the tower I analysed what happened during the previous fight. The wind I faced when I charged the skeleton was most likely a defensive spell. It should be meant to slow down or divert attacks. Human skeletons are fragile and spectres are hard to make, so of course it would be given a way to protect themselves, even if it’s of limited effectiveness.

But there was also the mysterious barrier that protected me. I couldn’t be sure if it had always been there or if it was something new, since I had never been directly hit before. While hunting skeletons I had always prioritized safety, because I didn’t know how resilient my core was. If it truly had a barrier protecting it, then that would be a huge relief. 

Still, I couldn’t afford to get too relaxed due to its unknown nature. It’s important to always remember the possibility of things going wrong. Otherwise you might not be able to react appropriately if it really happens.

Finally, I reached the last floor. Here the staircase in the towers centre ended. Instead there were stairs on the outer wall that lead to the roof, where the magic crystal was supposed to be.  With the spectre still some distance behind me, I climbed these last few steps.

I reached the top of the tower. Its surface was flat with two large circles, that centred around its middle, scratched into it. The smaller one was maybe two metres across. It was filled with a large number of complex symbols and patterns. The larger one that surrounded it was at least four times as large, but its inscriptions were far less complex. 

Above the ground was a large construction made of thin metal bars that looked like they could be at least coated in gold. But now the construct was heavily damaged and parts of the circles had been destroyed. This was probably the effect of whatever spell had hit the tower during the siege.

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Much to my dismay I was confronted with unexpected situation: the magic crystal was nowhere to be seen. Simple guesswork could reveal that it had most likely either been hidden by the castles defenders or was taken by the necromancers after their takeover. 

But there was still something that gave me hope. I could see small red grains on the floor.  According to what the boy said the crystal had been shattered long before its removal, so fragments of it would naturally be scattered in the surroundings. Seemingly nobody had been willing to gather all of them, probably judging it to be unnecessary. I could only hope they were wrong. 

I brought my core close to one of the grains and to my delight it really was absorbed. But my joy soon faded when I realized that the information in it was completely useless. At some point it might have formed a spell formula, but now there were only tiny fragments left with no clues as to how they were connected.

I continued collecting them but the results remained the same. Just when I was about to lose hope I remembered the cracks in the ground and began searching through them. Just maybe a shard has slipped into one of them and hadn’t been taken out. 

Soon, the spectre reached the roof, but just moments before I had found what I had been searching. A small piece of crystal. Still, it’s size was incomparably large to the grains. I absorbed it and immediately began processing the information. This piece was also damaged, but I could easily grasp some of the most basic formulas within.

I prepared to use magic for the first time. I ould be using a spell that collected special parts of the air around the target called ‘gas’, compressed them and then ignited them by increasing the temperature. While avoiding the spectres attacks I began concentrating the required gases.

While doing so I unintentionally entered the circle. Suddenly the circle glowed and I could feel myself losing control of the magic. It far exceeded its intended scale, sucking far too much energy out of me. I could feel myself getting weaker and could only think of one way to stop it... 

The spectre exploded with a rumbling sound, ripping apart the metal construct and everything else on top of the tower. I myself was flung off in a high arc. 

The high altitude would have been perfect to make a proper survey of the castle and its surroundings, but I was too preoccupied with my impending doom to make use of it. Soon I started to fall downwards with high speed. 

Surprisingly I didn’t shatter to a thousand pieces when I finally hit a roof. The invisible barrier around me seemed to transfer most of the collision force into the roof tiles, causing them to show an almost explosion-like reaction by scattering in all directions. Oh, and the roof caved in too.

 But the shield couldn’t completely save me. I still hit the ground pretty hard. Two of my arms got bent and my core got a tiny crack, but I was still alive. Praise the strange invisible shield I only discovered less than fifteen minutes ago!

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This chapter was very late. Mostly because this week, there were three written tests at school. But also because I'm lazy. Sooooo lazy. I made it a bit longer to compensate for the delay.