image [https://imgur.com/HgVuqwj.jpg]

After their first clash, Uncle and Janus both moved at sonic speeds, attacking each other several more times. They were just blurs, crashing into each other repeatedly. I could barely keep up with their movements.

"Wow…"

They were making fireworks everywhere. It might have been pretty if it wasn’t life or death.

Samael was getting scared by all the noise, he hid his head under my hair. I gave him a few good head pats hoping he'd calm down.

Well, I see why I needed to leave. They were fighting in a way that I could barely even comprehend. It was like a fantasy movie or a video game, but unlike those I couldn't tell what was going on, and you could get hurt here.

I started to crawl deeper into the vent, trying to find somewhere I could stand up and explore a little.

My hope was that maybe I could manually get the tower defenses back online. Janus should have been attacked by hundreds of bees, but he must have hacked the system and shut down the defense mechanisms. There had to be a central computer somewhere that I could access for that.

I was going to need to find a map of the tower, otherwise I’d be going around without a clue. I tried my luck at connecting to the tower to download the schematics…

-Download complete. Updating memory-

What's this? I was able to download it? I thought all signals were being jammed.

I tried again to connect to the tower, but this time I was jammed out. I’m not really sure what happened. I tried one more time to access the system, but no dice.

Wait a minute, is it possible that Janus's jammer powers were weakening for a moment since his crystal heart was damaged? That was just a hunch for now, but something to keep in mind.

Anyways, it looked like at the very top level of the tower I could access the tower control center. That would give me manual access to all systems, bypassing Janus's jammer. The vents could lead me up there.

I made it to a small chamber in the vents. It was lit up a red colour, as opposed to the mostly dim lighting. A really big fan was on one of the walls.

There was some wooshy sound behind me. I thought it was just the fan starting up, but it didn’t feel right. Something was giving me an icky feeling in my stomach.

It happened again. But when I turned to see what it was, nothing was there.

“What the heck…?”

This was super spooky. Staying here was making me all shaky.

Out of the corner of my eye, a shadow rushed across the walls. I barely saw its ghastly red pupils.

Then I saw another one, and another, and another!

-WARNING! THREATS SIGHTED!-

-Shadow Glider Demons tagged; Foe-

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

-Enemy count = (4)-

They looked like dark ghosts, all swarming around me. One jumped off the wall and made a snatch at me!

I started running across the chamber and crawled back into a vent to evade!

They were able to glide through the shadows to reach me a lot easier, so the darkness of the vent only worked in their favour. I barely escaped each of their grabs by sliding down slopes and manually closing emergency grates.

I bought myself some time after closing a flat metal grate. Somehow even with those barriers they’d always find a way past them and cut off my escapes.

I had an idea to light up the walls so they wouldn’t be able to use the shadows to move. That's what shadow gliding meant, right? That would explain how they always managed to get past the grates, since they'd just slip through the dark slits in the metal.

My only option was to blind the area with stardust light. Since they were demons, that had to be the only way.

Twinkling haze formed around my hands again, this time it covered my hand in a thin layer of crystal. Rays of light shot through the dark air and brightened up all the shadows around me.

Just as I did that, those demons were turning around a corner. They got caught in the light.

Stardust wasn’t just making the place brighter, it was actually destroying the little demons. When one of them got too close, they would just dry out and turn to ash.

A few of them took the hint and tried to avoid me altogether. My light was scaring them off.

“Yes!” I cheered. “Fear me, evil ghosts!”

“Sssssss…” Samael was cheering too.

Now since there weren’t any more demons after me, I could get back to finding my way up the tower.

-☆☆☆-

Going up the tower might have been easier if there weren’t tons of steep slopes I kept sliding down by accident.

"Weee!" It was kinda fun, but not very productive. “I guess I have to find another way around.”

Actually, maybe I didn’t. I had the ability to magnetize my hands and feet, letting me stick to metal surfaces.

It worked pretty well. I was able to move up steep slopes without any troubles.

I was making my way up one of the slopes when I suddenly heard some beeping and the sound of wind. Then the whole vent lit up green.

As I peeked my head over the top of the slope, I saw a big fan start up and spin stupidly fast.

Gusts of air overpowered my magnets and sent me flying back down, right into a grate leading to the outdoors. I slammed into it so hard that the grate came loose and nearly fell out.

“Uh-oh!”

The wind was hitting me hard, hot air too. This must have been a heat ventilation shaft.

My body was durable against extreme heat and cold, so I didn't have any issues.

Samael was doing alright on my head. The heat didn’t bother him as much either, since he was a snake, but I couldn’t let him take that heat forever.

I couldn’t really move too much since the wind was barrelling at me, but I had to come up with a way to escape this mess. I still didn’t have the full ability to access the tower's systems, so shutting off the fan wasn’t possible.

There was another option, I could get out from the grate behind me. It was already loose, so a few good kicks would get it knocked out. I just had to make sure I didn’t kick it off and go flying out from the wind along with it.

“Here we go…”

I positioned myself so I could both kick the grate with my right foot, and stay put with my magnetized left foot planted firmly. My hands were holding little pipes on the sides.

“Now!”

KICK!

KICK!

It was coming loose, but not enough for me to get through.

“Okay, put everything you’ve got into it!”

I reeled back my foot and gave it one heck of a hit!

KICK!

CLANK!

Half the grate flew off the tower! A huge opening to the outdoors was made.

"YEAH!"

You could see forever from up here. Well, at least to the other side of the inverted planet, that is. I had to be a ton of stories high.

Since my hands and feet were magnetized, I could latch onto the side of the tower and start climbing up it. I did that, escaping the ventilation shaft for good. It was a shaky time trying to climb out of the opening, especially with the wind still blowing, but I managed it.

What would be great is if I could fly. That would be awesome. People kept calling me an angel, so why can’t an angel fly?

Oh well. Not like I could just grow wings or anything.

Any-who, I crawled my way up the side of the tower, trying not to look down at the fifty plus stories below me. Yikes, that would be a fall.

Finally I reached a hallway that wrapped around the tower and had an open window. I climbed in through there and raced to find a way to the top.

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