The plateau at the top of the tower of bone was surprisingly flat. Instead of the grasping hands, claws or otherwise that Dan had expected to find atop the tower, they found themselves standing on a simple platform. The platform itself seems to be made of many flat shoulder blades and similar bones.
At the base of the tower, on the far side of the plateau, crashes of power were still numbing Dan’s fingers and making his eyes blur. The old man that Dan had battled was Shin Boh Tahn, the pope of the empty church, Shade had said. He was now down below, likely fighting Hestia, the majaal queen. The swarming chaos of mana disruption coming from their battle was intense but easier to ignore from the top of the tower. As long as the battle stayed down there, Dan would be okay and they would all be safer.
Looking out over the platform, Dan saw a flat plain of chest bone, shoulder blade and other cartilage. After walking a short while inwards and seeing nothing which stood out, there were questions to be asked. Fa Lian started. “What are we looking for, Dan?” The question was not accusatory but Dan felt a burning urge to have an answer that helped.
“To be honest,” Dan said, “I was hoping we might just find your brother at the top of this tower.”
“Your brother wields a soul relic? Is the skeleton army his doing?” Shade had been dealing with the majaal threat to Allusia and there had been no time to catch him up on the latest revelations yet.
“As far as we know. Po Daiyu and brother Oblax had him in the room under the church, attempting to take the spear from him. This room and the defences within are most likely just automatic responses.” Dan felt like he needed to defend Yo Shen for some reason, though Shade had asked a simple enough question. Yo Shen had been the one who took Dan to the Jiaoduo. He had been charming, talking to Dan as though he were an equal instead of something to be avoided.
“He’s scared.” Fa Lian’s voice was a quiet whisper and Dan wasn’t sure whether to pretend he hadn’t heard or not. While he was in the middle of deciding how to respond, Shade did instead.
“My mother holds three soul relics, yet most cannot hold a single one. There had been little study of the artefacts, so the requirements for ownership are unknown.”
“Shen should never have gone looking in the first place.” Fa Lian’s mood was apparently becoming more and more sour by the word. The air around her became thick with a heathaze, both Shade and Dan opting to take a few steps away from her. In theory, they were looking for any clues or signs that might point to further understanding. In practice, they were avoiding Fa Lian’s growing anger.
Dan found himself wondering about the structure they stood on. The technique holding the bones together was the same technique animating the skeletons below. It might be possible to remove the top layer with a controlled blast of energy. They would need to be careful, and Dan was quietly mapping out as much of the inside as he could, worming mana through the small gaps in bone, so that he could find the best spot.
Fa Lian, it seemed, had figured out that her mana was the answer. She did not, however, have the patience or caution that Dan was currently employing. With one, fluid motion, she brought the staff back, letting the handle slide through her palm and catching the very end. With a heave, she brought the staff up and before Dan could call out a warning, she swung it down. The staff turned into a hammer, the momentum already gathered. With a disturbing crunch, the dragon scale hammer smashed into the top of the tower and expelled a violent, void-black, burst of destructive energy.
For a few long moments, everyone was still. Shade and Dan both stared at Fa Lian, who was standing as though on thin ice. The sound of the hammer blow would not have been heard at the base of the tower but it still echoed in Dan’s head, somehow louder than the clash below. After ten or so seconds of frozen caution, Fa Lian turned to Dan.
“Sorry, I ju-” Her words cut off into a startled yell as the floor beneath her feet gave way. Dan had been standing away from her and was not close enough to grab her as she fell. Even as he was worrying about her, the surface beneath his own feet started to crack. Without another second of warning, the floor fell away and Dan slipped into darkness.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
—————————
Having a puppet around was usually fun. Mania liked to watch as they broke themselves carrying out his tasks, often coming up with some exciting way to have the body clean itself up afterwards.
Right now, however, he was trying to tame a lion. The elf woman was an ally of Shade’s and Mania was determined to maintain the control until he could pit the woman against his brother. She had attacked him earlier and he was still bleeding from her claws. She however, was in worse shape. The battle had been fiercely one-sided until Mania’s control had settled in.
Once the control took hold, there was no denying Mania’s command. However, he was realising with every passing moment that when the will is strong enough, it could create a powerful headache behind his eyes. To make himself feel better he let the wall of skeletons claw at right arm, already torn to ribbons. Then he made her clear the path for him. Her strength was gargantuan and clearing the skeletons was an easy task, even with only one good arm left.
As bones shattered and the unlikely pair continued to the tower, Mania did his best to calm the pain in his mind. He took deep breaths and pinched the bridge of his nose as the hordes around him were swept away by the leonine woman. It did not surprise him that she had defeated his other, more useless siblings with relative ease. Void and Bloom were useless, Mania had seen nothing of them since they were all split up. Mania expected that Calliope was involved in dispatching them, unable to imagine them losing to the Guan boy.
While there were times that Mania revelled in his own abilities, he currently lamented the fact that he was the only one able to get anything done. He had defeated Shade handily and passed him over to mother, just as planned. Why had his useless siblings not done the same with their enemies? Their weakness and ineptitude made him feel sick.
So, Mania’s plan had become simple.
Usurp Shade’s position in his mother’s favour by killing him. Do the same to any other siblings that might be in the way. Claim this soul relic and if he needed to sweep his mother out of the way, he would do that too. He would take the power laid out in front of him, so close to his grasp, and clutch onto it with the most fearsome of grips. With the Crown at his command, his influence could read thousands at once. An aspiration began to form as Mania began to scale the tower.
His singular bodyguard, the muscular and ferocious elf woman, had cleared his path. He had walked through an obstacle as though it were nothing but wind. If he could do that with only one follower, what might he do with a hundred? An army, all breathing at his whim. As Calliope bounded up the tower, one hand flapping uselessly as she batted away the grasping claws of gnarled bone, Mania was imagining the great works he could accomplish.
A world bent to his tastes.
A place of order and excess in equal measure. Somewhere he could know what to expect at all times, somewhere he could expect anything he desired at all times. Mania had grown up watching the wealth and hedonism afforded to his mother by the power she wielded. He wanted it more desperately than anything he had ever wanted. His entire mind and being bent around a new ideal of conquering.
It had never once occurred to Mania to try and claim the relics of power which his mother wielded. Such an attempt was more than folly, it was closer to a suicide attempt. That is, unless you already had a soul relic. Why should Shade be the one to claim it, when the fool had tried to run away from responsibility all of his life? Mania reached the top of the tower with thoughts of a world at his feet. He looked down, seeing the rolling mass of angry dead.
That, he thought, is the true state of things. Underneath the skin, everyone is just a clawing, hungry monster. As he looked over the swarming dead at the bottom of the tower, Mania could hear the clashing below and rolled his eyes. Mother and the pope were smashing into each other. If anything, the battle below was closer to flirting than actual combat, neither Hestia nor Shin Boh Tahn really able to put the other down.
Whatever his mother’s plan or the machinations of the church, they would come up fruitless now that Mania himself had decided to get involved. He stiffled a laugh and turned away from the edge, thinking about how surprised his mother’s face would be when he stabbed her in the back. Maybe he could pierce the pope as he did.
The upper layer of the tower was cracked. As Shade looked into the holes, he saw multiple entrances to a facsimile of the labyrinth around them. He sneered as he looked at the pale imitation. He had conquered the labyrinth with his other’s help, now he would do it on his own.
He ordered Calliope to jump in first, listening as she fell. When he heard her hit the floor in the darkness, not far below, he smiled and stepped over the edge himself.
——————————
Steel Fever was enjoying his new body, though it had also enjoyed the last one. Unfortunately, the previous form had been too badly damaged to continue using, so it had taken the priest.
Instantly, Steel Fever had felt the difference in the man’s mana and rejoiced. This was the power of the void. The power of hunger. Sifting through the man’s memories, Steel Fever found that it understood brother Oblax Claré’s mind more than most humans it had come into contact with. Yes, it thought, this will do.
The man rebelling against Steel Fever’s control but that was of no consequence. The muscles were under Steel Fever’s control, as was the mana. Leaving the mind to wander made no difference, so Oblax Claré was free to watch as his body bowed to Shin Boh Tahn, used his own voice to thank the pope for healing him and then began to scale the tower in search of prey.