47.

Santi stalked by the severed heads, ignoring the sloughing skin that drooped off their skulls. Ground glass, as fine as sand, crunched under his boots as he strode into the bottom floor of the tower. The ground floor was a mess of broken furniture and scattered personal belongings.

The smell of excrement filled the lobby causing Santi to scrunch his nose in distaste. He bent his spell around himself to keep the smells away. Nothing stirred inside of the lobby and Santi looked around casually as he marched toward the stairs.

The elevators were pried open and the gaping shaft was exposed as a cold current ran out of it and through the lobby. Santi took a quick peek and saw the crushed remnants of the elevator sitting below him. The shaft above had regular lights entering as elevator doors on different floors had been open. He toyed with the idea of climbing straight up, but quickly discarded it.

The door to the stairs was missing, the hinges ripped free of the doorframe. Santi walked quietly up the stairs. His eyes swept back and forth over the stairwell, looking for movement. The shadows were thick, forming a gloom that was nearly impenetrable. Things shifted and moved above him, but Santi couldn’t care, they were just an obstacle in his way.

He jogged near silently up the stairs, morph blade extended in front of him in saber form. Something flitted at him and he slashed on instinct, blood splattering his face as the pieces of a monster splattered on the ground around him.

Mana Warped Bat lvl. 29

A warbling cry rippled through the air, it wasn’t audible but rather the change in the air pressure in the stairwell. A swarm of bats screaming out as they fell like rain toward him. [Gust] howled up the narrow confines and bodies smacked hard against concrete. Their fragile bodies broke, wings shattering as they fell around him with wet splats.

The kill notifications were ringing through his head as more and more of the small mammals came flying toward him. [Crosscurrent-Orb] ripped apart a thick knot of them, vicious winds sending the lightweight animals flinging in every direction. [Air Manipulation] formed a light barrier around him as he continued to cast and climb.

The bats began to screech, the high pitch sonic assaults making him wince before he created an inch thick vacuum around his temporary barrier. His headache returned in force as he twisted his spells and strained to hold everything together.

The sonic burst stopped as he sent another [Gust] roaring through the stairwell. The bats were annoying but not a threat to him. Aside from the level discrepancy, a sonic attacker against an air mage of significant skill was a terrible match up. Santi had the skill necessary to negate the attacks.

Floor by floor he continued up, carefully checking each landing to avoid another ambush. There were signs of violence here and there. Bloodstains, partly decomposed bodies, broken handrails and gouged concrete walls. Santi kept climbing and with every step he fostered that killing rage that was growing to consume him as time passed.

Eventually the bats were done. Scores of them littering the stairs, their small furry bodies twisted and broken. The moment the last one died and their echoing shrieks faded, Santi dropped his temporary shield just in time to hear the heavy thump of doors slamming open.

A large shape leapt from a landing above him, a crude stone axe in its hand as it sailed down toward him. Santi leapt backward and placed an [Air Shield] in the way, slowing the momentum of the giant ape as it landed. Concrete cracked and the giant axe, it was closer to a maul Santi thought, hit the shield and burst it apart in a flurry of wind.

The primus was bulging with muscle, its large yellow canines jutted out of its mouth as it howled at Santi. Santi extended the morph blade into a long needle and pierced through its eye without resistance. The giant ape screamed, swinging its arm up and around in a circular motion to rip out the weapon. Santi let it go limp, the metal like a well cooked noodle.

It slapped on the ground as the ape hopped back, grabbing with one hand at its bloodied eye. Santi formed a razor edge on the morph and cracked his wrist, sending it slashing across the ape’s ankles.

The ape’s feet were left behind as the ape kept falling forward, screaming as it slashed at his head with the wide stone axe. A distant part of Santi was impressed with how tough the ape was. It didn’t yield an inch even as he cut it to pieces, its single bloodshot eye still glaring at him with.

Santi stepped back and let the beast crash into the stairs in front of him. The stone axe chipping away at the concrete stairs inches from his feet. Santi formed the morph into a wide hammer and brought it down with finality, using an [Air Shield] to stop the splash of blood, bone, and brain matter.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

He leapt easily up the flight of stairs and over the mess that he had made of the ape. Above him he could hear the hooting of more of the bulkier apes as they started to flood the stairwell. Santi started to run, legs pumping mechanically as he raced upwards. His blade was a blur, slashing open limbs and cutting apart primitive weapons as the creatures kept coming at him.

Fur and blood coated him like a coat as he got closer and closer. The great beasts were no challenge, pure muscle and endurance. Santi could match them and had powerful magic. His spells threw them sideways, stole the air from their lungs, shoved them into walls, and stopped deadly blows from hitting him. All the while he could chop them apart with a blade that couldn’t be parried.

A burst of flames filled the stairwell above him as the prey changed tactics. Santi cast [Gust] and caught the flames, redirecting them backwards. Surprised animalistic screams came back to him, but threaded amongst their pain was a human shout of surprise.

It seemed the bull had been right. Abraham’s crew was here. And they had decided to throw in with the monsters. Santi slammed open the closest door and left the stairwell, not wanting to get pinned down with magic being flung at him.

The floor had been some type of open office plan. Lots of broken standing desks, popped exercise balls, and shitty office mantra posters. Santi looked it over carefully, searching for anything that might be residing in the ruins of the office space. After a moment, there was no movement and he let himself relax for a second.

He sat against a wall, letting his mana recover as he tried to catch his breath. It had been a bit of a strain there at the end. He quickly checked through the kill notifications and was shocked at the number of them in his feed. Between the bats and the apes he had earned levels and achievements. He didn’t have time to check them though, the sound of pounding feet on stairs coming toward him.

He moved down the wall where the doorway was and waited. The door would make a good choke point that would let him thin down the numbers a bit. If the apes had magical backup, it was going to get difficult.

The wall next to him exploded in a spray of concrete and drywall and one of the monstrous apes came through the wall with a howl. Santi jerked back, barely dodging a balled up fist and did a backward somersault. Another ape leapt through the newly created hole, the two of them instantly tracking him as a human that Santi vaguely recognized followed through the doorway.

[Air Shield] stopped a decapitating strike and Santi was forced to dodge as a broken desk was flung at him. He fell to the ground as a lance of fire seared his hair and he bit back a curse as he rolled to avoid a heavy stomp. That festering pit of anger broke open and Santi rose to his feet and cast [Air Shield] behind the apes, cutting off the mage from supporting them.

He slashed and hacked, attacking the two larger monsters with the ferocity of a badger. They struck at him but he used [Air Manipulation] again to form a swirling barrier around him, only his sword arm exposed to their blows. He took the closest one’s head with a heavy slashing hack, the morph blade a scimitar. He kicked the dead body, aiming at the mage who had just broken the shield.

He felt his knee pop as the torso of the ape rocketed backward. The mage cursed and rolled away as the corpse flew past him. Santi struck seven times in less than two seconds, leaving the remaining ape without its arms or heart. He turned and looked at the mage as the mage scrambled to his feet.

Santi stalked toward him, each step dreadful in its finality. The man was middle aged, his hair thin and gray with a thick mustache that was more gray than black. His soft brown eyes were wide with fear as he scrambled backward, tripping in his haste to slam back to the ground.

“Please, we didn’t mean for him to get hurt. I…I can show you where your sister is!”

“I’ll find her myself.” Santi slashed once.

Fire Mage lvl. 27

The kill notification flashed through his mind and he stared at it for a second. Such a little notification for a human life’s ending. Was that what Abraham had seen and felt when he had killed his father? Did Abraham feel nothing like he felt?

Santi searched the corpse quickly. He pulled a wallet out and flipped it open and browsed the contents. Creased and faded family photos were tossed to the side, scraps of paper with near illegible writing that Santi had to squint to read. Little notes from a child to their father.

Garbage.

His bloody pants didn’t have anything else in them and his only weapon was a cheap belt knife that was chipped in multiple places. He tested the edge and rolled his eyes at finding the blade dull. A mediocre weapon for a mediocre man.

Santi headed back to the stairwell, careful to check upward and back down for any waiting attackers. The constant stream had stopped finally and he was free to keep going up.

His knee bothered him, causing him to limp as he kept moving upward. The morph blade was nearly purring in joy on his wrist from the feast it just had. There was a flicker of flame inside of it now as it digested a piece of the fire mage.

Helena had said there were over a dozen, but he couldn’t be sure. He remembered Yesi’s list and there had been around eighteen names on it that Santi had put in Abraham’s camp. Rayleigh hadn’t betrayed him, but the others were all possible candidates. Up to seventeen, sixteen now, Acolyte fighters ready to throw down to kill him. Plus the Primus Alpha.

It was a deathtrap up there. There was no denying it. He needed to save the world, prevent the Patron from taking their world. Stripping them of their choices and freedom. He just couldn’t care.

He couldn’t stop until he saw Abraham dead at his feet. No matter what they threw at him, he was going to kill them all. Every blink of his eyes brought back that memory of the blood smeared kitchen. The twisted wreckage of what had once been a man.

He couldn’t stop it. Every time that brief darkness interrupted the world, he saw that scene. Every blink further drove home that terrible reality that he didn’t want to accept.

His Dad was dead. He would never see his father again, hear his laugh or feel his warm hug. He had had it again, for the briefest of moments, he had felt that love again.

And Abraham had taken that from him. Santi kept his eyes on the top floor where he could feel potential swirling above him.