The tunnel was narrow and dark. There was not a single natural light source, and the walls were mossy. It often led the two upwards just to go down a few steps further, it winded many times, making them feel as if they were walking in circles. What worried Zane was that there was still no sign of the remaining five stalkers, they seemingly disappeared. The feeling of being watched was gone but the uneasiness had not faded yet.

"For how long have we been walking now?" Lovia suddenly asked.

"One, two hours or so I guess," Zane answered.

"There's no end to this," Lovia said.

The tunnel now led upwards more often and had become wider. Some form of vine was now dangling from the ceiling, glowing flowers growing on them. These flowers lit up the way, seeming like the glowing eyes of some creature stalking them from the distance.

After they walked for a while another light appeared in the distance, a light different from that emitted by the colourful flowers. It was pure white and seemed to be emitted by some strange symbols, this time they weren't like those on the first and fourth floor, these were different, they seemed more like writing than just some symbols from this distance. They were also aligned in a form resembling a doorframe, giving both Zane and Lovia hope that they had finally reached the end of this floor, the end of this cave, a place where there would be no uneasiness stemming from the constant anticipation of being attacked by stalkers. They began walking faster, only taking a few minutes to reach the illuminated, doorframe-like construct.

And they were right, the symbols were engraved on a doorframe made out of a black metal. The door was made out of the same material but seemingly mimicked a wooden door, it was made up out of many metal planks held together by two other planks going across.

Zane pushed open the door with Lovia's help, it swung open and revealed a round room, its walls completely covered in the strange symbols. A closer look showed Zane that it was a single symbol, repeated many, many times and each connected to the other with lines. On the floor was one as well, a different one that wasn't illuminated like the ones on the wall.

"What are these?" Lovia asked.

"No clue," Zane said as he looked around the room with fascination.

The ceiling had none of the symbols, just like the door, which fell shut once they had crossed the middle of the room.

Is this a trap?

Zane turned around quickly, moving towards the now closed door. But before he could reach it the symbol on the ground began glowing, at first just faintly but the intensity steadily rose until it reached the same level as the symbols on the walls. The ground began shaking.

"W-What's happening?" Lovia asked.

"I don't know," Zane answered.

Slowly but surely the ground beneath them began moving upwards, like the platform that had brought them to the sixth floor, the shaking made them fall to the ground. After a while, the ground came to a halt on the next floor.

This one was a large open space, the ceiling further up than that of any of the other floors, in a way. They were inside a large cone-shaped room. There was a stairway in front of them leading to a floating platform hovering in the middle of the room, both of them were glowing in the same kind of white as the symbols in the room below.

"What is this place?" Lovia asked as she looked around.

"Guess this is the final floor," Zane answered, as he recalled the blood hydra and closed the containers.

Both of them stood up. The entire floor was illuminated by a massive willow tree that had grown all the way to the ceiling. Its trunk was silverish and the leaves had a pale greenish glow that made the room seem like another world. The same vines with the glowing flowers they had already seen on the floor below were growing all across the massive tree's roots.

"What a sight," Lovia said.

Zane couldn't even find the right words, he just swallowed as he looked up the massive tree.

As if something was drawing them to it the two began walking up the staircase leading to the floating platform. Each step of the stairway was suspended in the air, sinking a bit every time weight was put on them. They felt weird, going up the stairwell, a feeling of unbalance but no matter what they never fell, they never even got close to falling, but the feeling stayed with them until they reached the floating platform.

There were two pedestals on it. On top of the right one was a gauntlet. It seemed to be made out of the same black metal as the room below them was made out of. In the middle was a strange symbol as well.

What could this mean?

On the other pedestal was an arm ring, made out of the same black metal as well, just like the gauntlet it also had a rune on it.

"What are these things?" Lovia asked as she approached the pedestal with the arm ring on it.

"Some kind of reward maybe," Zane said unsure of what exactly was going on himself.

In the old stories nothing like this was ever mentioned . . . although that might just be due to their age . . . but I'm not complaining if we get rewarded for this . . . now that our employer has died.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Zane approached the other pedestal and put his hand on the gauntlet. The metal was cold, and as he let his fingers glide over the symbol he felt a strange vibration as it lit up for a second. He picked up the gauntlet, it was heavy, and took a closer look at it. There seemed to be a kind of leather on the inside and the gauntlet had been constructed to fit a left hand.

Weird . . . there's only one here . . .

Zane looked around the room, in hopes of maybe seeing another gauntlet somewhere but even if there was another one here he wouldn't be able to see it, the floor and walls were to close in colour to the metal and the light coming from the willow's leaves wasn't enough anyway.

Why would there be another one anyway . . . am I an idiot?

Lovia had picked up the arm ring.

"So we can just keep these? Right?" she asked.

"I guess so," Zane answered as he took off his left gauntlet to try on the new one.

It fit almost too well, making him feel strange.

Have these been made with us in mind?

"Do you feel any different?" Lovia asked.

Zane waited for a second, moved his fingers around, waved his hand, touched the symbol, clenched his fist, but nothing happened.

Maybe if I channel Aura into it . . .

Zane concentrated, feeling a slight pull on his left hand as the symbol began glowing. He instinctively held his hand away from himself, as if he tried to distance himself from a bomb that was about to go off. At first, he didn't see anything but the glow but when he took a closer look he saw that the air in front of the gauntlet seemed blurry, just like the air around a fireplace, and had a slight glow to it.

What could that be?

Lovia, who also noticed the change in the air tried to touch it, but her hand was stopped by something like an invisible wall.

"Wait, does that mean this is a shield of some sort?"

"A shield?" Zane asked.

"Look!"

Lovia pressed against the blurry air, Zane felt something pushing against him even though her hands never touched him.

"Interesting," Zane said.

"So what about mine? How did you do it?" she asked.

"I channelled Aura through it," Zane said.

"S-So I can't use it . . . I don't have Aura," Lovia said, her disappointment was clear.

"You do, it's just that you can't use it in the same way Aura users can," Zane explained as he stopped channelling Aura into the gauntlet, deactivating the shield.

"What do you mean?" Lovia asked, with a bit of hope in her voice.

"Vin explained it like this. Every living being has Aura, the gods basically just give you a tool to use that Aura as ammunition, and well they also give you some more. That's what he said anyway."

"So you mean I could use this?" she asked.

"Hmmm . . . I think you could, as far as I know, these might be what some call Runes . . . basically a something used for artificial Aura usage. But I'm not sure if you should," Zane said.

"Why?"

"Well . . . Aura usage is a double-edged blade, not just because of the prize you pay to get it . . . but also because Aura is what makes up your life energy if you use too much you might shorten your life drastically."

"So Aura users are slowly killing themselves?"

"Not exactly . . . how did Vin explain it again . . ." Zane looked around the room, trying to remember. "Ah, yes! Basically, there's two types of Aura, surface layer and deep layer, the former regenerates over time and is increased by either using Aura or through meditation and the like, the later is your life energy, if it's gone you're dead but you can increase it through certain practices like meditation as well, I believe that it's a fairly popular practice in some country . . . they call it cultivation if I remember correctly. Now if you use too much of the former you will start using the later." Zane stopped for a second. "Sorry for rambling so much," he said, looking to the tree, trying to count its leaves.

"No, no. It's fine," Lovia said quickly. "So basically what you're saying is that I might use up too much of this . . . surface layer Aura if I use this, right?" She pointed to the arm ring.

Zane nodded.

"Any way to find out how much Aura I have?" Lovia asked, her interest had clearly been piqued.

"Well it can be determined by concentrating on the surrounding flow of Aura but I can only determine whether or not something with Aura is in my vicinity and I can feel differences between Aura users and non Aura users but that's about it," Zane said.

"Know anyone who can?" Lovia asked.

"I'm certain Vin can do it but I have no clue where he is right now," Zane said.

Lovia looked down, seeming a bit disappointed. But she quickly snapped out of it.

"Anyway, for now, we should find a way to leave this tower . . . you know a lot about the old stories, do they say how to get out of one?" she asked.

How do we get out . . .

"There should be a door or something here that leads outside," Zane said.

The two went back down the stairs, again being overcome by the weird feeling they had felt as they walked up.

"Anything to look for?" Lovia asked.

"I'd imagine that Runes might be near the exit," Zane said.

And so they searched for anything that might look like a Rune, but even when Zane had turned on his lantern the area they could see was still limited and the light coming from the leaves and flowers didn't help either.

"Ah, I think I found something," Lovia said, after what felt like hours of searching.

She had stumbled upon some Runes that had been engraved into the roots of the willow tree. They followed them, Lovia letting her fingers glide over the roots to feel for the Runes. And there nestled in between the roots was another doorframe made out of the black metal with a door imitating the design of a wooden door. They pushed it open and in the same moment the Runes on the doorframe began lighting up and a white veil with black particles appeared behind the door.

"W-What's that?" Lovia asked.

"A teleporter . . . maybe," Zane answered.

"So we just go through here?" she asked.

"I guess."

"Well then, together."

Both of them stepped into the vail at the same time. A loud sound, like the waves of the ocean crashing against the cliffs, filled their ears. Once it stopped they found themselves surrounded by plants, and archways made out of tusks.

So that's what the symbols here were for . . . interesting.

A loud rumbling and crashing sound came from above.

"W-What's that?" Lovia asked.

"Right! We need to get out now!" Zane said as he grabbed Lovia's hand and pulled her towards the large gate.

The two pushed it open and stormed outside just in time to avoid the falling ceiling. The two lay on the ground, looking up at the tower collapsing in on itself.

"That was close," Lovia stated.

Zane nodded.

They stood up to escape the wall of dust that came from the collapsing tower, following the path that led them back to the town where they had rested before entering the tower.

"So what now?" Zane asked as they walked along the wide path, the wall of dust still expanding behind them.

"I don't know . . . I tough . . . maybe we could . . . team up," she said.

Zane stayed silent for a few seconds while Lovia looked off to the side, trying to avoid looking him in the face.

"I m-mean, you know, you even started talking to me more . . . and I think we would make a good team . . . And I would have a good chance of finding out how much Aura I can use without dying," Lovia said.

"I . . . I don't know about that . . . my last group . . ." Tears began running down his face.

"I'm sorry," Lovia began.

"N-No, just . . . let me think about it," Zane said.

He tried to suppress the images that had returned. The rest of their way to the small town was silent, neither of them wanted to speak.

After a while, they stood in front of the town's gate again and entered.