Episode 10: Open the Doors of the Tower of Dreams That Suddenly Rises (10)

12

The winding stairs seemed endless. The army of living armors coming from below and above. And they trapped in the middle, waiting to be crushed or thrown from above. They hadn't had a moment to rest since they entered the Tower. If they had, it had passed unnoticed.

First of all, it hadn't been that long since then. Had they been in the Tower for even an hour? It seemed impossible that the answer could be no, but...

He believed they had. Damn, he believed they had.

Caim lunged forward. His arms only caught air, but the armor's caught the armor in front of it. Then, he made it lift and slam against the stairs. Its upper part jumped off, falling to one side. Caim threw the lower half to finish the job.

As the armor stood up to continue its march, someone attacked it from behind, causing it to fall and suffer the same fate as the others.

As soon as the connection between them was severed, Caim suffered a pain like being branded with a hot iron. But not just on his skin, no. Directly in his guts. Twisting inside him. Like thousands of tiny wounds. Like broken glass stabbing everywhere.

Such pain worried him that he might lose consciousness.

But he held firm.

Caim took a deep breath. It had caught him by surprise. Actually, the pain had been worse because it had caught him by surprise, but he should have seen it coming. They had been connected enough for the armor to mimic his movements. Feeling pain when it was destroyed was the most normal thing, the expected thing.

Next time he would be ready. Because there would be a next time. A little pain wouldn't prevent him from using such a useful skill. He wished his targets were easier to control, but even so, it would prove vital to surviving this situation, of that Caim had no doubt.

He established another connection with a relatively nearby armor. The length of the stairs was an advantage in a way. The army would take so long to reach them that they wouldn't have to worry about most of the armors. As long as they could get rid of the bastards directly in their path and reach the end, everything would be fine.

He was so focused on the armor, in fact, that he missed an attack against himself. Victoria shouted a warning, and he barely ducked. The axe passed inches from his head, cutting some strands of his hair before burying itself in the wall.

His foot slipped, and for a moment, he thought he would fall into the void. The ground at the bottom of the stairs seemed, at the same time, infinitely distant and mysteriously approaching, expanding in his vision.

His heart rose to his throat, but there had never been a possibility that he would fall. He had enough presence of mind to grab onto a protruding stone from the wall. It wasn't a great foothold, but it was a foothold and that was enough.

He stood up just as the armor managed to pull the axe out of the wall. It tried to split his skull again. Caim dodged the blow by jumping backward. This time the axe remained buried in the stairs.

Their physical strength, numerical superiority. In this environment, their greatest advantages played against the enemy.

That's why they could win, no matter how desperate the situation seemed. They could win!

He ran up the axe handle to the armor's helmet. He kicked it, and the helmet flew far away. Leaving the elusive creature inside defenseless. He put both boots on the armor's chest as he lowered his sword, piercing the darkness and the writhing creature inside.

He used the armor's chest as a platform to jump backward, saving the distance that Victoria and Yonah had covered while he had been occupied, maintaining the formation, if it could be called that. He covering one side, Yonah the other, Victoria in the middle, the support, the pillar.

No, he told himself, I am the pillar. Without me, they wouldn't have embarked on this suicide mission in the first place. Therefore, it's my responsibility to ensure they survive this.

More and more came from above and below. What was generating them? It really seemed like they had no end. For every five armors they knocked down, ten more appeared. Of course, they hadn't stopped to count in a life or death moment, but that was the feeling.

Imperative. Overwhelming.

How much more? How much longer would they have to keep fighting? He couldn't see anything. If only he could see the final destination, he would feel more energized to face the adversities.

A spear grazed his cheek.

It was just a small cut, but it could have been much worse. The difference between a small cut and the weapon slicing open his jaw was only a few millimeters.

Blindingly fast, the spear came at him again. At his right eye this time. It would reach straight to his brain, killing him instantly. He didn't know how that thing handled a long spear so fluently in such a narrow space. But that was beside the point. The tip that would steal his life was approaching.

He held his breath. Prepared to give it his all to dodge, but in the end, he didn't need to.

The spear was encased in ice in the blink of an eye.

He didn't even have to launch a counterattack. With all the ice, the weapon suddenly weighed too much, so it fell, taking four or five ahead with it. It didn't matter, of course. It didn't matter. Their replacements had already arrived.

Some continuously came out of the door above, others from the door they had come through to get here.

It was as if there was a factory on both sides.

And he hadn't forgotten.

All this had started with one of them attacking him through the wall, grabbing his neck, strangling him. He hadn't forgotten at all that that was a possibility, even though it hadn't happened yet.

The pressure.

He felt more pressure than fear. All factors were piling up to try to crush him.

Speaking of which...

For them to fall from below was all advantages, it slowed down the army and took several ahead with them, usually. But those from above were another story. They were a danger, especially in this narrow, slippery, deceptive environment.

Yonah and Caim were fast and agile. It required considerable effort, of course, but they should be able to manage. They had managed well so far.

Victoria was much clumsier, however.

She was a mage.

Which meant she had spent most of her time reading dusty books, not on the battlefield. Her body, her instincts, were not those of a warrior.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

She tried to push herself, but those shortcomings weren't something that could be fixed just like that.

It wasn't something simple effort could replace.

Only time could fix it.

But with a little help, pushing her out of the way, grabbing her waist and lifting her even if necessary, they were managing.

Yes. Not winning, not overcoming. Managing. Dancing on the razor's edge. Just that and nothing more. This can't last, he thought. And there's nothing we can do about it. If the end turned out to be too far away, they would lose. They already had all the cards on the table. They couldn't do any more than they already were.

It was cold, it was harsh. But it was the fucking truth.

Something broke.

Caim instinctively knew what had just happened, turned around, and lunged to catch her. But Yonah was faster, of course she was, as she usually was. The important thing was that she caught her. She had prevented Victoria from falling, falling and falling to certain death.

A section of the steps collapsed, and Victoria was hanging in that gap, clinging to life only through Yonah's hand.

"Hold on!" Victoria only let out something between a grunt and a groan from the depths of her throat as she struggled to grab the offered hand with her other hand and help Yonah in her attempt to push her up. It said a lot that she didn't have the energy to say something sarcastic as usual.

Caim turned around again, instead of helping Yonah lift her, and, quickly turning, spat cobwebs on both sides of the stairs. Cobwebs that soon caught fire.

He hadn't done this before because it would be counterproductive, of course.

But now that they weren't advancing, that they couldn't advance, at least it would give them some time.

He was right, but the amount of time turned out to be only four or five seconds. After the initial scare, so to speak, the armors resumed their march as one through the flames.

Caim grimaced.

But, of course, that fire just wasn't intense enough to melt the steel. It wasn't enough.

He should have known.

Well, at least he had tried. And even a few seconds were valuable in such a situation.

Enough for Yonah to get Victoria out of there, at least, pulling her up. To a place that couldn't be called safe, but it was still the closest thing to safety they had right now. As for Caim, he only had to jump over the gap.

Would the armors be as agile?

Being overly optimistic would only make him die young, but it seemed possible that they couldn't, not when they were nothing more than kilos of steel. Plus their weapons, of course. He couldn't forget about that.

In any case, he shouldn't have worried about that first.

What he had been fearing deep down from the beginning happened. One of those creatures attacked him directly, without taking advantage of an armor or any other object or being it could control. Maybe it had lost the host it had previously occupied. In any case, he now felt a searing pain in one hand, and Caim knew the truth.

That he might have lost it, but he had found it right now.

It wanted to make him its host.

That bug. That damned bug.

His teeth ground together tightly.

I belong to no one, he thought.

Push.

He plunged the knife into the parasite's head, piercing it cleanly.

The tentacles that came to attack him were also cut with the same smooth movement.

Neither of them even had time to scream a warning or help him. He had taken care of this quickly, but he had to remember above all that it had been close. A little more, a careless moment, and his will, the only thing he had ever been able to rely on in this world since the cold moment of birth, would have ceased to be his forever.

Now he had Yonah and Victoria, not just his will, but they wouldn't have been able to do anything to save him. Absolutely nothing. There was no way. At least, no known way.

A shiver ran down his spine as he continued up the stairs. Helping against the armors, leading the charge now, with Yonah nearby, fighting very close, jumping over him, bouncing off the wall, using the limited space as much as possible, in incredible ways, in ways that only she could have done.

She was fantastic.

Caim was helping as much as he could too, of course, not just with the sword, but with his skills. He hadn't used [Parasite] again, but [Spider Human] was very useful. Creating web platforms, preparing for the worst, giving them more space to fight, immobilizing or hindering enemies, it had many uses.

It's only the first floor. Just the first damn floor, and without these abilities...

No. Better not to think about that.

Not now.

Everything else, everything apart from the fight, was a distraction.

Caim lifted his head and was surprised to see that the end was near. At least, that's what it seemed like, what a sick and cruel joke it would be if behind that door there were nothing but more and more stairs, damn it, he would shoot himself right then and there.

His legs trembled, and he didn't even want to think about how long they had been at this. But the fact was that the end was finally near, within reach of their hands, soon he could reach out and touch it, soon, very soon, they would be free.

But, right now, right at the end, the pressure was greater than ever.

The pressure of that wall of iron. It was natural, of course, they were getting closer to the door where all those bastards were coming out one after the other, in single file. It was only natural, but that didn't make it easier or more tolerable.

Damn it, now?

Now were they going to be pushed back, now were they going to be defeated? So close to the exit? Now? Now?

"I've been preparing for this for a while," said Victoria. "The good thing is, if it doesn't work, I'll be dead before you have time to kill me for the screw-up. Get closer."

That's what they did.

Forming a narrow circle, being as physically inseparable as they were emotionally. They were gradually surrounded by flames. Caim wondered if it was a shield of flames, but then he realized it was a spear.

They shot out as one.

A bullet, a flaming spear aimed at the heart of the endless, unstoppable iron tide.

Until now.

They pierced the iron barrier decisively, even through the partially open wooden door, blowing it to smithereens. Oh, if only that were all that exploded. His vision was tinted white, he couldn't see anything, but he didn't need to see to feel the dust and hear the rain of debris.

The roof had collapsed after the explosion, burying a few of the armors and parasites inside, crushing them, and closing the entrance door. The only way out.

Anyway, it's not like we can go back.

We have no intention of looking back.

Not even once.

Caim coughed several times, forcefully. He hadn't broken anything, he didn't feel any blood. But it had been quite a ride.

"Are you guys okay?" They responded in the affirmative, between coughs.

The dust cloud cleared, and the hands of the three met again in the middle. Victoria was pale, while Yonah's face was very red, as if she had spent an hour in a sauna. It was quite a picturesque contrast.

Their eyes met.

The girl smiled slightly.

"When we have to go down, it will really suck."

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

"Is that optimism I hear?" Caim couldn't resist.

"Something like that."

They spent a while in silence, their breaths slowly syncing, enjoying the simple fact that they had survived, that they were together, the warmth of their joined hands.

But everything ended sooner or later.

The moment of separation arrived.

"I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted," she said, getting up. "What do you think about setting up camp here?"

"Okay. We don't know when we'll have another chance to catch our breath, so it sounds perfect to me."

She was referring to resting, of course.

Setting up camp would have to be done whether they had a chance or not; otherwise, they would fall apart.

Caim looked around. Maybe he had disappeared under the rubble, but he didn't see what could have generated so many armors. In any case, he supposed that what really mattered was that it was over. And now they could breathe a little. Even if it was just a little.

He took the device out of his pocket inside his coat.

He wasn't worried that it had broken with everything that had happened to him. Not in the least. The device was a small black box with a blue piece in the middle.

He dropped it.

It rolled on the floor, more or less to the center of the room.

It projected a blue light, and, just like that, the camp began to appear piece by piece. Three tents, although Victoria and Yonah could share one without any problems, and a campfire in the middle, of course, it couldn't be missing in any camping trip, even firewood was included.

He had seen the device in action many times, but it never ceased to amaze him. How long had it taken to finish? Maybe five minutes at most.

"I'm content to know it works. But I'd like to know how it does it," said Yonah.

"The great minds of the world have been studying this technology for so many years that I don't think the mystery will be solved. At least while we're alive," said Victoria.

Yeah. At least until they died, that's how things worked. Time moved on, progress killed the old world and planted the seeds of renewal, no, of resurrection.

"The optimism is over. Although I really don't care how it works. I..."

Yonah didn't let him finish.

"Shall I take the first watch? Typical."

"Well, yeah. I was going to say that, yes."

"Leave it to me."

"Sure?"

The reason he asked should have been obvious, and it was.

"I know I was the first to say I'm tired. I know, but I'm sure."

"Okay," said Caim.

He had no intention of arguing about who stayed awake and alert even after all that disaster. Besides, he had known from the very beginning that Yonah was too stubborn to make any reasoning he proposed, but he had to try, and he had done it, no one could say he hadn't tried, although little.

Caim shrugged and prepared to rest. Close his eyes, relax as much as possible.

He doubted he would fall asleep, but oh well.

Rest would have to be enough.

Inside the tent, Caim was assaulted by the powerful urge to crawl out and apologize, apologize for dragging them here, for rewarding their kindness, love, and loyalty by putting their lives in danger, apologize for being too proud to turn his back on all this. To look back.

But he bit his tongue.

And he twisted, with his eyes closed, in the darkness of the tent.

Alone with his thoughts.

Open the Doors of the Tower of Dreams That Suddenly Rises (9): FIN