Episode 5: Open the Doors of the Tower of Dreams That Suddenly Rises (5)

7

"Any brilliant ideas?" Yonah asked, half jokingly, half seriously.

I wish.

He was the leader, not because he had many brilliant ideas. In fact, had he ever had a truly brilliant idea? It wasn't as easy as it might seem. Beyond the obvious, he didn't consider himself an exceptional man. He was simply a relatively ordinary person trying not to make the same mistake twice.

That was it.

"Victoria, come here."

She obeyed.

"So, do you have a plan?"

"More or less. In fact, it's a secret technique that has been passed down in my family from generation to generation. An incredible technique that allows me to get out of any situation, no matter how bad."

"Were you keeping something incredible like that to yourself?" Yonah asked, mouth agape.

Caim started to sweat a little. He had raised expectations too much. It had seemed like a good idea at first, despite the context. Now he wasn't so sure, but after putting his foot in it, you couldn't just take it back.

Better to push through.

"What is it?" Victoria asked.

"His legs are hollow like everything else. They're nothing more than clumsy steel armor. So... I'm going to use my legs too."

He pushed one of the fallen and quite scorched armors, making it slide across the floor. Two or three stumbled and fell as a result.

"To run."

"What?"

Surprise was written on their faces with thick ink.

"Run!"

Caim followed his own advice.

They ran through the dense darkness, full of living armors, more and more of them, their number seeming endless. They ran while that scream continued to echo among the pillars like a promise of the end that awaited them if they were caught.

They dodged some attacks, but narrowly. Overall, they didn't have as many problems as he might have expected to reach their goal. That is, a door, the only exit that seemed to be here.

So, of course, the problems started afterward.

"Great. It'll need a key," Yonah said.

Because it was locked, of course. They could turn back, but moving forward wasn't that easy. What a brilliant idea he had. He blushed a bit; his ears even burned.

"Let me handle it," Victoria said, and they gave her space, hoping she could do just that.

She was versatile, but for a while now, they had been depending perhaps a little too much on her. Caim considered the idea of trying to force the door down with brute force but dismissed it.

The armors were clumsy and not especially fast, but they weren't slow; they ran. In other words, they wouldn't take long to reach here.

"You better hur—"

He couldn't finish the sentence as the explosion he had been waiting for cut him off, making him mute. He turned around, heart pounding, to look at the door.

Which was still there, perfectly intact.

Damn.

Now what? Even if they defeated all the armors, which had suddenly become a small army, that would be a problem. How to get out of this room? Assuming it wasn't just about triumphing over the enemy, of course, but assuming the simplest possibility hadn't brought him much luck lately.

Or in general. Life was hard and complicated, as were the answers to the questions it posed.

"Caim?" Yonah called him, hesitantly.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath.

He wanted to conquer this tower. He wanted to uncover all its secrets and find salvation. But it would be of no use if he failed the people who had always been there, who were like a family to him.

Who had reached out when everyone else just wanted to bash his head against the rocks.

He opened his eyes again.

"It's okay, we've been through worse. We can do it."

Caim took a few steps forward, raised his sword, ready for what was coming. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw letters floating in the air.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

Defeat the living armors

0/28

Well, at least now I know how many enemies there are. Should I say it or keep it to myself? Yeah, better keep it to myself.

When they survived this (when, there was no other possibility, he refused to contemplate it), he hoped for a succulent reward for their efforts.

Yonah shot forward like a gust of wind. Some might call her reckless, but it was the right decision. Better to press their enemies than be cornered, naturally.

Caim darted in the opposite direction. Whichever way he chose, there would be at least one armor waiting, they were that numerous.

Yonah dispatched one of the armors using the same method as before. She sent its helmet flying with a single blow and quickly, with a snap of her fingers, tossed one of those small bombs inside the armor.

It would have been wasted if it fell outside; she didn't have enough strength to penetrate the armor and at least injure the creature inside. But it didn't fall.

She had good aim, and the armor collapsed.

Living Armors: 1/28

She didn't need notifications one by one; she had eyes and ears. She wondered if it was really worth using so many of those useful bombs when they had just begun the ascent of the tower. But if they died here, it would be useless to have them in reserve.

Moreover, they weren't fighting alone.

Yonah wouldn't have to take care of exactly half, she hoped. It wasn't that much. He was just nervous, thinking more about the future than the present, though the future would never come if they didn't 'cross' this.

Victoria didn't stay idle either.

She quickly formed a water whip, which shot out, extending and grabbing one of the armors by the ankle. One that had almost attacked her, precisely, so Caim didn't even have to dodge the attack; he could focus on the one in front of him.

She snapped the whip, carrying the living armor through one of the many pillars that made the battlefield uncomfortable and slamming it against a wall.

She didn't kill it, at least not in one blow, but she left it without arms. And without a weapon, as a consequence, of course. It's not like it had teeth to hold onto the lost weapon.

Caim couldn't get rid of the enemies as quickly, but that didn't mean he was far behind. He brought one of the armors to its knees, positioned himself behind it, taking advantage of the momentum of the movement to turn.

He then ripped off its helmet and stabbed blindly into the darkness.

But he definitely felt his sword piercing the creature inside, the one controlling the armor, the damn species that existed in this Tower and was giving them so much trouble.

It wasn't a spirit, that was for sure.

It was flesh and bone. Wet and slimy, like a fish.

Like some form of life that could exist in the depths of the sea. In other words, quite repugnant.

The point is, he handled himself well. Great, actually. He had initially wanted to resolve the fight as efficiently as possible and then avoid it altogether because it was sensible, to conserve energy and resources for greater challenges.

Not because he couldn't face these monsters.

He, no, they could do anything.

The ground began to collapse for no apparent reason. They were lucky not to be exactly in the center of the collapse, but they had to quickly retreat to avoid falling into the void, just like four of the armors.

Living Armors: 8/28

Well, almost.

"Damn. What now?" Yonah shouted.

He would like to know that too.

Would it be like this all the time? Every time they thought they had a threat under control, would the conditions change violently and without warning to put them back against the wall?

Why was he whining? It was the least one could expect when facing a demonic place from which no one had escaped alive. Surely they hadn't seen the true terror yet, not by a long shot.

He firmly believed that even when he saw tentacles of some creature emerging from the depths of the unfathomable darkness.

The tentacles sought prey apparently blindly. Perhaps that's why what they grabbed were some armors, dragging them into the depths, perhaps the creature didn't care. There was no difference for it between friend and foe. Just food. Just the impulse to satisfy its hunger.

But there were still quite a few persistently chasing them, showing no survival instinct.

Caim and the others retreated, defending themselves. They had no other choice. Moreover, the collapse of the floor had not stopped at any moment. And the door remained tightly closed.

He swallowed, feeling as if something were stuck in his throat.

Living Armors: 18/28

The number of enemies had been significantly reduced, but they were running out of time, like an hourglass that had been turned over, and there were still too many. Or it seemed so.

The darkness was dyed in all the colors of the rainbow and went even further, expanding into colors for which there were no names in any human language. A blinding explosion of colors. It hurt the eyes; Caim had to squint. It felt as if he had an open wound on his forehead, and someone was pulling the flesh to open it.

It felt as if he were falling apart, not the ground.

Caim continued walking backward with his companions. At one point, his back touched the door. It collapsed, even though a moment ago not even Victoria's spell could bring it down, and he fell as long as he was on the wood. Victoria and Yonah lost their balance too, but not as much as the one who was the first to arrive. They were about to fall on him, though.

The armors sank into the darkness.

EXP: 10+

The same reward as killing the skeleton warriors? Great. But he had bigger problems.

The tentacles had run out of prey, except for them, of course. Like whips, they shot towards them. They turned and ran, going up the spiral staircase illuminated with torches.

They stopped abruptly when they saw that the tentacles did not cross the threshold of the door.

They couldn't. Those monsters, even the creature that had killed most of them, apparently had their designated areas.

Or at least on this floor.

It would be dangerous to assume that this was a 'rule' that would apply even as they advanced. Since this was the first floor, it made sense that it was the easiest. Yeah, the easiest. As if this were easy.

"Well, I'm glad our bodies, at least, are intact," Yonah said.

The creature made no sound. It ate in complete silence, and that was more terrifying than the alternative, without a doubt. They continued up the stairs to leave that horror behind and face new horrors in its place.

He had chosen this path.

It was too late to change his mind and turn back. He was here because he didn't have a place in the human world to begin with. Rather, he had never had a choice, so doubt also made no sense.

We are strong.

We can overcome anything that stands in our way.

They reached the top of the spiral staircase.

At the end of the corridor, the path split into three. The problems had already begun. Wasting time by turning around could be a mistake, and he doubted that all paths were correct, leading them to the same destination more or less.

"Footsteps," Yonah murmured.

Caim looked down. It was true.

There were plenty of humanoid monsters, but he wondered if this wouldn't be the first sign of human presence, apart from their own. An alliance, even if temporary, would be convenient. "Would be" was the key phrase. As soon as they saw the horns, that would end.

In any case, it was safer to consider the possible presence of other humans nearby than when (when, not if) they would have to fight the tentacle monster.

Open the Doors of the Tower of Dreams That Suddenly Rises (5): FIN