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

11

As Victoria had said before, the narrow stairs weren't much of a problem for her to fight on. But Yonah and he needed more space to fully utilize their strength and speed, especially as they fought with bladed weapons (well, Caim also carried a revolver, but he wanted to save the bullets for when he really needed them; he couldn't reload in the middle of the Tower, after all).

So Victoria and Yonah swapped positions.

That simple change improved things considerably.

Caim dealt with the armors coming from above, Yonah took care of the ones below, and Victoria stood in the middle to support them both, doing what she could. The collapse and that mysterious tentacled creature had saved their asses, but in the end, they couldn't escape defeating an army of living armors.

If there was no other choice, so be it.

Caim lunged forward. It was better to bring the fight to them than to wait for them to come to him. The first of the armors wielded a massive axe, one that even she could only swing using both hands.

He stopped the blow with his sword effortlessly.

For a long time, it had only been a ceremonial object, but in the end, it was a special sword. It wouldn't break so easily.

They exchanged a series of blows, evenly matched.

Then he had to dodge.

He was close to burying the axe in its skull, but instead, he buried it in the wall.

Caim wasted no time.

He grabbed the weapon, wrestled it away, and used it to strike the armor's helmet, throwing it off balance, making it fall backward. Seeking something to hold onto, the armor dragged one of its companions with it, and they shattered upon hitting the ground. Like the first one, the creatures inside, having suffered severe damage, didn't get far. In fact, they didn't get anywhere now. They died even before leaving the steel husk.

With a clear path, the next armor stepped forward. This one carried a spear. The limited space for maneuvering was not only inconvenient for them, but it was what bothered them the most.

Furthermore, they had to keep going up while dealing with the enemies. They couldn't just stand still until they defeated them all, assuming they would ever stop coming in the first place.

They had to keep going up, increasing the inconvenience of the narrow stairs, the danger of the height.

Caim activated [Human Spider], but he didn't immediately open his mouth. He resisted the pain, which felt like a hot iron being stabbed into his throat, hoping it would work, that the ability would function as he believed.

When he did open it (more because he couldn't resist anymore than anything else), he spat out a considerably larger spider web. Just as he had hoped.

It reached the wall on the other side, forming a spider web bridge.

It should hold the weight of several people. Of a few armors, even. Even if some parts gave way, the whole network wouldn't collapse.

Was it just a guess?

No, he knew, even if he didn't know how he knew.

Did he know how he breathed, how his limbs moved? But that didn't stop him from functioning. It was the same here. Caim leaped forward, landing, bouncing slightly on the web, as if testing its resilience despite how confident he felt.

"The last time you shot webbing," Yonah said, at the same time she leaped and delivered a double kick to the armor in front of her, the culmination of a series of attacks as deadly as they were swift, the armor fell rolling down the stairs and dragged three of its companions to hell with it, "it started to burn. Are you sure...?"

"Yes."

Was he sure enough to bet their lives on it?

No, that wasn't the question.

He was sure; it wasn't a gamble.

Yonah was satisfied with that. Though hesitantly, she stepped onto the web. Victoria gripped the staff so tightly her knuckles turned white. She was having second thoughts.

"Move!" Yonah shouted.

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"Hey, I'm doing this for you guys. I have to be more careful. If I die, I won't be able to rescue you."

"That's exactly why I'm saying it. Move that big ass of yours!"

"Hey!" she protested, but she moved, descended onto the web, displacing the fine fibers with her boots. They seemed fragile, but spider silk was strong. It was already holding the weight of three people without any problem, showing no signs that some areas might collapse. It would support the weight of a few armors as well. They wouldn't have to worry until a significant number of the living armors moved onto the web, pursuing them.

Especially if he reinforced it.

Caim used [Human Spider] again, in the same way. Enduring the pain, keeping his mouth shut as long as possible. He didn't have a precise way to measure how much webbing he needed and spit it out, but he could worry about that later.

For now, in this situation, the more the better.

He spat the webbing starting from one side of the existing web, then aimed upward.

Forming a bridge that would allow them to quickly cover several levels of the stairs without being bothered. Not that he intended to flee, or thought he could, but it would be useful.

They advanced on the web, the armors continued to throw themselves onto the web, in pursuit. The web trembled with each landing, but it didn't collapse. Caim took a deep breath.

It would be fine.

He had reinforced its structural integrity sufficiently.

It wasn't just one web, but two large webs joined together.

It couldn't be so easy to bring it down.

It wouldn't be so easy even if those parasites had enough intelligence to stop, stop chasing them, and start cutting.

At the very least, they should be able to reach the other side before it collapsed.

At the very least.

But it turned out to be a small miscalculation.

Suddenly, he felt nothing beneath his feet. He had just enough time to be thankful that his companions had reached the other side before he plummeted, a fraction of a second.

Caim grabbed the dagger Yonah extended to him. By the blade, of course, which sank into the palm of his hand and made it slippery with his blood right away. And his legs dangled over the abyss, without any support. He wasn't saved yet. Far from it.

But if he had a chance, it was only thanks to how amazing Yonah was.

It was a dagger, not a sword, after all. If Yonah had reacted even a millisecond slower, he wouldn't have been able to grab the blade, as he couldn't stretch a few centimeters spontaneously.

"Hold on!" she shouted.

"That's what I'm trying to do!"

He gripped the dagger with his other hand as well, squeezing tightly. His hands were slippery with blood that kept flowing. Naturally, sooner or later his hands would go numb, he would lose all feeling, and he would be screwed.

He swung in the air, holding onto just one dagger, careful not to pull Yonah down.

If he had to die, let it be only him at least.

Yonah knelt on the ground and grabbed onto one of the steps to maintain balance. It took Caim several attempts, but his feet reached the wall. Leaning against it, he could place his feet on the edge of the stairs and then climb.

Getting to safety. Or as safe as one could be on these stairs and in this damn Tower.

If my destiny was always here, maybe I'm destined to die, he thought. An old doubt. A most natural doubt. He pushed it far away, hoping it wouldn't bother him again.

In vain, surely, but hope was the last thing to die.

"Damn, that was close," Victoria said. "If you had fallen from that height, not even I could have healed you. You would've exploded like a piñata."

"I didn't need such a strange and specific metaphor, and now I won't be able to get that image out of my head, thanks."

The collapse of a part of the web had nearly killed him, not even significantly reducing the number of living armors.

All the others, who were surplus to roll over them like a wave of pure steel, simply changed direction after that happened. They even demonstrated, in their limited intelligence, the common sense to separate and spread their weight, doing their best to prevent the web from destabilizing again anywhere.

He hadn't expected that.

Not at all.

Caim glanced up, and unsurprisingly, he still didn't see the end of the stairs. He supposed this was the way to the second floor of the Tower. He supposed they would be close.

He took a deep breath.

He used the skill [Parasite], still not really knowing what he had to do to take control, what would happen exactly. It turned out to be a purely mental skill. Part of his energy was directed to one of the armors, piercing through it, bathing it. He felt it with a painful clarity as if they were connected by an umbilical cord.

Caim brandished the sword to defend himself from an attack. He didn't have the time or space to counterattack.

But he did notice that the armor he had connected with copied his movements, cutting the armor in front of it and the creature inside, the real enemy, in two. It also crushed it against the wall.

"I see, so that's how it works."

"Did you do that?"

He wasn't even sure who had asked.

Right now, he didn't care.

Caim grinned savagely. He didn't think he could use the skill on more than one armor at a time, and not just because it would be completely impossible to coordinate effectively. He felt it in the same instinctive way he had understood the functioning of [Human Spider] little by little. That didn't matter either.

"I feel so strong. Like a new man."

They were going to win this.

It wouldn't be good for him to become arrogant, but...

It was a fact that the power he had gained upon entering the Tower made him stronger with each battle he surpassed. It was easier said than done, but as long as he survived, sooner or later he would become strong enough to crush all obstacles that got in his way.

His ascent had only just begun.

The sky was the limit... Or maybe there was no such thing.

He understood how his own power worked. Not by some inexplicable, superhuman instinct, but by mere observation. The umbilical cord, for lack of a better term (the connection was so strong in his mind that he couldn't think of another name for it), attracted the armor towards him. It allowed him to move forward, the only movement the armor now made that wasn't just mimicking his own.

It wasn't the most precise way to direct anything, but it was still a considerably powerful ability he could exploit.

He was already doing so, in fact.

Knocking down the armors in front of the controlled one, even the ones behind, executing the blow carefully not to hit Victoria, of course.

This significantly slowed the progress of the enemy tide. Although only a few stepped back to deal with the one Caim had possessed, the stairs were so narrow that they inevitably got in the way of those who simply tried to continue.

This was going well.

Too well, perhaps.

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