What followed couldn’t even be called a battle. It was a rapid series of mercy killings, plain and simple. The monsters didn’t even try to avoid Jaegan’s overwhelming assault as it ripped straight through their emaciated bodies like a scythe through ripe wheat. In less than thirty seconds, no monsters remained on the third floor, but the spike of Entropic energy remained.

Walking over, [Essence Reading] failed to trigger on the black stone obelisk, so instead I activated [Dominus’ Insight] and nearly fell down when it drew even more Mana than usual to activate.

[This Entropic Spike is made of pure Entropic Mana and was created by the Maw of Oblivion, a group dedicated to Devourer’s destruction aspect. It was delivered two months ago by Marie Emberstone, Chosen of Devourer. At its current rate of spreading, the damage it has done will be irreversible in less than ten minutes. A word of caution, destroying anything consisting purely of Entropic Mana is difficult and dangerous. I recommend a simultaneous assault from your Arcane Cannon and Jaegan’s Wallbreaker from the farthest opposite corners of the floor for the highest chance of success.]

“No way. Marie?” I leaned against Raiju for support and she started whimpering when she felt how distraught I was. My mind was running a million miles an hour, trying to find anything about how she might have acted that could have pointed me toward her true identity, but came up with nothing.

She was just a girl who really loved her sister. She didn’t even fight against the Raid Boss attacking her shop! If she were a Chosen of Devourer… that’s why the Raid Boss was attacking that shop in particular. It could smell her divine energy, even when I couldn’t.

Raiju bumped her head against my side. “What’s going on with Marie? Is she OK?”

“I don’t know,” I started petting her head mechanically. “Here, everyone should take a look at this.” With a quick flick of my fingers, I threw the window containing [Dominus’ Insight] to the rest of my party. “I met Marie outside the tower.” I let out a short bark of wry laughter. “Helped her and her sister defend their shop from the monster wave, including the Raid Boss. Her sister, Mindy, saved my ass a couple of times.”

When I looked around to check how everyone was dealing with what I’d both shown and told them, I found everyone responding a bit differently. Ylsa was rooted in place, with her hand stretched out to touch the window created by [Dominus’ Insight] as she muttered some sort of prayer under her breath that even my enhanced [Perception] couldn’t pick up.

Jeagan read it once before dismissing it and walking with Volta and Voltaire’s help toward the farthest side of the room. He turned back to look at me and I knew exactly what he wanted. He wanted us to destroy the [Entropic Spike] and fix the Tower, no matter what. The elementals seemed to be of a similar mind when I messaged them through the interface.

‘We have the recommendation of your goddess, there doesn’t seem to be a reason to wait.’ Volta bowed as she hurried to keep up with her brother and Jaegan as they continued on.

Raiju didn’t appear to care either way, and when I brought it up she shrugged her shoulders. “I didn’t get a good sniff on Marie, but Mindy definitely wasn’t bad. She smelled like rain, not sulfur or whatever this stupid spike smells like.” She pawed at her nose. “It’s really bad, you’re lucky your nose isn’t nearly as good as your eyes or ears, or you’d know how bad it was too. It almost makes me regret putting so many points into [Perception]...almost.”

She and I padded over to the other side of the room from Jaegan and Ylsa followed soon after, knocking down any building in between my final location and the center of the floor as she went with a massive greathammer I’d never seen her use before.

“Not going to stand with Jaegan?” I frowned. Something didn’t add up.

She shook her head. “He told me to clear a path for you and then wait here. He said something about time being of the essence.”

Before I could say anything about that, the message from Jaegan came through. ‘Prep as many [Arcane Cannons] as you can in the next ten seconds and release them on my mark. [Wallbreaker]’s already mid-channel and I really don’t want to cancel it.’

“Shit!” I hurried to comply with Jaegan’s request, despite my misgivings about what was going on. With a surge of will, I produced eight [Arcane Cannons] before I felt something push back. Despite the situation, I noted that was twenty percent of the forty percent mastery I had with [Skill Dominance].

The force constructs bobbed in the shape of an arc or a crown above my head as Jaegan’s countdown reached its climax. ‘Three, two, one…FIRE!’

“Fire!” I yelled as I felt the pulse of Mana from the other side of the half mile wide room, and my cannons unleashed a half dozen finger thick beams of pure force that merged about ten feet in front of me to become something more. The resulting beam was more akin to a keg in width, maybe two and a half feet wide, as it tore toward the [Entropic Spike] faster than an arrow.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

The two beam Spells impacted their target nearly simultaneously and, surprisingly, it didn’t immediately explode into a billion tiny pieces. Instead, it didn’t even shake when impacted by the five foot wide torrent of force that was Jaegan’s signature Spell, [Wallbreaker]. Just as I was about to push another twenty percent of my depleted Mana pool into my own [Arcane Cannons], a message from Jaegan came through and stopped me.

‘Don’t waste your Mana boosting that Spell. We all know what has to happen if we’re going to destroy this damn thing. There’s no time to find another plan.’ I could almost hear his weak chuckle. ‘You’ve been a good lord, despite your inexperience, and I know you’ll go on to do amazing things as Dominus’ [Suzerain]. All I ask when I’m gone is that you treat Ylsa right and make sure my kid knows I went out a hero, not some deadbeat in jail.’ Then [Skill Dominance] triggered for a Skill I hoped never to need.

[Sacrificial Surge Acquired with Skill Dominance]

[Active Skills - Mastery

Skill Dominance - 41%]

‘Jaegan, you don’t have to do this, Galloway can heal you and I can use [Dominus’ Fury] to get rid of this thing!’ I screamed through the Party Interface.

‘I’m only a few steps from the grave and you know it, plus you’re going to need that in your travels.’ The energy from the other side of the room increased by a couple orders of magnitude. ‘Make sure to take good care of my staff. It’s been with me a long time and I’d hate for it to get left behind when I’m gone.’

He opened the channel to include everyone in the party as blue light started to fill the room. ‘It’s been a pleasure, ladies and gentlemen. I wish you the best of luck in taking down the bastards who put this thing here, but I’ve got this part. Goodbye my friends.’

Jaegan’s face was contorted in concentration as he channeled his life force into his staff. The wooden shaft hummed with a low, resonant vibration as the arcane energy visibly surged through his veins. The air around him crackled with static electricity, and a faint glow began to emanate from the tip of the staff.

With a final, guttural cry, Jaegan unleashed the spell. The staff thrummed with a violent intensity, and a blinding beam of force erupted from its tip. The beam, normally a narrow, focused stream of energy, was now vastly amplified by the [Mage]’s sacrifice. It grew in width, expanding from its usual five feet to a fifteen-foot-wide torrent of destructive force.

The beam tore through the air, its path marked by a trail of crackling energy and shattered debris. It struck the [Entropic Spike] with a deafening roar, obliterating the malignant artifact in a blinding flash of purple and blue light. Jaegan’s body hung in the air between the [Arcweaver] siblings for a moment after with a huge smile I would swear I saw even from half a mile away, before he crumbled to dust, his sacrifice complete.

In the end, all that was left of the old [Mage] was his staff, [Bad Deal], the [Ruby Heart] ring from our Dungeon run, his storage ring, and a pile of dust that quickly disappeared as the Tower absorbed his remains.

Just to add insult to injury, a notification window appeared in front of my face to block my view of where my friend had just sacrificed himself.

[Completed Emergency Quest - Remove the Infection from the Chalcedony Tower of Trials.

Reward - Three Choices are Available]

Brushing the screen away, I sprinted toward the [Arcweaver] siblings, whose faces hung low. They started apologizing as soon as I got within a few yards, but I stopped them with a sharp cut of my hand.

“Nothing you could have said or done would have stopped Jaegan from doing whatever it is he wanted to do.” I drew in a deep breath before sighing. “The same can be said for everyone here, even Ylsa.” I turned back to look for Ylsa and found her standing near where the [Entropic Spike] used to be. For a second, I felt the need to kneel down and cry, but Jaegan’s voice yelling at me in my head stopped that. I wiped a tear from my eye before sweeping the belt [Bad Deal] was attached to into my ring as I put his storage ring on next to my own storage ring, and slipping the [Ruby Heart] on the hand opposite my [Suzerain’s Seal].

His staff I hung at my hip. Even if him being gone diminished its power, he’d asked me to take care of it and I fully intended to do so. It felt right in a perverse sort of way, like I was always meant to end up with it, and I was nearly sick at the thought. Shaking it off, I hurried over to where Ylsa stood in the center of the chamber.

She loomed over the crater as I approached and when I got up next to her, I understood why. At the bottom of the crater dozens of tiny cracks were starting to form. As I watched, one of the small cracks shot up the edge of the crater and across the room toward the wall nearly faster than my elven eyes could follow.

Ylsa turned to me and I saw her eyes were red from crying. “We need to leave, now. This Tower isn’t stable and it can’t repair itself with us in here.”

Nodding, I pulled up the Tower interface and went to the [Exit Tower] tab, only to find it greyed out. Pushing on it, a new window appeared over top of the interface.

[Due to structural damage done to the Tower, exiting is no longer possible without clearing all five floors. As a recompense, all drops will be increased in rarity by one step from now until you clear the fifth floor.]

“Uh, we have a problem.” My face went white and Ylsa motioned for me to continue. “We can’t leave without clearing the Tower.”

“Dominus damn this place!” She bellowed before punching the ground at her feet. We both gasped when the nearly indestructible floor cracked from her blow and started splintering off quickly to the rest of the floor. “I should not have done that.”

“I can’t help but agree, but what’s done is done.” I motioned for our diminished party to gather around me and they all quickly complied. I stood in the center of the group and turned to catch each of them in the eye as I spoke. “It looks like we’re going to need to clear this fucking Tower to get clear. We’re all still fresh, at least mostly, and I think we should deal with the next floor before we rest again. Let’s get out of here so we can toast Jaegan in his favorite inn in Chalcedony.”

Letting Jaegan’s loss sink in as we rest before going into an unknown situation is the last thing I want. He’d want us to use his loss as fuel for our fires, not lead weights around our necks.

When no one dissented, I pulled up the Tower interface and selected the option to advance floors with a grimace.

“For Jaegan.”