Jake sat atop a pile of metal as he quickly deciphered the magical seal on the cube he had looted from the dead Tower Guardian lying destroyed beneath him. As he got the cube open, he quickly checked its contents and nodded.

“Yep, I can confirm these towers are all made to terraform the planet in some crazy experiment,” Jake sent through the Golden Mark. They had already kind of known it from other clues, but this was confirmation, which was good enough for the system.

Bonus Objective Completed: Discover the true nature of the nine towers. 3500 Nevermore Points earned.

Bonus Objective Gained: Locate the ones behind the construction of the nine towers.

Jake put the cube away as he jumped off the pile of metal and prepared to head to the top room of the tower he spotted through his sphere. As he walked toward the hidden stairs, he threw the large golem a final look with a smile. Pretty fun fight, even if it was quite a bit weaker than the scalekin metal mage.

His satisfaction with the fight was helped along by the fact that Jake had gained yet another level, far faster than he had expected.

*You have slain [White Tower Guardian – lvl 305] – Bonus experience earned for killing an enemy above your level*

*’DING!’ Class: [Arcane Hunter of Horizon’s Edge] has reached level 258 - Stat points allocated, +50 Free Points*

Jake was the first to reach the top of a tower due to the power of stealth. The others were also quickly doing their thing, and it wouldn’t be that long before five of nine towers were conquered, as he felt confident all of his party members could beat the Guardian on their own if it was as only strong as the one Jake had just taken down.

Reaching the hidden staircase, Jake summoned his Alchemical Flame and burned a hole in the wall as he couldn’t be arsed to try and find the opening mechanism. Walking up the stairs, Jake had already scanned the hidden room, and while there was no one there, it was bloody filled with electronic stuff.

The room below did have a few computer-like things, but Jake had the feeling that it was just a front of sorts, while the real deal was to be found on this hidden top floor. As he reached the top of the stairs, a new achievement popped up for all of them.

Achievement earned: Reach the top of one of the nine towers and uncover the hidden control room. 2000 Nevermore Points earned.

It was pretty easy points, and Jake sure wouldn’t complain. None of the others did either, as Jake found another cube with information and deciphered it. This hidden control room was for advanced forms of terraforming and to control the automatic experiment still in progress. In fact, it was revealed that should anyone mess with the control panels on the floor below, the ones who had set up the experiment in the first place would be alerted.

On this top floor, Jake also found a deactivated teleportation circle, and while Jake didn’t have a good grasp of how these kinds of things worked, he could luckily do the same as the Fallen King and temporarily share his vision. Using that, he learned from Dina that it was a special closed-circuit teleportation circle, with them all guessing this circle connected to corresponding circles in other towers.

Jake spent the next full day or so deciphering all the information he could in the tower, primarily to figure out how to activate the teleportation circle. The magical puzzles to unlock stuff weren’t that complicated, and soon enough, Jake also came to learn that activating any one tower would start a chain reaction, also activating others, the end result being that everyone not currently inside a tower would die. As for what would kill them…

“So… not to scare anyone, but there seems to be a total of four space stations in orbit around this planet, as well as a few thousand satellites, all aimed to scorch the surface of the planet on command,” Jake warned everyone. “The good news is that we are in what’s called a hibernation period right now, where only a few people are awake on the space stations, so as long as we don’t activate something haphazardly, they probably shouldn’t notice what we’re doing.”

At least, that’s what Jake said… but it quickly became clear whoever was controlling these towers had already detected Jake and company and what they were doing as they quickly deployed countermeasures. Luckily, they couldn’t activate the extermination protocol without entering the towers, but transport ships were sent down, filled with even more C-grade golems.

It was a great time all around. Jake had initially been a bit disappointed with the number of enemies, but now they were practically being delivered on a silver platter. After Jake left the tower, he was attacked by a few dozen golems who seemed intent on capturing rather than killing, but Jake was having none of that as he destroyed all of them – after getting agreement from his party that this was the right course of action, of course.

This seemed to get the message across, as every subsequent attack was made with deadly intent. Jake kept exploring the planet with intermittent fights as he felt himself being observed by satellites far above. About a week later, the Fallen King was also done exploring his tower, too, followed by the three others, also getting done within a few days. As predicted, every time a tower was cleared, they could activate the teleportation circles and travel between all of them freely.

Which was a necessity as the annoying space golems kept coming down and entering the towers, trying to take back control. Or worse, activate the towers and kill everything on the planet. This forced their party to have two people at all times play defense, teleporting between towers when necessary to keep things defended. This task was designated to the Fallen King and Dina, as Dina was especially well-suited to defend a location as she – quite literally – took root and planted flowers to both forewarn and defend. The Fallen King was just a menace in the smallish hallways, and his soul attacks were especially effective against larger crowds of golems. Oh yeah, and he was pretty damn slow anyway.

Meanwhile, Jake, Sylphie, and the Sword Saint acted on their own to get the final four towers. Due to the size of their planet, they had to travel a lot while getting harassed by the damn space golems, who seemed to have endless numbers.

After an additional month, the second batch of towers had been taken over, bringing their total number of captures to eight of the nine towers. However, the final tower turned out to be quite a bit more difficult to capture than the others, as the researchers had decided to fortify the location. The attacks on the other towers didn’t stop, though, and ultimately, they decided on just having Jake and Sylphie attack the final one, as the Sword Saint also stayed back to defend while also researching more of what these towers could do. When they finally conquered the final tower, the ability to teleport to one of the four space stations above was also unlocked, and… well...

One thing led to another, and after Jake and company had crashed through the atmosphere on a mothership around a year later while fighting a horde of five-meter-tall mechs with miniguns, they were already approaching the end of floor seventy-one.

Only a final fight awaited them, as they needed an access code to start something called the Revitalization Protocol to begin restoring the planet to its former state while putting an end to the experiment that had periodically killed all life on the planet. The entire point of this experiment had been them trying to manipulate the planet’s innate affinities, and from the looks of it, the researchers had failed horribly despite keeping the experiment going for so long.

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In the present, Jake, Sylphie, the Fallen King, Sword Saint, and Dina found themselves standing in front of the burning wreckage of what had once been a kilometer-wide mothership that once served to coordinate with the four space stations that they had naturally also destroyed.

From the wreckage, a single figure rose, having been awakened from hibernation by the crash, yet remained entirely undamaged as it had been in a sealed-off control room. Standing over ten meters tall, the robot-like creature reminded Jake of those car-transforming robots from movies and TV, and when it pulled out a sword, Jake feared copyright infringement was taking place right in front of his eyes. Things got a bit better when it activated what was clearly some kind of astral magic, which Jake definitely hadn’t seen in the movies. Oh yeah, it was also definitely a lot stronger than the movie robots… at least it was the strongest thing on this floor by far.

[Chief Overseer – lvl 320]

The party didn’t even have to communicate as they made their move. The Fallen King and Sword Saint moved toward the robot as Sylphie circled around while Jake made some distance. Dina was the only one who remained roughly in place as she took out her staff and cast supportive magic on their two front liners.

Mana gathered as a large discharge of astral energy was released from the boss, bathing the surrounding area, as the old power generators of the mothership served to amplify this mana, effectively creating a massive domain that helped empower the boss.

With swift movement, especially for such a large creature, the Chief Overseer charged at the Sword Saint, who was closest. The old man didn’t react as the huge blade bathed in starlight descended, as two barriers overlapped right before he was hit – one green and one golden.

Not having to block, the old man drew his blade and released a large crescent cut that sent sparks and small metal fragments flying as the robot was pushed back. At the very same time, an arrow also arrived, but in an impressive display of dexterity, the boss managed to barely block using its blade.

Sadly, this made it unable to defend itself when a green whirlwind struck the boss from behind, throwing it entirely off balance. The Fallen King also didn’t sit idly back, as while he had made a barrier with one claw, he used his second to attack as a shockwave of force blasted into the robot’s leg. A second barrage of Arrow Rain also struck the boss soon after, with the Sword Saint also following up.

The Chief Overseer wasn’t as weak as to simply fall to this pressure, as its entire form turned into light as it teleported right behind Dina, evading another barrage of attacks. It swung its blade down toward the dryad, but found itself blocked as Bobo, her living armor, was already ready to defend as Dina also turned and slammed her staff into the ground.

A torrent of vines erupted from the ground, entangling and sending the boss airborne, as another Arcane Powershot blasted it to the side, sending even more metal parts flying. The other three also struck again, forcing the robot to turn into a beam of light once more, this time going after Jake.

However, right as it appeared behind Jake, he just smiled as he took a step and teleported nearly five kilometers away, and with a second step, he was back with his party, almost ten kilometers from the boss. This was when they learned the big robot also had some solid ranged weapon options as light erupted from its back and dozens of warping beams shot toward the five of them.

The boss also moved, arriving at the same time as the attack, but its sword found little purchase as a vine erupted from the ground and stopped its swinging arm. A shockwave of force sent the robot flying as the Sword Saint, Jake, and Sylphie all unleashed ranged attacks, resulting in the Chief Overseer getting pushed further and further back while trying to defend itself, revealing several other weapons that all proved mostly useless.

One could say many things about this boss, but it was definitely durable. Despite all of them attacking repeatedly, they had managed to do little noticeable damage, and whenever they did cut or blast off large chunks of metal, the Chief Overseer used some kind of self-repair magic. Alas, even if it looked like the robot was barely being damaged, its energy resources were drained at a rapid rate. The large astral domain did help the robot, but honestly, it barely seemed to do anything as the Fallen King and Dina both messed with it in between attacks.

What the boss also severely lacked were adequate offensive tools. The sword strikes seemed strong, but against the double barriers, it simply didn’t stand a chance. While it did have a lot of offensive options, none of them were truly powerful. Minutes passed, and the boss was slowly getting whittled down until they finally reached the second phase of the fight.

Turning into a beam of light, the Chief Overseer returned to the wreckage of the mothership. It stopped, floating just above the pile of metal as it raised its sword toward the sky. The sword rapidly began to transform into an umbrella-like-looking thing, and at the same time, the astral domain also began to react.

It imploded in an instant, as all the energy that remained in the batteries of the mothership was also drained. A dense barrier of powerful mana surrounded the boss as the umbrella-like thing turned out to be some kind of satellite dish or something because, at the very next moment, it shot out a beam of light toward the sky.

“Kill it quickly!” Jake sent through the Golden Mark as he got the feeling things would get annoying if they didn’t hurry. It didn’t take a genius to figure out the Chief Overseer was communicating with the many satellites they had done nothing about still floating in orbit far above them.

Everyone responded to Jake’s words as no one held back.

A giant golden beam erupted from the Fallen King, shearing away much of the barrier, followed by a pillar of pure vines erupting right below the boss, physically piercing into the barrier and forming cracks all over it. Jake’s Protean Arrow arrived next, as the entire barrier shattered and an explosion of powerful arcane energy washed over the Chief Overseer. Yet, even so, it didn’t stop what it was doing, even if it did move the arm, not holding the transformed sword to form a shield… which ended up doing very little.

The Sword Saint stood right in front of the giant robot as he drew his blade. His entire aura changed when he did, as his entire body seemed to turn younger for a second as he executed what was still the single most powerful attack anyone in their party was capable of.

“Glimpse of Spring: Stormcut.”

As if a new crescent moon of water was born on the surface of the planet, the swing released a massive wave that cut through the large robot. The arm it tried to defend with was cut straight through as half of its body was also cut into, doing extreme damage as several parts began falling to the ground. Yet the Chief Overseer had barely survived. For half a second longer, that is.

A loud boom echoed out as a green gust passed, serving as the calm before the storm. The Chief Overseer barely managed to turn its head as Sylphie arrived in the form of a massive green tornado that had taken the rough form of a drill, Sylphie herself serving as the pointed end.

The entire weakened robot was blasted apart as the beam of light from the sword faded away. Yet as it did, Jake’s danger sense also warned him as he quickly said through the Golden Mark: “Self-destruct!”

Without anyone needing any further prompt, they all arrived at Dina’s location near-instantly as she was already casting her magic. Everyone helped form their own barriers, and just as they did, the boss’ body lit up as it went supernova and exploded, sending out a wave of powerful, destructive astral light.

Several defensive barriers were burned away, but in the end, the death explosion failed to get through Dina’s final barrier. It soon faded as they now found themselves standing in an utterly massive crater, the wreckage of the mothership entirely obliterated. The only trace that remained was a large sword now stuck in the ground in the middle of the crater. It wasn’t far-fetched to assume that was where the access codes could be found.

Also, it wasn’t some bait-and-switch, as the boss was indeed very much dead.

*You have slain [Chief Overseer – lvl 320] – Bonus experience earned for killing an enemy above your level*

*’DING!’ Class: [Arcane Hunter of Horizon’s Edge] has reached level 259 - Stat points allocated, +50 Free Points*

*’DING!’ Race: [Human (C)] has reached level 259 - Stat points allocated, +45 Free Points*

”Well done, everyone,” the Sword Saint said, looking a bit tired as he usually did after pulling off his Transcendent mini-version skill.

Jake nodded as he smiled. It sure was good to have the whole gang together, and they had all gotten substantially stronger, not to mention the second wind of levels that would just make them all grow even faster. It honestly made him feel bad for the poor enemies on the floors to come…

Alas, sacrifices were inevitable in the glorious pursuit of making numbers go up.