Chapter 68 – Floor 7: Part 8

The portal glowed a dark red in the darkness. The center was a yawning void of nothingness, a tunnel to another dimension outside of the Tower or any reality that Mathew could imagine with his limited understanding of the universe.

“Bring it down!” One of Mathew’s fellow council members shouted, and Mathew turned to see some of the thousands of survivors of the battle struggling to topple a totem linked to the portal.

Made of black obsidian rock, it powered the portal and required the players to attack it with hammers, pull on it with chains, or strike it with Blessings to topple.

Each portal was as unique as the area it was located in. Sometimes, a totem or structure empowered the gateway; other times, it was tied to a creature or fiend that would need to be killed before the portal failed.

Mathew had seen dozens of them on this floor in his year here. An entire year of fighting, of watching everyone around him fall to Fiends and people who had once been allies but were now turned against them by the Outer Deity.

It was a year in which Mathew had gained enough Aether to level himself ten times, increase his abilities, and purchase new Blessings and magical items, but he still lacked the strength to make a difference in this endless conflict.

A year of the same dry, dusty world with an unforgiving crimson sun and blood-red moon in the sky as a constant reminder that this floor had been watered with the blood of tens, maybe hundreds, of millions of people.

Mathew’s thoughts were interrupted by the deafening noise of the totem crashing to the ground. The portal winked out of existence, and as suddenly as it had appeared, this area of the seventh floor was now secured.

His wristband vibrated almost violently, practically shaking his arm with its insistence that he check it immediately. Knowing who was contacting him, Mathew raised his wrist to project the words in the air in front of him.

The god of Righteous Subjugation is pleased with your actions. New Blessings have been made available to you in the Shop.

Ever since the Outer Deity had begun to influence and corrupt the players of the Seventh Floor directly, the Tower god had taken to doing a similar thing. The god of Righteous Subjugation no longer waited until Mathew or the other Council members checked the ‘Judgement’ tab. It wanted Mathew to know its thoughts immediately.

Limited to only the high-level players, or those specifically selected for their skills or temperament to be on the Council, Mathew was unsure if the god was also in contact with the leaders of other groups across the Floor, but he could only assume it was.

The god made new items and Blessings available to the players to counteract those the Outer Diety had placed in the shop while also taking a more active role in leading the resistance against the Fiends. The god of Righteous Subjugation provided this portal's location through one of their ‘Diviners,’ while additional rewards were offered to ‘incentivize’ them to close it.

“What did it say?” Greg asked, coming up to him. His friend was wielding a long-barreled rifle in his hands. His Discipline of ‘Champion’ had been the only one available, like every other person stuck on this floor.

But his Blessings aligned with long-range attacks, and the obscene amount of Aether he had earned over the last nine months meant that he could afford the best available in the shop and the levels to boost his stats.

However, the rewards on the seventh floor came with the risk of being here. Of those that he had arrived here with, most of them would never leave. Dead, missing or turned to join the Fiends, the casualties were absurdly high.

A quarter of the players never made it past their first week, while another half were killed within the first month. And those that made it to a year were so rare that everyone knew their names. They had become something of a myth, legendary figures seldom seen, and stories were told about their accomplishments.

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Eloise the Chaser led a group of players against a flight of Fiendish Birds that were carrying away her sister. When she found their ‘nest,’ it was she who had slain the Alpha and closed the Portal tied to it.

Baxter the Ferocious. His elevator had deposited him in the middle of a field of dead players and the Fiends that were feeding on them. When a party of players found him a day later, he was the only one left alive, covered in blood and using the severed limb of a Fiend for a weapon.

There were dozens more, each with a story to their name that inspired equal amounts of hope and fear amongst the players. Several of them were part of the Council that ran the city, now called ‘Ruin,’ that held nearly a million people. And the man standing in front of Greg was one of them.

Mathew of Manhattan didn’t have a grandiose mythos being created about him like many of the others. His story was one of survival, of always being amongst the living after an attack. He was also known for having no tolerance for those who turned to the Outer Deity.

‘Reliable’ would be one of the best terms to describe him.’ Greg had said to a few others who had gathered for drinks in one of the ruined buildings they had fixed to serve as an alehouse and tavern.

It was ‘Reliable’ Mathew of Manhattan that the council, on behalf of the god of Righteous Subjugation, had chosen to lead this expedition outside the city to close a portal.

He had accomplished the task swiftly and had relatively few losses. ‘Relatively’ meaning that they had lost less than a quarter of their forces while facing Fiends that equalled their own numbers in quantity. It was usually the best they could hope for.

“They’re pleased with us.” Mathew said simply, lowering his arm. He relayed the scant information the god had delivered, leaving Greg to scoff.

“At least they could tell us how this war is going or if there is an end in sight.” Greg muttered, and Mathew patted his friend on the shoulder in commiseration.

“If they aren’t saying anything about it, it’s probably because it’s not going well.” Mathew whispered, and Greg grimaced at the comment. Mathew didn’t hold back or sugarcoat things when talking to his friend. The past year had been brutal, and it had shaped him as such.

“Come on, let’s head back.” Mathew said, already walking past the shattered obsidian spire that had once powered the Portal. The thousands of survivors observed him, the feeling of the ‘Buzz’ making it seem like he was a predator, walking amongst prey.

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“Status.” Mathew said, sitting down on a small wooden stool that he had purchased from the shop a while ago. His room was bare, with only a desk, the stool he was sitting on, and a single bed. His house was a combination of a ruin that he had spent some time clearing and a tent.

He had stretched a large piece of canvas across two pillars and a pile of rocks to form a roof, while the floor stone that he had tried to scour clean but still had dust between the cracks. It had been his home for the last six months, at least when he was still in ‘Ruin.’

His status appeared, and Mathew took a moment to assess his gains from the last year.

Name: Mathew Larson

Discipline: Champion (Level 11)

Trickster (Level 5)

Coward (Level 5)

Charlatan (Level 5)

Level: 26

Aether Required for Next Level: 325,000

Aether: 57,000

Attributes

Body: 4.3

Mind: 5.1

Spirit: 1.4

Blessings

Create and Control Flames III (Max Tier)

The Coward’s Brand (Max Tier)

Catapult (Max Tier)

Truthsayer (Unique Ability)

Mystic Bolt (Max Tier)

Pass Without Trace (Max Tier)

Blur (Max Tier)

Items of Importance

Wyvern Scale Jacket (Increased resistance to Piercing/Slashing/Fire)

Scarf of the Wanderer (Protection from hazardous atmospheres.)

Knife of Soaring (Item can be ‘Catapulted’ from the hand as if it were not carried.)

Mathew had picked up a few new Blessings that had proven to be useful during his time here.

‘Pass Without Trace’ let him avoid detection when he was trying to sneak around groups of Fiends, allowing him to blend with shadows better at night, and its passive ability prevented him from leaving any tracks as he walked or ran, even across mud or sand.

‘Blur’ was a Blessing that blurred his form when activated, confusing even the Fiends. There had been several times when Mathew had thought that a Fiend would strike him without a doubt, only for their aim to be slightly off because of ‘Blur.’ At Max Tier, the mana consumption was relatively low, allowing him to use it nearly constantly on the battlefield.

His Magical items had cost him a veritable fortune in Aether, but Samuel had been right. At the end of the day, Aether was nothing compared to the value of a good item. If he was going to be forced to fight this endless war, he was going to do whatever he could to survive it.

Mathew had spent the last year fighting to survive on the Seventh Floor and still couldn’t see any sign of progress.

How long was he going to have to be here? How many more people would he have to watch die?