The dinsional vortex spat Nick out and collapsed behind him as soon as he was free. As much as he wanted an escape route, he couldn’t let anything get into the city just yet.
Evacuation will have to wait. I just need to trust that my friends can hold on a little longer.
He hadn’t forgotten that everyone, from Eona to Raphael and even Osmod, was trapped inside the Tower with the demons, but there were tis when emotions had to be set aside.
Once he had adapted to the sudden spatial change, he extended [Empyrean Intuition] again and discovered, as expected, that he was in the sub-levels.
It was hard to recognize, since the bright luminosity of the Tower’s wards now felt like sulfur against his senses, but it was the right place.
Ergency lun-crystals flickered unpredictably along the dark stone walls, causing the shadows to flicker, and he could tell that much blood had already been spilled from the chaos of the ether.
Demons alone are already a problem, but traitors add another layer. I’ll have to be careful with my spiritual magic, lest I get affected by drawing in too much.
Straightening up, Nick pulled the conceptual armor of the [Mire] tighter around his body to hopefully shield himself from the caustic environnt.
In his left hand, the Shard shimred with restrained power, supporting the weight of the Mundus array. It was far more than anything he could have summoned alone, resembling the power of a strong ritual condensed into a single point.
Essentially, he was holding a live bomb, and he had one shot with it. I’ll just have to make it count.
His initial assessnt complete, he started to move, careful to make sure his boots made no sound on the scorched flagstones.
It wasn’t long before Nick encountered the first signs of battle. First, he passed by the bodies of minor demonic creatures—twisted hounds with obsidian teeth and bloated, multi-limbed fiends—but it wasn’t long before they were mixed with the corpses of Tower mages.
In a way, he was relieved to find that there were no students. These were full professors and senior researchers who had been caught in the initial breach and had fought back as hard as possible for people with no training handling their mana before the corrupting field the abominations released with their re presence.
He saw a Master of Geomancy half-embedded in the stone wall, surrounded by the shattered remains of a dozen demons. A spellblade had fallen after charging into a horde, likely to create a path for others to escape.
It was a testant to the Tower's faculty's power that they had killed so many demons, yet the overwhelming numbers of the Abyss ultimately defeated them.
Similar scenes repeated on the lower floors until, on the fourth sub-level, as he rounded another corner, Nick was forced to stop.
The corridor opened into a spacious, vaulted testing chamber, and in the ether, he could sense the lingering residue of high-tier Light magic, the kind that only a Prestige mage could have cast.
In the center of the ruined room lay a massive Lesser Demon, and he could tell it was different from anything else he’d ever seen before because even its corpse still emitted more corruption than any demonic creature he’d encountered.
It was a savage, hulking creature, looking like a skinned minotaur, but the upper half of its torso had been almost completely destroyed by a pillar of light, by the looks of its cauterized flesh.
Slumped against a shattered pillar a few yards away was Mistress Siona Angel.
Nick recognized her instantly, despite the blood covering her face. The Mistress of Light Magics was famous for her robes, which were woven with constantly shifting, psychedelic fractal patterns. Now, those sa fractals were fading, coming apart at the edges.
He hurried over and dropped to one knee. "Mistress Angel," he said, keeping his voice low.
Siona’s eyes fluttered open. Her pupils were dilated and unfocused, but they sharpened slightly as she recognized who was speaking.
"Tholm’s... prodigy," she coughed, a wet, rattling sound. Blood bubbled past her lips. “You're a little late, I’m afraid.”
“I had to find alternative ways to enter the Tower," Nick said, pulling his last high-level healing elixir from his spatial ring. It would hurt, but having a Prestige mage with him was worth it.
Siona weakly pushed his hand away. "Don't waste it. My soul is shattered. I burned myself out to take down that brute, and unfortunately, soone took advantage of that.” She gestured faintly toward the Lesser Demon.
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Nick followed her hand and realized what he had overlooked in his initial sweep. Lying face down just a few feet behind the Mistress was a younger man wearing gray robes, typical of a teaching assistant. A muted light spear extended from his back, pinning him to the floor.
"My apprentice," Siona whispered, the bitterness in her voice overwhelming the pain. "We fought back the tide together, and when the demon finally fell, I dropped my guard, and he drove a poisoned dagger through my spine. Apparently, the Archmage promised him my seat.”
Nick pressed his lips together, unable to think of anything to improve the situation.
“Oh, don’t look like that. I had the last laugh, at least. He was never talented enough to reach Prestige, much less attain a seat within the Tower.”
Inclining his head to show he appreciated the revenge, he moved the discussion along. As much as he wanted to stay with the woman for her last monts, he was short on ti. “What can you tell
about who awaits
on the way to the ward room?”
"A few traitors," she said with a rattling breath. “But mostly demons. There is a strong one guarding the wardroom, holding the door, so be wary.”
It was interesting, in a detached way, to notice that she didn’t even try to talk him out of going. He could see respect in her eyes, even as her light dimd. She understands it is my duty, just as it was hers, to fight to the end.
Unfortunately, he didn’t get the chance to reassure her that he wasn’t charging in recklessly. The fractal patterns on her robes slowed, freezing into a dull, static grey as the life finally left her eyes, and Mistress Siona Angel, one of the most talented mages in the Tower, slumped sideways.
Nick closed her eyes and muttered a prayer for her soul, hoping its next journey would be a good one. When he stood up, his grip tightened on his staff, and any lingering hesitation he had about doing whatever was needed to retake the Tower disappeared.
Leaving the chamber, he followed the demonic power trails deeper into the sublevels, instinctively sensing the echoes of the Lesser Demon.
He faced resistance several tis. The first was a pack of abyssal hounds led by a teaching assistant. Seeing a human and demons working together was unexpected, given how wrong they seed to anyone with magical senses, but it was too late to bother asking why.
Nick didn't announce himself, stepping around a column to release a mighty [Windburst] that pinned the hounds to the floor, followed instantly by a [Bolt of Wrath] that punched straight through the traitor mage's hasty shield, and then his chest.
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION
You have defeated [Abyssal Hound - Lv. 49]
You have defeated [Abyssal Hound - Lv. 51]
…
..
.
312.200 Exp
Ignoring the dying man’s whimpers, he moved away from the scene without looting the bodies. His main goal was to reach the wardroom as quickly as possible while conserving the Shard’s power.
The second ti, he was almost caught off guard. Three mages were still alive, fighting against a horde of bat demons, and he joined them in repelling the attack, channeling only as much of the World’s power as absolutely necessary to make his attacks land, wanting to stay sharp for what was about to happen.
When one of the mages turned on him as soon as the threat was gone, he had to yank himself away from the raging fireball that passed where he had just been.
Fortunately, the other two took offense at their fellow’s actions and tead up against him, which quickly led to his defeat.
“What the hell was that?” one of them asked the downed man, who simply giggled to himself despite the heavy bruising covering his face where a rock bullet had struck him.
“Don’t bother,” Nick said, moving past them. “He might not even be an actual traitor affiliated with Hone. That guy’s just a psychopath.”
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION
You have participated in the defeat of [Hell Bats - Lv. 41-48] x17
You have participated in the defeat of [Umar, Farseer - Lv. 62]
212,300 Exp
He left them behind, too focused on the real danger to bother questioning the reasoning of a madman.
Once he descended to the next floor, he knew he had finally reached the right place. The staircase led to a corridor that eventually opened into the grand antechamber of the wardroom, whose massive adamantine doors, built to withstand a siege, were warped and lted outward.
The guard was standing in the center of the antechamber, waiting for him.
Nick had no trouble recognizing it as a Lesser Demon, given the sheer amount of power it radiated effortlessly, but it looked nothing like the brute Siona had slain.
This abomination was humanoid and seven feet tall, with skin that looked like polished obsidian, and wore elegant, flowing silks that appeared woven from shadows. Two crimson horns arched back from its brow, framing a face of haunting, symtrical beauty.
Its eyes were burning pits of violet fire, with no sign of humanity inside them. Its mind was completely alien, and Nick knew anything it said couldn’t be trusted.
"I knew I felt the World gathering around soone," the Lesser Demon said. Its voice was smooth, lodic, and perfectly accented, and had this been a different context, he would have said it had a talent for narration. “Such a heavy-handed approach. It must be really desperate to choose a child as its champion.”
Nick didn’t bother bantering and focused on studying the demon. Its re presence was actively warping the reality of the antechamber, and he knew regular spells would simply fail to form, even in his hands. This was a Prestige-tier abomination, fully manifested and completely in control of its power.
Nominally, this was a battle he simply couldn’t win. There was no trick for him to use to turn its power against itself as he had done in the Sunlands. Yet he had prepared for this, and if he wanted his one shot at victory to succeed, he needed to follow his plan.
Launching himself forward, Nick tapped his staff against the stone to quickly inscribe a series of [Emakimonos] written in Irvinic. To conceal them, he sent three invisible blades of compressed wind toward the demon's neck, heart, and knees, hoping to at least make it flinch.
The space in front of the demon folded, and as the wind blades struck the spatial crease, they were instantly redirected, carving deep gouges into the ceiling.
The fact that such low-level magic had damaged the Tower’s structure told him everything he needed to know about the damage the hellish corruption was causing.
“So crude," the demon smiled and disappeared. Nick’s instincts went on high alert. He threw himself sideways, activating [Crest of the Thunderbird] just as a hand wrapped in black flas sliced through the space where his head had been. The heat alone caused ripples across his golden shield, but its divine power made the demon flinch back, clearly not expecting such strength from a mage.
Nick spun around, unleashing a point-blank [Spirit Crunch].
The invisible concussive wave hit the demon squarely in the chest. A typical mage would have been thrown across the room, with ruptured organs and a damaged soul, if they weren’t killed by the shock on the spot. But the Lesser Demon only slid back two feet, its shadow-silks rippling.
“I see that you’ve learned so soul magic," the demon purred, its eyes flaring. "Allow
to show you how much further you still have to go.”
With a sweep of its arm, five streaks of black fire shot out from its fingertips. Instantly, Nick knew these were different. He could sense extrely intense emotions emanating from them, and even as he activated [True Flight] to boost his mobility and dodge, they arched to continue tracking him.
The black fire chased him, lting the stone wherever it touched. Even when Nick summoned a wall of water to block it, the abyssal flas devoured it, turning it into boiling, toxic steam, all while the demon laughed in the background.
Damn it, I might have to let it hit .
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