Free Web NovelChapter 109: Inside The Tower
He didn’t panic... Instead he scanned the immediate environment, calculating trajectories, mass, and velocity.
Running parallel to them on the right flank, ignoring the Caravan entirely as it desperately charged toward the rift, was a Corrupted Glacier Behemoth.
It was an absolute titan of a monster, resembling a massive, four-legged gorilla made entirely of solid, dark blue glacier ice. It easily weighed twenty tons.
Klaus saw his shield.
"Spirit!" Klaus roared, his voice booming with Soul Mana. "Hit the Behemoth on the right! Maximum output! Twice!"
Hovering weakly near the roof with its blue light dim and flickering, the Lightning Spirit obeyed the absolute command.
It funneled the very last dregs of its elemental core into a single, desperate attack.
The Spirit shot across the gap.
ZZZAP!
A massive blinding bolt of lightning struck the Glacier Behemoth directly in the side of its massive head.
The Titan roared in pain with its momentum staggering but its thick ice armor absorbed most of the blow.
KRA-KOOM!
The Spirit fired a second, consecutive bolt, burying the electricity into the exact same scorch mark on the Behemoth’s skull.
The double impact overloaded the monster’s nervous system. The Behemoth let out a garbled roar.
Its massive front legs locked up, paralyzed by the high-voltage shock, and its colossal body began to tip sideways, sliding helplessly across the frozen ground directly into the path of the Snow Caravan.
"Brace for impact!" Klaus screamed.
He didn’t hit the brakes. He yanked the right steering lever violently backward while shoving the left lever forward.
The two armored Dire-Bears let out a screeching wail as they were forced to turn sharply on the slick ice.
The heavy, spiked treads of the Caravan lost traction. The massive vehicle broke into a violent, uncontrolled drift, skidding sideways across the battlefield.
Klaus manipulated the skid, aiming the heavy steel flank of the passenger cabin directly at the massive sliding body of the paralyzed Behemoth.
CRASH!!!
The collision was monumental.
The reinforced steel side of the Snow Caravan slammed broadside into the twenty-ton body of the Glacier Behemoth.
The impact shattered the reinforced glass on Mirela’s side of the cabin, showering her in safety shards.
The heavy ironwood hull groaned as thick cracks webbing across the ceiling panels.
The sheer mass of the Behemoth arrested the Caravan’s forward momentum entirely. They came to a dead, jarring halt, perfectly shielded behind the towering wall of the monster’s body.
A split second later, the sky tore open.
VWOOOM! The purple beam of annihilation descended.
It didn’t hit the Snow Caravan.
The targeting reticle had tracked their previous forward velocity... Because Klaus had forced the violent drift and halted their momentum by ramming the Behemoth, the beam landed exactly where the carriage would have been.
The beam struck the paralyzed Glacier Behemoth directly in the center of its massive back.
The Titan didn’t even have time to scream. The twenty-ton monster was instantly, cleanly vaporized.
Its dense ice armor, its corrupted flesh, and its massive bones were erased from existence, turning into a blinding cloud of subatomic ash but the erasure created a massive vacuum in the atmosphere.
As the air rushed in to fill the sudden, violent void left by the vaporized Behemoth, it triggered a massive concussive shockwave of displaced spatial pressure.
The shockwave slammed into the side of the halted Snow Caravan like the hand of a furious god.
BANG!
The massive, heavily armored vehicle was literally blown off the ground. The Caravan was launched sideways through the air, completely clearing the bottleneck of thrashing monsters blocking the path.
Inside the cabin, the world turned upside down.
"Aaaaaah!" Mirela screamed, her hands flying off the dashboard as zero gravity took hold.
Klaus didn’t let go of the steering levers.
He gritted his teeth with his arms screaming in agony as he held on, pouring the absolute last reserves of his Soul Mana into the psychic matrix, forcing the Dire-Bears to remain rigid as they flew through the air.
The Caravan soared over the heads of the panicking horde, directly toward the rapidly closing spatial rift.
The jagged edges of the purple barrier were stitching together incredibly fast.
The opening, which had been fifty yards wide just a minute ago, was now less than thirty feet across, and shrinking rapidly.
They were running out of time...
The heavy vehicle began to fall, gravity reclaiming its hold.
CRASH!
The spiked treads slammed violently onto the frozen ground, less than twenty yards from the closing threshold. The suspension completely bottomed out with the steel undercarriage sparking wildly as it scraped against the ice.
One of the Dire-Bears finally gave out. Its massive heart burst under the strain of Klaus’s magic and the physical exertion.
It collapsed mid-stride, becoming dead weight.
The Caravan violently lurched, its speed dropping drastically as the surviving bear dragged its dead partner.
"No! Come on!" Klaus roared.
He didn’t rely on the beasts anymore.
Klaus abandoned the steering levers. He slammed his left foot against the dashboard, placed his right hand against the shattered windshield frame, and channeled every single drop of elemental wind magic he possessed into his palm and boot.
[Wind Magic: Piercing Gale - Maximum Output!]
BOOM!
Klaus essentially detonated a bomb inside the driver’s cabin. The massive, continuous blast of wind magic shot out the back of the shattered cabin, acting as a crude, incredibly violent thruster.
The sheer concussive force propelled the heavy Caravan forward, sliding the vehicle across the slick ice like a hockey puck.
The spatial rift was closing.
Ten feet... Five feet... The thick cords of purple energy were knitting together, glowing with lethal intensity.
"Get down!" Klaus yelled, grabbing Mirela by the back of her uniform and shoving her forcefully beneath the dashboard.
Klaus ducked his own head as the Caravan hit the threshold.
ZWOOP!
The sound was indescribable... It wasn’t just a crash but rather it was the sound of reality snapping shut.
The Snow Caravan blasted through the gap.
A fraction of a millisecond later, the spatial barrier slammed completely shut right behind them.
The thick, purple energy sealed tight, re-establishing the impenetrable dome around the Endless Tower.
The closure was absolute.
Dozens of corrupted monsters that had been running directly behind the Caravan were caught perfectly in the threshold. The barrier didn’t push them back. It simply bisected them.
The back half of the monsters remained in the chaotic stampede, while the front halves, cleanly severed at the cellular level, tumbled out of the rift and rolled across the ground, spilling perfectly bisected organs onto the floor.
The back bumper of the Snow Caravan, including a large chunk of the rear cargo hold and the spare spiked treads, was cleanly sliced off by the closing rift, vanishing into the spatial void.
The ruined, battered vehicle skidded forward for another fifty yards, the metal screeching loudly against the ground, before finally, mercifully, grinding to a complete halt and then... there was silence.
It was an abrupt silence.
The deafening apocalyptic roar of the monster stampede was gone, entirely muffled by the spatial barrier behind them.
The violent howling winds of the blizzard had vanished and the sickening hum of the purple annihilation beams was no more.
Klaus remained hunched over the steering wheel with his chest heaving as he took in ragged, desperate gasps of air.
His arms were shaking uncontrollably from mana exhaustion and the psychic backlash from the dead Dire-Bear pounded against his temples like a hammer.
He slowly raised his head, looking out through the shattered, jagged remains of the front windshield.
They weren’t in the Haunted Winterlands anymore...
There was no snow... There was no ice... There were no frozen skeletal trees...
The ground beneath the ruined Caravan’s treads was perfectly smooth polished black obsidian. It stretched out like a massive dark mirror reflecting the dim light and looming directly in front of them, so massive that it blotted out the entire sky, was the base of the Endless Tower.
Up close, the structure was incomprehensibly colossal. The black stone walls were smooth, completely devoid of windows, doors, or architectural features, save for a massive, monolithic staircase leading up to a sealed entrance.
They had done it... They had broken the labyrinth!
Klaus slowly turned his head, looking down under the dashboard.
Mirela was curled into a tight ball with her hands covering her ears. She was trembling, but she was entirely unhurt. The Ring of the Winter Lord still glowed faintly on her finger.
"Mirela," Klaus croaked and the woman slowly uncurled, peeking up at him with wide, tear-filled eyes.
Klaus leaned back against the ruined leather seat.
He looked out at the dead silent black ground, and a genuine smirk crossed his lips.
"We’re here," Klaus said quietly. "We actually made it."
...
The silence was absolute.
For seven uninterrupted days, Klaus’s ears had been assaulted by the deafening, apocalyptic roar of the Haunted Winterlands.
The shrieking winds, the concussive blasts of the Lightning Spirit, the frantic screams of dying monsters, and the agonizing groans of the Snow Caravan’s hull had formed a continuous, maddening symphony of survival.
But here, standing on the other side of the spatial rift, there was nothing.
No wind... No snow... No sound... The oppressive violent world they had just escaped had been entirely muted the exact millisecond the purple barrier snapped shut behind them...
Klaus remained slumped in the ruined driver’s seat of the Snow Caravan with his chest heaving as he took in desperate gasps of air.
The psychic backlash from the dead Armored Dire-Bear was a dull, throbbing ache behind his eyes, but he ignored it.
He slowly reached up and pushed the shattered remains of the reinforced windshield outward.
The glass tinkled softly as it fell, the sound incredibly loud in the dead quiet of the sanctuary.
Klaus stepped out of the ruined cabin. His dark combat boots touched the ground, and he immediately noticed the difference.
He wasn’t standing on ice or snow. The ground beneath the Caravan’s surviving spiked treads was made of perfectly smooth polished black obsidian.
It stretched outward in every direction like a massive, dark mirror, reflecting the dim, sickly purple light radiating from the domed spatial barrier high above them.
"Master..." Mirela whispered, her voice trembling as she carefully climbed out of the passenger side, clutching her moon-crystal staff.
Klaus didn’t answer as he was staring upward.
Looming directly in front of them, so massive that it defied all architectural logic and mortal comprehension, was the base of the Endless Tower.
The structure was a colossal monolith of seamless black stone. There were no windows, no parapets, and no visible masonry joints.
It looked as though it had been carved from a single, impossibly large mountain of obsidian. It pierced straight through the atmosphere, disappearing into the dark heavens above.
Just standing near it made the hairs on Klaus’s arms stand on end.
The air here didn’t carry the physical biting cold of the Winterlands... It felt different though he couldn’t say.
Klaus took a step forward, his eyes scanning the base of the tower.
A few hundred yards away, resting silently on the black glass-like floor, was a shape.
"Stay close," Klaus ordered Mirela, his hand resting instinctively on the hilt of his iron sword.
They walked across the obsidian ground, their footsteps echoing softly in the vast emptiness. As they approached the shape and the details became clear.
It was a carriage.
It wasn’t built for combat like the Snow Caravan, but it was heavily enchanted, constructed from rare, pale wood that had long since rotted and decayed.
Faded, peeling gold leaf lined the edges of the doors. Emblazoned on the side of the ruined vehicle was a distinct, intricate black insignia... a raven perched on a crescent moon.
Klaus recognized it instantly. It was the exact same insignia sketched onto the cover of the blood-stained journal he had been reading for the past week.
"The Mage," Klaus murmured.
He walked past the rotted carriage, following a trail of faded, centuries-old scorch marks and dropped magical artifacts scattered across the black stone.
The trail led directly to the base of the Endless Tower, stopping right in front of a massive monolithic staircase that led up to a towering set of sealed, dark iron doors.
Resting on the very ground, mere inches away from the first stone step was a skeleton.
The bones were bleached stark white by time. They were wrapped in the tattered, moth-eaten remains of incredibly expensive, high-tier Mage robes.
One bony, skeletal hand was stretched forward with its fingertips resting agonizingly close to the edge of the bottom stair.
Klaus stared down at the corpse.
This was the man who had written the journal... This was the legendary, high-tier Capital Mage who had sacrificed three hundred years of his magically extended life, spent fortunes, and braved the most dangerous death zone on the continent just to reach this specific location.
He had beaten the spatial maze! He had survived the purple beams of annihilation! He had crossed the threshold!
And then, he had collapsed right here, dying of exhaustion, starvation, or magical depletion, just one single inch away from his lifelong goal.
Right now, staring at the ultimate failure of a three-hundred-year journey... Klaus could only feel a deep profound sense of solemnity.
"Three centuries," Klaus whispered to himself. "And you died at the front door."
"Master..."
Klaus blinked, pulled from his thoughts by a tiny, trembling voice.
He turned his head. Chibi Valeria had materialized on his shoulder but the woman wasn’t cheering.
She wasn’t doing backflips, and she wasn’t asking for blood.
Valeria was hugging her tiny knees to her chest as her crimson eyes went wide with genuine terror.
She was visibly shivering, looking up at the massive dark iron doors at the top of the stairs.
"Master, please be careful..." Valeria whispered with her voice lacking all its usual bravado. "I can feel it. The energy bleeding through those doors... it is overwhelmingly dark. There is a Shinigami inside. A true Death God."
Klaus’s hand tightened around the hilt of his sword.
A Shinigami...
The lore of the world placed them as high-tier mythical beings, entities that governed the flow of souls and commanded the absolute boundaries of life and death and it was what he needed right now.
"We didn’t come all this way to turn back," Klaus said. He stepped over the skeleton of the fallen Mage and stood at the base of the monolithic stairs.
"Mirela, stay behind me. Don’t cast anything unless I tell you to," Klaus instructed.
"Y-yes, Master," the goat-eared woman nodded, gripping her moon-crystal staff so tightly her knuckles turned white.
Klaus took a deep breath. He raised his dark combat boot and planted it firmly onto the first black stone step.
VWOOSH!
The reaction was instantaneous and violent. Klaus didn’t trigger a physical trap.
No arrows fired, no spikes shot from the walls.
Instead, Klaus felt a sudden, agonizingly sharp pull directly in the center of his chest. It felt like a massive invisible fishhook had been driven into his heart and yanked backward.
A thick, brilliant stream of pure, white Soul Mana was violently siphoned out of his body, flowing directly into the black stone of the stairs.
"Gah!" Klaus grunted, dropping to one knee as the sudden magical drain sapped his physical strength.
"Master!" Mirela cried out, rushing forward to grab his shoulder.
"I’m fine!" Klaus gasped, holding up a hand to stop her.
He looked down. The pure white Soul Mana he had bled into the stone was traveling rapidly. It flowed like liquid light through deep, hidden grooves carved into the stairs, traveling upward in a complex, sprawling network of ancient runes.
The runes ignited one by one, tracing a path all the way up to the massive dark iron doors.
The Endless Tower wasn’t locked with a physical key.
It was locked with a genetic, spiritual failsafe. It required the specific, unmistakable mana signature of the Soul King to open.
The Mage had died at the bottom of the stairs because, even if he had possessed the strength to climb them, the doors would have never opened for him.
RUUUMBLE!
The ground beneath their feet began to shake. The sound of massive gears grinding against stone echoed through the dead silence of the sanctuary.
Thick clouds of centuries-old dust fell from the archway as the colossal dark iron doors slowly, agonizingly parted down the middle.
They scraped against the obsidian floor, opening inward to reveal a pitch-black, yawning void.
Klaus stood up with his legs shaking slightly from the sudden mana drain as he drew his sword.
"Let’s go," Klaus ordered.
They walked up the stairs, leaving the 300-year-old skeleton behind, and stepped across the threshold into the Endless Tower.
The exact second they crossed the boundary, the darkness shattered.
FWOOSH! FWOOSH! FWOOSH!
Massive pillars of pale, ghostly blue fire ignited simultaneously along the walls, illuminating the interior of the ground floor.
Klaus lowered his arm, his eyes adjusting to the sudden light.
The room was vast. It was a sprawling cavernous hall made entirely of polished black stone, supported by towering obsidian pillars that stretched up into the unseen ceiling.
The architecture was terrifyingly grand, designed to make anyone standing inside feel like a meaningless, insignificant speck of dust but Klaus didn’t care about the architecture.
His eyes were drawn instantly to the dead center of the room. freewёbnoνel.com
Resting in the middle of the vast floor was a massive, raised circular altar and chained directly to the center of the altar was a woman.
Klaus slowly walked forward, his boots clicking against the stone. Mirela stayed right on his heels, her breath hitching in her throat at the sight.
As they got closer, the horrific details of the scene became clear.
The woman chained to the altar was an Elf.
She possessed the long, elegant, pointed ears of the forest-dwelling race, but she lacked any of their natural vitality.
She was incredibly terrifyingly emaciated.
Her skin was as pale as bleached bone, pulled so tightly over her frame that her ribs and collarbones jutted out sharply. Her long hair, once a vibrant silver, was now dull and matted, spilling across the dark stone.
She was bound by four massive, glowing, ethereal chains... one wrapping around each of her wrists and ankles.
The chains weren’t made of iron. They were made of a vile, pulsing purple spatial energy. Where the ethereal chains touched her pale skin, the flesh was continuously sizzling and burning, leaving deep, blackened scorch marks.
She had been chained here for an eternity, slowly burning alive...
Klaus stopped at the base of the altar as he stared at the broken, starved, dying creature.
The Elf woman’s chest barely rose and fell. She looked like a corpse but as Klaus’s boots scuffed against the stone, she weakly turned her head.
Her eyes fluttered open and they were a brilliant, striking shade of deep amethyst purple.
They were the eyes of a Shinigami...
She looked down at the dark-haired, bruised young man standing before her. A weak, trembling, incredibly sad smile touched her cracked, dry lips.
She let out a wet, rattling cough, a small trickle of dark blood spilling down her chin.
"Welcome Master..." the Elf woman whispered with her voice incredibly weak yet echoing with a strange melody. "I’m glad I lived to see you reincarnate."
Klaus froze.
