The mountain loomed like a buried god's spine—jagged, blackened, breathing decay. The Tower of Withering, once a citadel of forgotten kings, now served as a bastion of the Sovereign's cultists. It was said to bleed rot from its stone, and its shadow wilted the land.
Kael stood before it, Ashrend humming with bloodlust.
Behind him, the party stood battle-worn but resolved. The Dreadmarch was behind them, but the horrors ahead were built for cruelty.
"We're being watched," Lyra muttered, tightening her grip on her staff.
"Let them watch," Kael said. "We've come to burn the rot out of this tower."
Garros adjusted his gauntlet, smirking. "They'll wish they never opened the gates."
"Assuming they let us get that far," Nyra added, eyes narrowed toward the peak.
They breached the outer ward under cover of dusk.
Cultists clad in flayed robes, their skin stitched with runes, emerged chanting blasphemies to greet them. Kael moved without hesitation—his blade cleaved the first line before they even finished their incantations.
"Ashrend—Crimson Arc!"
The sword erupted in a wide slash of molten red energy that tore through the cultists like paper. Limbs flew. Screams echoed. The tower reacted—its bricks wept black ichor, and torches flared green.
Inside, traps sprung—bone-scythes, screaming doors, and illusions that tried to fracture the mind.
But Kael pressed on.
He fought not just with strength, but presence.
Each room became a canvas of fury.
In the sixth chamber, they encountered a sentinel—twisted iron flesh, nearly three meters tall. Its eyes bled cinders, and it bore a whip made from a stitched spinal cord.
Kael stepped forward.
"Mine."
The clash was brutal—Kael ducked under sweeping coils, lunged forward with Obsidian Rend, a sword art that shattered the sentinel's right leg. Sparks screamed from its chest as Kael delivered the final blow:
"Black Vein Sever!"
Ashrend pulsed with shadowed fire as it drove through the abomination's core, rupturing the binding soul within.
The beast screamed and collapsed.
Kael didn't flinch.
"This tower falls tonight."
On the top floor, they found the High Warden of Withering—a woman wrapped in veils of eyes and tongues. Her voice sang in seven tones, each one older than time.
"You've come to fall, Reaper."
"No," Kael answered. "I've come to end you."
The battle was maddening. Illusions danced, warping time, fracturing their senses. Kael was dragged through visions—his mother's burning corpse, the fall of Rivenhart, Kaelen's lifeless hand.
But Ashrend lit the path through madness.
Kael drove forward through the illusions, roaring:
"Soul Severance!"
His blade shimmered crimson-black, cutting through the veils.
One strike.
Two.
And then, the third—right through her heart.
The Warden gasped, mouth full of eyes, and fell screaming.
The tower began to collapse, shaking from its core.
As Kael and his companions emerged, fire and black magic burst from the top floors, spiraling into the sky like the tower's dying breath.
"That's two bastions down," Nyra said, spitting blood.
"And many more to come," Lyra added grimly.
Kael looked up at the fading light above.
The Sovereign would see this fire. Would feel the sting of loss. Would know—
The Reaper had come.
"Let's move," Kael said. "There's no rest until the Sovereign bleeds."