The sphere's surface convulsed, red light bleeding through the cracks like molten blood. The heartbeat quickened — no longer steady, but frantic, almost angry.
Lucas took a step forward, sword raised. "We end this now—"
The floor buckled violently beneath them. A wave of force rippled outward, hurling Seris and Martha to the ground. The walls twisted, bending inward as if the chamber itself was trying to crush them.
From the shadows above, familiar shapes began to drop — the same humanoid guardians they had slain on the upper floors, their bodies reformed, their glassy eyes now glowing with an even fiercer red.
---
Seris scrambled to her feet, firing a bolt into one's chest. The creature didn't even flinch.
"They're stronger," she cursed.
"Not just stronger," Martha gasped, clutching her staff. "It's using the tower to rebuild them instantly."
Lucas met the first guardian head-on, blade clashing against its jagged sword. Chaos energy flared, but the guardian's wounds sealed almost as fast as he inflicted them.
---
The sphere pulsed again — and suddenly, the world shifted. The chamber elongated into a distorted corridor, the walls stretching away into impossible geometry.
Seris staggered, her sense of direction spinning. "What— where did the heart go?!"
"It's in our heads," Lucas growled. "It's—"
His words cut off as a familiar voice echoed around him.
A voice he hadn't heard in years.
"Lucas… you failed us."
He froze. It was his old commander, face bloodied, standing in the middle of the warped hall. Behind him lay the corpses of his fallen squad, staring with hollow eyes.
---
Seris wasn't faring better. Before her stood her younger brother, pale and sickly, exactly as he'd been the day she left home.
"You never came back," he whispered. "You saved strangers… but not me."
Her crossbow wavered. "You're not real…"
But her hands shook anyway.
---
Martha clenched her eyes shut, chanting a warding spell, but even she felt it — the oppressive weight of a thousand accusing voices, all drawn from the corners of her past.
The tower wasn't just attacking their bodies. It was digging into their souls.
---
Lucas forced himself to move, cutting through the illusionary commander. The image dissolved into shards of red glass, but the emotional sting lingered.
"Don't believe anything you see!" he shouted. "It's all—"
A guardian slammed into him from the side, sending him skidding across the warped floor. His sword clattered away.
---
The sphere's voice roared inside their skulls — no language, just raw fury. The heartbeat pounded faster, and tendrils erupted from the floor, lashing toward them.
Seris shot one clean through, but it simply reformed, surging again. Martha's wards flared brightly, burning away another tendril before it could wrap around her leg.
Lucas scrambled for his sword, but another hallucination flared before his eyes — this time, his own reflection, smirking.
"You think you can kill me?" it said. "I am you."
---
"Enough!" Lucas roared, channeling every ounce of chaos energy into his blade. The hallucination shattered, and for a brief second, the warped corridor snapped back into the real chamber.
The sphere shuddered violently, cracks widening. Liquid light dripped from them, sizzling against the floor.
---
"Now!" Martha yelled. She slammed her staff into the ground, sending a shockwave toward the sphere. Seris fired bolt after bolt into the exposed cracks, each shot sinking deeper.
Lucas charged, his sword a blur. With a final leap, he drove it straight into the largest fracture.
The sphere let out a sound like the sky itself breaking — a deep, endless scream that shook the chamber. Tendrils thrashed wildly, smashing against walls and floor.
---
The heartbeat faltered. Once. Twice. Then it stopped.
The red light faded from the sphere… and from every crack and wall of the tower.
For a long moment, there was only silence.
Then the entire structure began to collapse.