From the perspective of Alessio Leone
Though he would never admit it out loud, Alessio was captivated.
Before his eyes stood the woman who, in her past life, had earned the title Goddess of War.
A living legend.
And now, before him, he watched her in action.
She moved as any skilled warrior should.
But there was a crucial difference — Sith made it look easy.
And that was the point.
It wasn't easy. Not in the slightest.
The monsters of the Black Tower, no matter how foolish they seemed when they fell beneath her blade, weren't stupid.
In fact, they were far more intelligent than any creature found in other games.
They had reflexes.
They had instincts.
They tried to survive.
If not for abilities like Beastly Roar or other mentally disruptive attacks, some of these creatures might even have tried to flee from a losing fight.
These undead were an exception, of course — they would never flee, but that didn't mean they wouldn't try to survive. Alessio could easily tell the difference between a weak enemy and one that only seemed weak because someone skilled had reduced it to that state.
And that was what he saw before him.
It wasn't just about sneaking into a blind spot and stabbing a skull — as a casual observer might think while watching Sith in action.
There was much more to it.
You had to control the sound of your own movements so the enemy wouldn't sense you.
You had to strike at the exact moment — taking advantage not just of a single monster's blind spot, but of the distractions around it.
You had to never hesitate. Ever.
And above all, you needed the physical conditioning to move fast enough for your attack to be lethal.
None of that was simple.
None of that was common.
In the real world, where peace had reigned for decades, such skills were exceedingly rare to find in a single person.
And since the Black Tower was, in essence, a mirror of that same world — just with a few interesting rules added — the same truth applied here.
And yet, there she was.
Alessio had found someone capable of such feats, both inside and outside the Tower's logic.
And that was why he was so enthralled.
Finishing off the two remaining undead was simple.
Sith, with her usual precision, delivered two swift strikes. The first severed the creature's arm; the second cut deep across its torso. That was all it took to incapacitate it — her blade glowing blue with every swift motion.
Standing beside her, I tightened my grip on the axe and waited for an opening. My strike came down in a perfect arc, crushing the skull of the other one with a dry crack — the undead's head exploding into fragments of bone and dark pus.
The hall fell silent.
Or at least, it should have.
But since we were dealing with undead, there was still work to do.
The head Sith had severed was still crawling across the floor toward her, using its own thick, rotting tongue for movement — sliding like a revolting worm in her direction.
Meanwhile, the third one — the one that had lost an arm and part of its torso — was rising again, hollow eyes fixed on me. It limped grotesquely, each step cracking bone and brittle flesh, yet it still advanced, driven by instinct — and more importantly, by the lingering effect of the Beastly Roar still controlling it.
Sith glanced at me.
Her expression was clear: "How the hell do you kill these things?"
I replied immediately, my deep voice echoing through the hall:
— Destroy the heads.
Undead were a special kind of creature within the Black Tower.
They felt no fear.
They had no reason.
They were mere tools, obeying the will of their creators.
And their variety was cruel — zombies, skeletons, necrotic carcasses animated by forbidden arts. Unfortunately, I knew the list all too well.
But they all shared the same weakness:
the head.
For a zombie, you had to pierce the brain.
For a skeleton, you had to shatter the skull.
And so it went, across every variant. Once the head was destroyed, the rest would not follow.
Without that, they would keep fighting — legless, armless, crawling until their last command was fulfilled.
I stepped forward and, with a clean swing, split the crippled one's skull in two. The blade sank through the forehead and out the base of the cranium, leaving only silence and dust behind. Sith, without hesitation, stomped on the crawling head, then brought her sword down to reduce what remained to nothing.
Only then did the room fall silent.
Truly silent.
I drew a deep breath, but before I could speak, Sith approached.
— All right — she said, with a smile somewhere between irony and seriousness — you're officially the team's front line.
I didn't respond directly.
There was no need.
It was only natural that I'd be the front line.
All I did was return something that could only be described as a restrained smile.
Then I took a closer look at our surroundings.
Even in that macabre chamber — with its four pits of thick red liquid, the statue of an old man watching us in silence, and the metallic scent filling every breath — my mind was focused elsewhere.
What I sought wasn't there.
I knew that much.
So only one option remained.
And that option was to move forward.
Sith stood beside me, her eyes fixed on the next door, as serious as I was. Perhaps she too was wondering what horrors awaited us beyond that green half-moon. After all, the first door we had opened had already led to a nightmare laboratory.
I adjusted the shield against my arm, felt the comforting weight of the axe in my hand, and took the first step.
It was too late to turn back.
And too early to give up.
I approached the great door with my usual caution.
The weight of the shield was still firm against my arm, my right hand gripping the axe handle, fingers slick with the cold sweat that gathered beneath the glove.
I placed my free hand on the handle.
The metal was icy, as if it had been dipped in frozen water, and the chill ran down my spine in an involuntary shiver.
Sith stood by me, completely silent. Her gaze was fixed on the wood, her sword relaxed yet ready — as if already calculating her immediate reaction should anything emerge from the other side.
Slowly, I turned the handle.
The mechanism yielded effortlessly, as though the door had simply been waiting for my decision to open.
I pushed.
The two panels slid open smoothly, without the slightest sound — a disturbing contrast to the gravity of what they might reveal.
And then, finally, what lay beyond came into view.
For an instant, my whole body went rigid, eyes locked on the darkness dissolving ahead. I was prepared for the worst — to face something even more grotesque than horrific laboratories, necromantic libraries, or undead guards.
I was ready to be swallowed by another nightmare.
But that wasn't what happened.
Thankfully, when the great door opened before us, I didn't find what I feared.
I found exactly what I had come to seek.
The air left my lungs in a long, relieved sigh that echoed through the newly revealed hall.
A breath of relief I couldn't hold back.