Chapter 143 – Towers (3)
(Erynd)
The summons sat in my desk like a polite threat.
One week.
One week until the Imperial Conclave, until every ducal crown and their pet monsters gathered in the capital to smile with their teeth and measure each other's throats with their eyes. One week until I had to pretend I enjoyed wine, conversation, and the kind of flirtation that came wrapped in contracts.
In theory, I had leverage. Titles. A growing machine underground. A "family" that was equal parts blessing and siege weapon.
In practice, I had a letter that said mandatory, and a spine that remembered what I'd done to Old Gods.
I slid the scroll beneath the desk blotter and pressed my palm over it like that would make it less real.
It didn't.
Nyxa, of course, was in my office. Because Nyxa was always in my office lately, as if my chair and my lap had been annexed under Elder Root law.
She was draped sideways over the armrest like a bored noble's cat, veil pushed back, bare feet propped on the wood, poking at a stack of reports as if they were personally offensive.
"Paper hates you," she informed me without looking up.
"Paper hates everyone," I said. "It's equal-opportunity suffering."
She hummed, unconvinced, and flicked a page so it fluttered. "Why are there numbers."
"Because civilization is a fragile illusion built on grain and counting."
"Civilization is stupid," she decided.
"Yes," I said again, because agreeing with Nyxa was often the safest way to keep the day from becoming an incident log.
She watched me for a moment, then tilted her head, the way she did when she was listening to something that wasn't in the room.
"You're thinking about a cage," she said.
"I'm thinking about a hall full of dukes and liars," I corrected.
"Same," she replied.
I ignored the shiver that went up my spine at how easily she'd said it, like she'd been in that hall before. Like she'd watched it happen in a timeline I didn't remember.
I tapped the blotter once. "A week is enough time to get sharper."
Nyxa's eyes narrowed. "Sharper how."
"Spells."
Her expression soured with immediate, personal distaste, as if the concept of "learning" was an insult. "You already have spells."
"I have some," I said. "Not enough."
Not enough for the Conclave. Not enough for whatever was brewing behind the Tower. Not enough for the kind of enemies that didn't bleed until you convinced reality they should.
Right now my arsenal was a collection of specific knives.
Vector. A clean, brutal tool. It didn't win by force, it won by denial. It shoved against a caster's intent, disturbed the lattice of a spell as it formed. Make the weave sloppy, make the output weak. Interrupt the cadence, and a confident mage became a stuttering amateur.
And if their core was unstable, if they were forcing output beyond their structure, Vector could do worse than interrupt.
It could turn their own power into an internal detonation.
It was not a gentle spell. It was a spell for stopping tantrums that came with mana signatures.
Vera Flamma. My own creation, intricate to the point of cruelty. It didn't simply throw fire, it fed on oxygen and mana, eating the room's breath if I let it. If I cast it at full complexity, it wasn't just flame. It was the feeling of your lungs forgetting how to work.
Useful.
Also… situational.
PROMETHEAN INFERNO was the opposite kind of situational. It wasn't a normal spell at all, not truly. It was geometry and light, a magnification principle weaponized into murder. I couldn't cast it in a cave, or beneath storm cloud, or under a ceiling of rotting divinity. Without the sun, it was a prayer shouted into an empty room.
That was why Nazyen had lived as long as she did.
No sun. No clean air. No space.
Just obscene biology and the pressure of godhood trying to smother me.
And then there was Umbra Time.
A spell that was less "magic" and more "consent to self-destruction."
It could give me the mental boost, the acceleration, the razor clarity, but only under unique conditions, and always at a cost. It turned my mind into a sprinting animal. It made time feel like it was trudging through tar while I moved through it like a blade.
And when it ended, I paid.
Fainting. Migraine. The feeling that my skull was a bell someone had struck for fun.
Still… it had saved me before.
But four spells and a week's deadline was the kind of math that got people killed.
I needed more.
I needed the Tower's library.
And I needed to know what Natharion had been hiding behind that polite smile and those layered wards, because the last time I'd been there, the word Interface had tasted like future regret.
I also, in a quieter corner of my mind, wondered what So Sang-kyu was doing.
He had a habit of vanishing and reappearing like a cosmic inconvenience. In my past life, he'd set up training spaces that looked like jokes until you stepped into them and realized the joke was your bones.
Maybe he'd done it again.
Maybe he was watching.
Maybe he was laughing.
Nyxa slid off the armrest and wandered behind my chair, arms draping over my shoulders, chin resting near my ear. It was too familiar. Too domestic. Too dangerous.
"You're going to the Tower," she said.
"Yes."
"Can I come?"
I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. "Do you want to come, or do you want to bite a mage because they smell arrogant."
Nyxa smiled, sharp and bright. "Both."
"Then no," I said automatically.
She tightened her arms slightly, not enough to hurt, just enough to remind me she could.
"I'll behave," she said, the way a storm promised it would only rain.
I sighed. "You can come."
Nyxa's satisfaction was immediate and smug.
"Good," she said. "I want to see what kind of wards they're using. The green ones smell wrong."
I paused.
"Green wards?" I repeated.
Nyxa hummed.
And that was… not comforting.
***
A few hours later
The carriage ride to the Tower should have been quiet.
It wasn't.
Nyxa spent most of it with her forehead against the window, watching the world pass like she was trying to remember it. Melody lounged in my mind like she owned the place, occasionally offering commentary that felt unhelpfully amused.
When the Tower finally rose into view, it wasn't the solemn, restrained fortress of scholarship I remembered.
It was loud.
Busy.
Crowded.
No one greeted me at the gate this time. No respectful hush. No Natharion waiting with that careful host expression, half pride, half anxiety.
Instead the entry courtyard had been transformed into a festival of magical ego.
Banners. Booths. Demonstration circles. Tool displays. Duel wards glowing like contained storms. The air smelled like ozone and perfume and the specific desperation of people trying to impress strangers.
An event, then.
Interesting.
Nyxa leaned forward in the carriage, eyes narrowing. "Why are they showing off."
"Because mages are peacocks," I muttered, stepping down.
A nearby announcement sigil flashed and projected text into the air.
MAGICAL DUEL EXHIBITION
ARTIFACT DEMONSTRATION
[ PRIZE: THE CRYSTAL HEART OF ZOTAL ]
I stopped.
Because I knew that name.
Not from this timeline.
From the other one.
The Crystal Heart of Zotal. An artifact that boosted magical output and stability by a modest amount. Not a miracle, not a crown jewel, but a real upgrade. Especially for someone who treated every advantage like a brick in a wall.
Nyxa looked up at me. "You want it."
"I want to deny it to someone else," I said honestly. "Which is usually the same thing."
She grinned. "That's my father."
I refused to react to the word. Not because it didn't hit, but because if I started reacting properly to my life now, I'd never stop.
I scanned the duel circles.
The wards were stronger than the Academy's colosseum, and that alone made my mouth twitch with a half-memory of Tamara younger, furious, and humiliated that a "mana-less" boy had stepped into her fire like it was weather.
But these wards were different.
They glowed a noticeable green, not the usual neutral or blue-white.
Green wards.
Nyxa had called them out before I'd even seen them.
I didn't like that.
Still.
A week. I needed spells. I needed access. I needed leverage.
So I walked toward the registration booth.
***
Natharion was there, as if the Tower itself had summoned him specifically to inconvenience me.
He was arguing with an attendant, voice clipped, posture sharp.
"You cannot be serious," Natharion said, pressing fingers to the bridge of his nose. "The rules are explicit. Entry closes at the bell. You do not bend tournament structure because someone decides they're feeling inspired late."
The attendant, a tired-looking woman with ink on her fingertips and the haunted eyes of a bureaucrat, spread her hands. "Master Natharion, the duel circles are already full. I cannot invent additional brackets."
"You can," Natharion said flatly. "You simply do not want to."
"It's not that I don't want to, it's that I enjoy remaining employed."
Natharion's jaw tightened.
Then he saw me.
His whole face shifted in the span of a breath.
Not surprise.
Not relief.
Something worse.
Recognition.
He stopped mid-argument, stared at me for a heartbeat, and then turned back to the attendant as if he'd just been granted divine permission to commit a crime.
"…Never mind," Natharion said.
The attendant blinked. "Never mind what?"
"You can let him in," Natharion said, voice suddenly smooth. "We will make space."
The attendant looked from him to me to Nyxa, who was hovering half a step behind my shoulder like a polite threat. "Master Natharion, I don't know who this is."
Natharion's smile was strained. "You're about to."
I stepped up to the counter. "Erynd Milton."
The attendant's eyes widened slightly, flicking to the crest pinned on my cloak.
"Oh," she said, now very aware of her own mortality. "My Lord."
"Do not call me that," I said automatically.
She called me that anyway with her expression.
Natharion leaned closer, lowering his voice. "You're joining."
"I wasn't aware you wanted me in your little mage parade," I replied.
He let out a quiet breath, half amusement, half annoyance. "You are the most inconvenient person to exist near my Tower."
"I get that a lot," I said.
Nyxa leaned in slightly from my side. "He means you're fun."
Natharion's eyes flicked to her, and the politeness in his face did something delicate and brittle.
"You brought…" he began.
"My daughter," I said before he could choose a safer word.
Nyxa smiled sweetly.
Natharion looked like he wanted to swallow his own tongue.
"Right," he said carefully. "Yes. Of course. Wonderful. We are all very normal."
The attendant cleared her throat. "If Lord Milton joins, we still have an issue. There's only one slot left."
Natharion nodded. "Then we do it the old way."
The attendant grimaced. "Master Natharion, the old way is messy."
"The old way is efficient," Natharion said.
He looked at me. "A single match. A qualifier. Winner enters the bracket. Loser leaves with their pride bruised and their limbs intact."
I gave a small nod. "Fine."
Nyxa's hand slid into my sleeve and squeezed. "Break someone."
"Not in public," I murmured.
Nyxa pouted. "Coward."
"Correct," I said again, because it was becoming a theme.
Natharion turned to the attendant. "Write him in."
She dipped her pen, resigned to her fate.
"Very well," she said. "Last-minute qualifier. Circle Three. You will be matched immediately."
Natharion's gaze lingered on me, then on the green wards in the courtyard beyond.
"Be careful," he said quietly, the first genuinely human sentence he'd spoken.
That got my attention.
"Careful of what," I asked.
He hesitated.
Then he spoke like someone reciting something he didn't want to believe. "This event wasn't originally approved."
Nyxa's fingers tightened in my sleeve.
Natharion continued, voice still low. "Certain… patrons pushed for it. Certain demonstrations. Certain artifacts brought on short notice. The wards are experimental."
"Experimental tends to mean 'someone gets hurt,'" I said.
Natharion smiled without humor. "Yes."
Then, louder, with the smooth tone of a host addressing a guest: "Circle Three. Please. You're up."
***
The Qualifier
Circle Three was a wide, clean stone platform with the green ward lines carved into the floor like veins.
A crowd gathered fast, drawn by the novelty of a late entrant and the promise of quick violence.
My opponent stepped into the circle wearing a polished robe and a confident smirk.
He was young. Not a student, but not old enough to have survived something that taught humility properly.
He bowed with one hand over his chest, eyes on my cloak, on my crest.
"Viscount Milton," he said with too much cheer. "I didn't expect nobility to lower themselves into common exhibition."
"I didn't expect arrogance to breed this quickly," I replied.
The crowd laughed, some of them startled by it, because they hadn't expected me to be… conversational.
Nyxa watched from the edge of the ward with her hands in her pockets, head tilted like a cat watching a mouse try to pretend it was a predator.
The duel bell rang.
My opponent didn't waste time.
He snapped his hands forward and a Wall of Flames roared up between us, bright and hungry.
Fine. Simple. Direct.
Then his fingers twisted and the ground beneath the flame bulged.
Stonemancy.
A boulder tore up from the circle floor and launched toward me, not crude, not slow. It had shaping, spin, intent.
Interesting.
He wasn't incompetent.
He was just… loud.
I felt the cast lattice in the air, the rhythm of it, the way he was forcing mana into shape with enthusiasm instead of precision.
I could have used Vector immediately. I could have slapped his spell structure, disrupted it, made his wall flicker and his stone crumble.
But something in the ward lines buzzed.
The green glow pulsed in time with his spell.
Feeding?
Amplifying?
I narrowed my eyes.
So that was what Natharion meant.
Experimental wards. Patrons. Demonstrations.
A system meant to make mages look impressive.
A system that probably didn't care what it did to their cores afterward.
I exhaled once.
Then I cast.
Not full.
Not intricate.
Just enough.
Vera Flamma.
A thin, controlled weave, wrapped tight, a flame that didn't roar so much as bite.
It met the boulder mid-flight and… ate it.
Not instantly, but decisively.
Stone blackened. Cracked. The surface glowed. The oxygen in the immediate space thinned, and I felt the ward lines flare in response, trying to compensate, trying to keep the circle "safe" while the spell made safety a joke.
The boulder did not stop in time.
It clipped my arm.
Pain flashed hot and immediate, a line of impact that left my sleeve smoking and my skin screaming.
The crowd gasped.
My opponent's smirk faltered, eyes widening as he realized his "finisher" hadn't finished.
And then the partially-burned boulder, now brittle and structurally ruined, detonated into fragments that slammed into his wall of flames, disrupted the pressure, and blew the wall apart like a curtain.
He flinched.
That was his mistake.
I stepped forward into the clearing air and lifted my hand.
Not for another spell.
For Vector.
A subtle pulse, more suggestion than force.
His casting rhythm stuttered.
His next spell tried to form and failed halfway, the lattice collapsing before it could stabilize.
His eyes widened with a sudden, animal fear.
Because every mage knew that feeling.
That moment when your own power stopped obeying you.
He tried to push through it.
I felt the instability in his core spike as he forced output anyway.
I could have let Vector press harder.
I could have turned that instability into a lesson that would haunt him forever.
But this was a public circle, a crowded exhibition, and I wasn't here to explode someone's insides for applause.
So I eased the pressure instead, just enough to break his momentum, just enough to collapse his stance.
Then I flicked a final thread of heat across the air, not a weapon, just a shove.
His knees buckled.
He dropped.
Unconscious.
Silence hit the circle for a heartbeat.
Then the ward sigil chimed and announced the result in bright, cheerful letters:
WINNER: ERYND MILTON
The crowd erupted.
I stared at my arm, at the burn line forming where stone had kissed flesh.
It hurt.
But it wasn't serious.
Not compared to what I'd taken before.
I looked up at the green wards.
They glowed faintly, as if satisfied.
Nyxa's eyes were bright under her veil, amused and pleased in equal measure.
She mouthed silently: Break someone.
I gave her a look that promised later.
Natharion appeared at the circle edge, expression tight.
"You're in," he said. "Go get treated before you drip blood on my floor."
"Your floor tried to kill me first," I replied.
His mouth twitched, not quite a smile. "Yes. That's what worries me."
I walked out of the circle and flexed my burned arm, feeling the heat pulse under the skin.
My opponent's magic had been flashy.
But it had felt… thin.
Underfed. Overcompensating.
Like a child swinging a sword too big because it looked impressive.
I watched the next duel begin in the adjacent ring, another wall of flame rising, another stone spear forming, and the crowd cheering like this was sport instead of rehearsal for war.
My thoughts slid into place like a knife finding a sheath.
Isn't magical ability here too weak?
I glanced down at my burned arm, then at the green wards, then at the artifact banners and the hungry faces.
Or was it something else.
I let the question settle in my chest, heavy and sharp.
Or am I strong?