Chapter 150 – Towers (9)
(Erynd)
The elevator sank like a coffin with manners.
Stone walls slid past the iron rails, runes pulsing faintly in the seams, and the air grew colder the deeper we went. Not "winter cold." Not "mountain cold." This was the kind of cold you felt inside a temple after everyone left, when only the statues remained to remember the prayers.
Nyxa held my hand.
It was absurd, technically.
She was older than kingdoms. Older than the polite lies people called history. A Witch of Elder Roots with a Heroine title stamped into fate itself.
And yet, in my head, she was still my little daughter.
My little daughter forever.
"Father," she murmured, voice calm and bright. "You're squeezing."
I loosened my grip a fraction.
"Sorry," I said. "Instinct."
Nyxa's fingers squeezed back, not bothered. Not threatened. Just… content.
I stared at the descending rune-lines and let my mind run its usual inventory.
Deepest layer.
Green ward incident above.
Infected mages blooming like cursed flowers.
Natharion's face when he shoved the Heart into my hands, the kind of grim you got when someone realized their institution had been used as a knife.
I expected the worst down here.
Tentacles. Flesh. Ritual circles carved from screaming. The classic theatrics people imagined when they heard "Qlippothic" and needed their fear to have shapes.
I didn't get theatrics.
I got… normal.
An open space. Wide and flat, like an old storage level repurposed into a hidden workshop. Lanterns burned in sconces. Ward lines ran along the floor in neat geometry. Tables. Chains. A few crates. A place that could have been a maintenance chamber, if not for the way the air tasted slightly wrong. Like metal left too long in blood.
Two men stood near the center.
They were mutated, but not grotesque.
Not in the obvious, carnival way.
Their muscles bulged under their skin like something was trying to explode outward and had been told to obey instead. Shoulders too wide. Forearms thick as logs. Veins like ropes. Their bodies looked like someone had taken "strength" as a concept and stuffed it into flesh until the flesh complained.
Each held a greatsword.
Not ceremonial. Not decorative. Real steel, heavy enough that normal men would need two hands and a prayer to lift. These two held them like extensions of their wrists.
And then there was a woman.
At first glance she looked… almost normal.
Slim. Pale. Robe. Staff in hand.
Then my eyes slid lower, and the wrongness made itself known.
Her lower jaw was unhinged.
Not hanging slack like injury.
Opened with purpose, like a snake making room for something it wanted to swallow.
Inside that open mouth sat a giant crystal, nestled like an obscene infant, glossy and alive with faint internal light. It pulsed in slow beats, as if it had learned to mimic a heart.
Qlippothic energy crawled over the three of them in thin, branching lines. Not loud. Not screaming. More like the quiet confidence of mold spreading in a dark room.
Nyxa's gaze sharpened. "That's the source."
I nodded without looking away.
The elevator slowed, runes flaring softly.
The platform locked into place with a click.
And the woman's attention snapped to us.
She didn't speak aloud.
Her voice arrived inside my mind with crisp clarity.
You're early.
Not words shaped by air.
Words shaped by intent, pressed directly into thought.
I felt pressure behind my eyes, like someone testing how easily my skull could be opened.
I smiled.
The smile wasn't friendly.
"I'm here to stop this stupidity," I said out loud, because I wanted my voice in the room. I wanted to anchor reality with something human.
The woman's staff shifted slightly.
The two men moved in unison, stepping forward like trained hounds released from a leash.
Nyxa flicked her fingers.
It wasn't a spell, not in the structured sense. It was the world being pinched.
Air snapped. Pressure shifted.
Both men lifted off the ground like they'd been grabbed by the collarbones and thrown by an invisible giant. Their greatswords spun, steel whining through air, and they slammed into the far wall with a bone-rattling thud.
Nyxa didn't even breathe harder.
The woman's eyes widened.
Her mental voice sharpened into surprise.
Warlock's daughter? What is she doing here?
I blinked once.
"Warlock?" I repeated.
Nyxa looked mildly offended. "That's rude."
The woman didn't answer the complaint. Her gaze locked onto my hand still holding Nyxa's.
You. Why are you holding her like she's your daughter.
I could hear the confusion beneath the accusation. Real confusion. The kind that wasn't scripted.
There was a story here, a missing piece, and I didn't like the shape of it.
But I didn't clear it up.
I didn't correct her.
Let her be confused. Confused enemies made mistakes.
I kept my voice even. "Maybe because she is."
Nyxa's mouth twitched. She looked pleased, and then immediately tried to hide that she looked pleased, as if being pleased would make her weak.
The two men hit the ground running, recovering far too quickly for something that heavy.
Their feet cracked stone.
The woman raised her staff, and the pressure in my head returned, stronger.
A psychic.
Of course.
She didn't need words. She didn't need gestures. She just needed access to my senses.
The room tilted.
Not physically.
My inner ear lied.
Vertigo punched me sideways, that sick moment where the world insisted up was left and left was wrong and your body tried to vomit itself out of existence.
I clenched my jaw and anchored.
Not with magic.
With discipline.
With the stubborn refusal to let someone rewrite my perception.
Nyxa's head tilted. "She's trying to make you dizzy."
"I noticed," I muttered through my teeth.
The two men attacked together.
Not one, then the other. Not politely spaced.
Together.
One sword came down from above like a falling wall. The other swept low, aiming to take my legs or force my jump into the first blade's path.
No space.
No breathing room.
Good.
That meant they knew how to kill.
I moved anyway.
Qi surged through my body like a second heartbeat. Not pretty. Not glowing. Just raw obedience from muscle and bone.
I slipped sideways with a burst of speed, barely clearing the low sweep, and felt wind shear off the edge of the high blade as it slammed where my head had been.
The impact cratered the floor.
Stone dust jumped.
The psychic pressure spiked again and my vision stuttered, the edges of the room bending like heat mirage.
The woman was trying to stack effects. Make me misstep. Make me land wrong.
I didn't have Melody.
I didn't have Gungnir.
Just my body, my spells, my daughter, and a growing certainty that something upstairs was about to become worse.
Goldwynn.
The thought snapped into place like a knife locking.
Goldwynn was in the infirmary.
Patrons were moving.
The Tower was compromised.
If this lower level was active, if they had planted a Qlippothic bloom down here, then the infirmary was not "safe" just because it had blankets.
I glanced at Nyxa.
"Nyxa," I said quickly, "I have a feeling Goldwynn is in trouble. Go."
Nyxa blinked. "She was already down here."
"I know," I said. "But go anyway. Please."
Nyxa's expression tightened.
For a heartbeat she looked like she wanted to argue. Like she wanted to stay and help me carve this room into silence.
Then she looked at my face and saw something that wasn't command.
It was a father asking.
Not because he doubted her.
Because he didn't want her to see what he was about to do.
Nyxa's jaw clenched. "I don't like leaving you."
"I'll live," I said.
"That's not the point," she snapped.
Then she inhaled slowly, the way she did when she forced herself to be less wild.
"…Fine," she said, voice rough. "But you owe me some good food father."
I almost laughed, despite the blades.
"Deal," I said. "Now go."
Nyxa didn't run to the elevator.
She simply stepped backward and the shadows behind her folded wrong, like reality blinked and forgot where she was supposed to be.
Then she was gone.
No chains. No platform. No polite mechanism.
Just the Witch choosing a route that didn't exist.
The two men didn't hesitate when Nyxa vanished.
They attacked harder.
Good.
Let them.
The woman's mental voice slid into my skull again, cold and sharp.
Now your daughter is not here. We need to talk.
I stared at her.
"My daughter," I repeated softly.
The woman's eyes narrowed, and the crystal in her mouth pulsed brighter.
The vertigo hit again, stronger. My stomach lurched, the floor seeming to tilt up toward my face.
At the same time both men pressed in.
No space.
No air.
One blade chopped down. The other thrust forward, straight for my ribs, timed to catch me mid-dodge.
I could not give ground.
If I got pinned, the psychic would keep stacking distortions until my own body betrayed me.
So I did the simplest thing.
I stopped trying to retreat.
I advanced.
Qi surged through my legs and I launched forward, not away from the blades but into the narrow gap between their timings.
The high chop came down.
I ducked under it so close I felt the air move.
The thrust came in.
I twisted my torso and let it graze my side, the blade biting fabric, barely kissing skin.
Pain flashed.
I ignored it.
My hand snapped out.
Vector.
Not to explode cores.
Not yet.
To disturb.
To shove against the spell-lattices running through their bodies like veins of borrowed reinforcement.
Their movement stuttered.
Just for a breath.
That was enough.
I drove my shoulder into the closer man's chest, Qi reinforcing bone, and shoved him back into his partner. Greatswords tangled. Weight collided.
Steel clanged.
They recovered instantly, muscles bulging in an almost beautiful way. They were not clumsy brutes. They were engineered.
The woman's staff lifted.
The psychic pressure in my head changed flavor. Less vertigo, more… pull.
Like she was trying to tug my attention away from my body. Like she wanted to separate "me" from "motion" and leave my flesh behind.
A familiar horror.
Interface-adjacent.
Soul and body not syncing.
I gritted my teeth.
"Not today," I muttered.
I reached for wind.
Not a spell.
Not true elemental manipulation.
Just physics plus mana.
I used Vector like a conduit, charging my hands with directed force, and let a thin sheath of heated air cling to my palms. Not full Vera Flamma, not the oxygen-eating inferno.
Just enough to make contact burn.
Just enough to make air push.
It wasn't wind the way mages bragged about wind.
Wind wasn't strong unless you were flying.
But it didn't need to be strong.
It needed to be timed.
I planted my foot, Qi compressing muscle, then released it in a jump.
The thin "wind" sheath shoved against the air at the same time, giving me a fraction more lift, a fraction more hang time.
Not flight.
Just a dishonest jump.
The low sweeping sword came under me and missed by inches.
I landed inside their reach anyway, because staying outside meant they could reset spacing.
One of them swung horizontal, trying to cut me in half.
I ducked, slid forward, and struck his knee with my shin, Qi reinforcing the impact.
His leg buckled.
The other tried to bring his greatsword down onto my spine.
I snapped Vector into his arms.
His grip faltered for half a heartbeat as the spell disturbance made his muscle coordination stutter.
I rolled out of the drop, then came up with a palm strike into his ribs.
Not enough to kill.
Enough to bruise and disrupt breath.
They adjusted immediately, both turning so their blades guarded each other's gaps.
Trained.
Annoying.
The woman's mental voice sharpened into irritation.
Stop moving.
My vision lurched. The floor tilted again. My stomach clenched, saliva rising.
The psychic was pushing harder now, trying to make my body betray me through nausea and disorientation.
And that was exactly why I didn't want Nyxa watching.
Because the next step wasn't pretty.
It wasn't clean.
It was war.
I took a hit.
The flat of a greatsword clipped my shoulder and slammed me sideways. Pain burst down my arm, bright and ugly.
I stumbled.
The psychic seized the moment. The room spun harder.
The two men pressed in, blades moving in a synchronized pattern meant to deny recovery. No space. No pause. No mercy.
Fine.
If they wanted no mercy, I could oblige.
I stopped trying to win as "Tier 3 Erynd."
I started winning as "man who survives by refusing to die."
I let my body drop low, rolling under a high swing and coming up behind the first man. Vector snapped into his core lattice again, not to explode it but to destabilize his reinforcement just enough that his muscles didn't cooperate perfectly.
Then I grabbed his belt and yanked.
Qi surged.
He went off balance.
His partner swung to protect him.
I used the first man as a moving wall, shoving him into the path of his partner's blade.
Steel bit flesh.
Not fatal. Not yet.
But enough to make them flinch and snarl.
Now they were angry.
Good.
Anger made rhythm sloppy.
I drove forward again, striking the injured man's throat with the edge of my hand. Qi hardened the blow.
He gagged.
His blade dipped.
I kicked the back of his knee again and he dropped to one leg.
The second man surged in, furious, trying to end it with one clean overhead chop.
I caught the timing, stepped in, and slammed my forearm up into his wrists as the blade descended.
Qi reinforced bone and tendon.
The shock jarred his grip.
The greatsword slipped.
I twisted and ripped it free.
For half a second I held the weapon, absurdly heavy, the kind of thing that felt like holding a church bell.
I didn't swing it.
I didn't need to.
I threw it.
Qi drove the motion, and the massive sword spun sideways into the staff-woman's line of sight.
She jerked her staff up instinctively, psychic focus breaking as she redirected attention to physical defense.
Vertigo snapped off like a chain being cut.
My stomach steadied.
My vision cleared.
And my patience ran out.
I seized both men by their collars, one in each hand, and dragged them forward with brutal momentum. Not because I was stronger than them in raw muscle.
Because Qi made my body dishonest, and Vector made their reinforcement stutter at the wrong moments.
I dragged them toward the woman.
Toward the crystal-mouth.
Toward the source.
The woman's eyes widened. For the first time her mental voice contained something sharp and human.
No.
I didn't answer her.
I made the answer action.
I released Vera Flamma.
Not the polite version.
Not the controlled "blue bursts" I'd used upstairs.
Full complexity.
Full hunger.
Oxygen disappeared in a rush.
Heat snapped outward like a living thing, a bright, brutal flame that didn't roar so much as erase.
The two men were in front of me.
Between me and her.
And in the space of a breath, their reinforced flesh stopped being impressive and started being irrelevant.
They didn't scream for long.
They didn't have time.
Their shapes collapsed into ash and drifting embers, the greatsword metal glowing briefly before clattering to the stone.
The smell hit a moment later.
Burnt hair. Burnt cloth. Burnt arrogance.
The woman staggered backward, staff trembling in her hands. The crystal in her open mouth pulsed wildly, as if suddenly aware it was no longer protected by muscle.
She tried to speak.
She couldn't.
Her mouth was open around the crystal, jaw unhinged, horror written into the lines of her face in a way no words were needed to translate.
Her psychic grip on the room vanished completely.
In that silence, I let Vera Flamma die down, not because I was tired, but because I didn't want to turn the entire lower level into a furnace.
I stepped forward slowly, boots crunching ash.
My shoulder throbbed. My ribs ached where the thrust had grazed. My lungs felt tight from the oxygen drain.
But I was standing.
And she was alone.
I stopped a sword's length away from her.
Her eyes were wide.
Terrified.
Confused.
And still clinging to that word she'd used earlier, that possessive certainty.
My daughter.
Warlock's daughter.
Something old and twisted was tangled in her assumptions.
I raised my hand and snapped Vector lightly through the air, not to hurt her, but to remind her that every spell she tried to form would stutter and fail if I wanted it to.
Then I spoke, voice calm and cold.
"You better start talking."
Her mouthless face, jaw still opened around the pulsing crystal, looked horrified.
Good.
Now we were finally having an honest conversation.