Nico crouched down to the ground, his breath unsteady.
A single thought burned in his mind:
'Don't let your guard down.'
Managing an inhale, he searched his surroundings with glassy eyes and extended his focused senses into the tower.
Nothing.
Shaman was watching over everything else. Standing by a large doorframe that led deeper into the colossal tower, his massive, possessed body acted as an aegis against whatever might appear.
But nothing did.
For a moment, Nico thought nothing else was inside the tower. However, would the Terror truly keep itself completely undefended inside? What would happen if its forces were simply hidden in a way he could not detect?
A drop of black blood from his blindfold rolled down his cheek. Remembering how that depth dweller had hidden from his sight until the very last moment, he focused deeper.
Then, like a torn veil, tens of thousands of faint corrupted souls were revealed, shaped into distorted human forms and lit up like impossibly small sparks. They overflowed around the interior shaft and each level of the spire, each one pitifully weak and mundane, mindlessly droning about with no sense of direction or purpose to carry them forward.
Nico's eyes narrowed.
'What… what are they?'
From everything Seishan had told him about the Crimson Spire, which wasn't all that much, it was created to seal the dark sea and forge an artificial sun. Its seven heroes — the starlight legion — were the architects of that design. Each headless statue was one, and they had passed all of the missing heads by the gate.
'How did those golems come to be? Why would the Terror bother to keep mundane puppets? Did they have some other purpose? Why, through Shaman, had he seen figures of the seven heroes among them?'
Questions fired away in his mind. Still lacking any clues, he scoured his memory for other knowledge. A couple seconds later he called upon the Spell too.
'Sometimes Memory descriptions have important information.'
Scanning through all those that he received on the Forgotten Shore and remembered before selling, Nico's eyes finally lit up, snapping to the metal bands on his wrists in an instant. Their runes lit up in the air.
Memory: Song of Steel.
Memory Rank: Awakened.
Memory Tier: II.
Memory Type: Charm.
Memory Description: [A radiant priestess was imprisoned in the tallest of towers, her body its unwilling vessel. Eternity passed as she wept, and now only this remnant of her song remains.]
'A radiant priestess… imprisoned in the tallest of towers. Must be the spire. And… unwilling vessel? What does that mean?'
Remembering the annihilating light that burned through to the deepest depths of his soul, he answered his own question.
'The sun…'
Nico rose to his feet and stretched, looking toward the ever-growing intensity of sunlight that now blinded the Forgotten Shore. Somewhere, millions of abominations must've been destroyed under its discus, collapsing into nothingness under the labyrinth's bloody walls.
'So, the priestess, corrupted, is the Crimson Terror. And through that fulcrum, the Crimson Spire's sun. What of the coral golems, then? Why create them? I don't understand.'
Rotating his head downwards and observing the strained, collapsed Gemma, Nico paused, opened his mouth to speak, then froze.
Something was happening. An overwhelming tide was rushing towards the island, passing through the coral bridge, the entrance, under their feet, and upwards in a grand spiral, slowly swallowed by the six malevolent nodes at the very top.
'Is that… soul essence?'
An epiphany dawned on him.
Furrowing his brows, Nico finally spoke:
"Get up. We're leaving. Find Seishan and Kido and make your way to my Specter. I have something to warn Changing Star about."
Gemma panted, wiped his blood-stained hands on his light leather armor, and sat up.
Cracking his neck with a pained grimace, he asked:
"Why? Something wrong?"
Nico shook his head.
"No. In fact, I think it's very much in our favor."
He knelt down to pick up the [Wrathful Crescent]. Its blade was still thrumming angrily, demanding more blood, more murder.
The mighty Hunter cocked an eyebrow curiously.
"Really? That's… odd."
The young man above him sighed.
"Well, it all depends on how fast we reach the top, and if we do, because every soul dissolved by the sun is being funneled into the tower. It seems… the Crimson Terror is evolving into a Titan, and no less than ten thousand mundane golems populate each floor of this tower, standing between us and it."
It seemed his words hadn't exactly inspired hope, because Gemma instantly paled. Before he could speak, however, a calm, resolute voice resounded, beckoning the battered army back to their feet:
"It's time to go. Gather your strength. We're almost there!"
Nico started walking towards Changing Star, saying over his shoulder:
"Don't think too much. Just do what I've asked."
***
Nephis gripped her sword tightly as the last echo of her rally faded.
'It's almost here…'
Observing the battered, shrunken, but ultimately strong Dreamer army, she felt hope. They had done well. After fighting an endless horde of monsters, banishing the depths of the dark sea, and escaping the unrestrained sun's scorching light, she was proud. Her efforts had paid off.
Turning around, she wasn't surprised to see a certain someone approaching her. Framed with fitted, stained armor and dark clothes, Nico appeared even more menacing than usual. Tilting her head up, Nephis rose a brow at the peculiar garment strapped loosely around his head. A black, wet blindfold was there instead of the usual piercing eyes.
'A Memory?'
She couldn't tell, but whatever it was, it didn't seem to impair his vision given how deftly he moved.
"There's more."
Focusing on his cold voice, Nephis tightened her grip on her longsword and began to lead the army inwards just behind Nico's tamed Monster. Her troops swiftly followed, the injured supported by their comrades, the unconscious carried along with them.
Nico stood at her side just ahead of Cassie, Gemma, and the other members of each respective cohort. He paused for a moment, then elaborated on the situation. Nephis frowned again, peering up at the ceiling.
"We will have to charge through them all to reach the top, then. Sunny will scout each floor for the gateway."
They reached the main shaft. Frozen coral rivers flowed down the entire hollow. Their growths, erratic and uncontained, formed vague mounds and alien patterns. Some, at the very center, formed an ill-conceived stairwell that could reach all the way up to the top.
The only place the coral didn't reach, and the true white stone was revealed, was at the center of the ground floor.
And there, oddly, was a well.
And within it, caged under some indomitable sorcery, were the bottomless depths of the dark sea.
***
Nico stared at the polished black mirror. A single ripple pulsed on the water's surface. Somewhere below he could sense a sea of souls beyond power and name, the mere act of searching deeper to decipher them forbidden.
Turning back upwards, he joined the Sleepers as they began the winding ascent to the next floor, using coral protrusions and pathways to make steady progress.
Without any reasonable way to bring the Shaman's host body up the coral with them, Nico opted to have it simply fly ahead and wait at the next level instead.
Then, as he, Changing Star, and Sunless all took a step forward, a white beacon lit up his senses.
'Not good!'
Nico reeled back and stuck his hand out to stop anyone behind him from walking forward.
Changing Star pulled Sunless back and shouted:
"Everyone, hide!"
Not a moment later, a wide beam of annihilating light descended from somewhere up above, flashing past them in an instant and creating stark shadows as it passed.
Wherever the light swallowed someone, bodies dropped, dead and lifeless, their souls destroyed instantaneously.
Two dozen Sleepers extinguished just like that.
Nico's breath hitched as the phantom pain came and went in an instant.
'The Terror…'
Somewhere far in the distance, perhaps at the apex of the tower, it was firing homing beams down at them, and guided by that light, coral golems were rushing to attack the army, their movements no longer random. Swarming, the ones on the ground floor below searched for roots up, and those above the opposite.
Dozens simply flung themselves off the edge and shattered on the floor. Others landed on the climbing Sleepers.
"What now?"
Sunless' voice drew Nico back to the present, and everyone looked to Nephis.
She lingered for a bit, and then said evenly:
"Someone will have to attack the Crimson Terror directly to draw its attention away."
Nico thought back to the vile, abyssal nodes above him. Could they even injure a Fallen Terror? He had asked himself this question many, many times in the days leading up to this event, but it continually remained unanswered.
He looked towards Nephis' meager, Dormant longsword.
She definitely couldn't.
But could he? If he put all his soul roots into his glaive, he stood a decent chance of it.
A better question, then, is: should he? It was a whole lot of danger to put himself in. If he was set to the task because the gateway ended up being at the top of the tower under the Terror's guard, he would've been forced to, but under these circumstances, traipsing up to the peak seemed like nothing but a foolish way to die.
Still, things weren't completely against him. Perhaps, alongside Nephis and Shaman, Nico stood a decent shot at survival. Enough to allow himself to pick the harder choice.
This time… this time he would help.
Tuning back into the conversation, Nico observed the glassy wings that had formed on Nephis' back and sighed, saying:
"I'll be going with you."
Everyone paused. The young woman herself glanced toward him with a silent question.
Walking steadily towards the edge, he answered:
"Apologies, but I don't see how a Dormant weapon could give pause to a Fallen Terror's attacks, even with its singular useful enchantment. One direct hit will kill you, as it will anyone."
He rose one hand into the air.
"Regardless, a more important assessment is whether or not you can stall it, and you can't. Not alone. So, as the only other member with a method of soul protection, flight, and a weapon capable enough to attack, I will go."
Everybody eyed him warily. One part of what he'd said had been a half-truth—he had an enhanced soul instead of actual protection—but whose place was it for anyone to question him?
Changing Star stared, then replied:
"Do as you wish."
A moment later, the flapping of wings beat in their ears, and a single claw swooped down from the darkness. Nico's hand clenched around the gnarled leg, and he disappeared upwards a beat later.