CHAPTER 13: Tower of Insanity (Part 2)
"So you're saying that not only did they fail to bring him back, we still don't know how they look?" The Golden Knight Leonard snarled as his hand is shaking in anger. All of the black knights can only bow in terror.
In the Lederion Kingom, there are 4 tiers of knighthood. The normal knight is someone who passed the militia advancement exam which is created to find a promising talent from the citizens or normal people who want to be a knight. Normal Knights are usually cannon fodder, vanguard, or the first people who attacks. The Kingdom only gives them basic sword styles, common spells, and the decent pay that is only higher than D-rank adventurers.
The next tier is the red knight, they are usually veterans who survived a war but not as talented or a child of low nobility. Most of them are only normal knights who have experienced a lot of wars and skirmishes. A small percent of them are untalented sons of a noble family. They are given the signature sword style of the kingdom, support spells such as haste and sharpen. Their payment is usually 30 silver coins to 1 gold. Still, they are used as commanders for the normal knight and only fights when needed or ordered by a black knight or golden knight.
The black knights are usually talented commoners and nobles. Half of them are the heir of their respected families and are trained since childhood. Their bodies are well trained and their families usually give them the best artifacts, best medicines, and the best weapon styles they can afford or get. They exclusively never fight and are mostly used in patrolling the kingdom and visiting nearby cities. Only at a war between kingdoms will they fight. The commoner black knights are talented people who were discovered in the militia advancement exam. They were trained and supported by the kingdom. All of their needs are supplied by the kingdom, from specific weapon styles and arts but they are usually the elite squad, created to fight any outside threats in the kingdom. They are entrusted to kill monsters that the adventurers and otherworlders cannot kill, raid, and killing of bandit camps and together with the normal knights to defend the kingdom if there's a monster surge where different monsters would go in a rage-induced mode where they will target kingdoms all around the continent.
Monster surges are theorized that once every 3 years, the demon king can control all monsters in the world of Aleria and force them to attack all kingdoms ranging from dwarves to human. This resulted in a countless kingdom trying to kill the demon king, but the demon's continent is filled with poison and miasma that only the heroes are not affected, all non-hero combatants will only last a day to a month in the continent before weakening to the point that they can't stand. The Golden Knights were fabled since they were able to kill one of the demon generals while inside the continent. They're held as one of the protectors of humankind.
The highest and most covenant position in the kingdom are the Golden Knights. They are regarded as the right man hand of the king, the protector, and second only to the king. There are 10 Golden Knights in the Lemerion Kingdom and each of them can kill S-tier monsters such as the hydra, slime king and if they fight together, they can kill a black dragon. They wield powers beyond comprehension and some of them can live for 200 years old. No one has seen their full capabilities since they rarely fight and if they fight, it would be at the demon's continent in the middle of the Aleria.
"Find them! Use any method as long as you bring the cursed weapons, i don't care if they're alive or dead. I have already ordered some of the red knights to find them but it has been 2 months and there have been no reports. So i order the 5 of you to find the cursed weapons" Leonard commanded as the 5 black knights bowed before hurriedly leaving the room. Leonard looked at the weathered map at his desk. A smile crept into his face as he laughed wildly before grabbing his face to stop himself from being excited.
"The black egg is gonna hatch any moment, once it hatches i'll be a dragon knight" Leonard chuckled maniacally
"Damn, we have been killing skeletons for hours!" Kyle shouted in annoyance as he stabbed through the skeleton's skull before pulling back and stabbing again. The skeleton turned to a pile of bones as another skeleton charges towards them. The first five floors of the tower of insanity is a test of endurance. For the first floor, it requires to kill 100. In the second, it requires to kill 200. The third requires killing 400 skeletons and the fourth requires killing 1000 skeletons. The worst thing is, they come in batches of 40 every 3 minutes so if they failed to kill 40 skeletons in under 3 minutes. It would pile up until they would be tired to continue.
'Still, it's bearable since i'm not alone' Kyle smiled as he killed another skeleton as he glances at Isaac who keeps on swinging his katana. He even looked bored as he swings the katana mindlessly.
"Hey, after this floor. The Skeleton Abomination is next" Kyle said
"What's that?"
"It's a skeleton fused with thousands of bones, creating a single giant skeleton" Kyle informed.
"I see" Isaac plainly said but a half-smile appeared on his face as he focuses on killing the skeletons as he rushes towards them and with a swing of his katana, he killed 5 skeletons before moving to another group of skeletons.
30 minutes later, a black door opened in front of them. Revealing a large circular room full of bones in the middle, creating a mountain made of bones. They walked slowly as once they entered the room, the door behind them shuts. Slowly, the bones started vibrating and moving. A dark fog descended in the room before a loud roar echoed through the room. Kyle and Isaac gazed at the large shadow in the middle of the room as it started standing. With a swipe of its large hand, the dark fog vanishes as a skeleton's fist moved towards both of them at an extreme speed. Both of them jumped sideways as Kyle stabbed the fist while Isaac dashed forward.
Isaac's plan would be to use his sword art, blood slash to attack. Since the skeleton doesn't have any blood, he can't use the crimson blood's protection or any of his blood spells. The sword art blood slash actually doesn't need blood to use but health. Health is the amount of how much someone can take damage from an attack of an enemy. It scales off vitality stat and once someone has only 50% health remaining, they would usually become lightheaded and dizzy for a short amount of time. In 30% health, their stats would be lowered by tiers and they would be nauseous. In 10% health, their stats would be lowered by 2 tiers and they would have a hard time staying conscious.
"Katana art: Blood Slash 3x" Isaac swung his katana 3 times as 3 red shockwaves fly at extreme speed towards the skull of the skeleton. A loud bang can be heard as the skeleton was hit in the forehead as it tilts backward from the impact. Seeing this, Kyle pushed his spear deeper into the skeleton's hand
"Extreme Spear art: Internal Explosion 2x" his spear exploded twice in a fiery fashion that a loud cracking sound erupted as cracks started appearing before the fist shattered into small shards of bones. The skeleton retracted its arm before the hand regenerated as it tried punching Isaac who was moving around the large skeleton and continuously using blood slash that there is a large chipped on in its forehead.
"Every time we destroy its bones, it regenerates but at a cost of being smaller and weaker. So we should destroy its limbs and somewhere the bones are weak" Kyle shouted while running towards the skeleton. Even when Kyle destroyed its hand, it didn't get noticeably smaller or weaker. Kyle sighed as he has no choice but to use spells to shorten the time needed to kill the skeleton abomination.
"Isaac, lure it towards me. I'll blow it off!" Kyle shouted as Isaac nodded.
"Chaos Magic: Annihilation" Kyle summoned a black sphere with a strong pulling force as his hair started flying in towards the sphere. Isaac noticed this and he runs sideways to the wall of the room. The skeleton tried turning but it was being pulled towards the black sphere that Kyle threw at the skeleton.
"Enlarge" the black sphere instantly widened as it swallowed the skeleton whole as crunching and cracking noises can be heard while leaving no bone fragments. The pulling force was getting stronger that Isaac stabbed his katana to the ground.
"Implode" Kyle said as the large black sphere immediately shrinks until it vanishes into thin air. Kyle sighed a big relief. It was his first time using a mastered spell that is versatile. Mastered spells are spells that the user mastered and can manipulate to different degrees. Like the spell, wind edges where some people can widen the edges or make it sharper but smaller. It requires extreme understanding and amazing focus to avoid the spell from failing or in a worse scenario, exploding. A spell that exploded from a user failing to control the spell is more powerful since it would continuously absorb the user's mana before exploding. Killing anyone near it.
"How did you that?" Isaac asked as he makes his way towards Kyle while dusting off his robe.
"You need to let your spell reach A tier, and you can control your spell anyway you like" Kyle informed as he gazes at the large golden treasure chest in the middle of the room. Isaac noticed it as he makes his way towards it with a calm look on his face.
"Don't open it yet!" Kyle runs towards him in a hurry with clear panic on his tone
Turning his head, Isaac looked at him apathetically and without concern before asking.
"Why?"
"Convert all of the treasures for the ocular skill, the eye of truth, and eye of foresight" Kyle said at the air. Isaac glanced at where he is looking to see nothing there.
"Not enough treasures, defeat the poisonous serpent on the 20th floor," the rough disembodied voice said as the treasure chest disappeared suddenly. A familiar black door opened once again in the far north of the room revealing a set of stone stairs to the next floor. The both of them walked slowly in the direction of the opened black door
"Why did you that?" Isaac asked
"Simple, except for the title. There's nothing that can be useful for us. We only have a month and after this, every floor would take a day or two. We only planned on reaching the 25th floor. If we can convert it into ocular skill, it can give us some perks. Besides, ocular skills are rare. Only a few of them exist." Kyle said
"The ocular skill that we need is the eye of truth and eye of foresight. The eye of truth can help you detect if someone is lying, illusions would be useless to you, you can see the augments of the items and artifacts but the best perk is that you can see the weakness and strength of everyone around you. " Kyle continued with a smirk.
"How about the other one?"
"The eye of foresight can predict the next movement or action of anyone you target, you can predict where they gonna appear, gives you complete 360 vision and night vision, and once a day. You can peek in the future if something is gonna go badly. Sometimes if you peek into the future, it can predict if you're gonna die and how you're gonna die" Kyle said with his index finger extended.
"That's pretty….broken" Isaac was awed by how powerful the ocular skills are.
"That's right, so that's why i'm excited. Mine is the eye of foresight" Kyle laughed
"Fine" Isaac simply smiled as they make their way up the stairs
"So this is the city of Leylin" Melissa said as she gazed at the busy streets in the market through the window. Her alluring eyes and fluttering eyelids can captivate anyone and her red succulent lips before revealing a pearly white smile can tug the hearts of man but suddenly, a frown appeared on her face as she remembered that the cursed weapon wielders are in this city.
"Are you gonna hunt them?" Cellica asked while biting an apple. Her crunching noises seem to annoy Melissa as her frown turned to a scowl. Her mood has crestfallen as she glared outside.
"No, i'm planning on kidnapping them. I would try asking them who killed my father before putting them in our prison" Melissa said
"I would try my best, my lady" Cellica smiled as her red hair flows with the wind coming from the opened window.
"You better, if you half-assed it i would not give you and your familiar any snacks" Melissa smiled with her eyes slightly closed
"You mustn't say that, my lady. It would hurt your reputation if you say such boorish words" Cellica said with a concerned tone
"And who might have I learn it?" Melissa leaned towards her with a sparkling smle
"N-no one, hey why are there templars patrolling around?" Cellica said as she quickly gazes at the window.
"No clue, they might be looking for someone" Melissa said
A templar started walking towards them as he knocked gently at the carriage's door as Melissa opened it with a smile.
"F-forgive me, i-i was just checking for security" the templar nervously said. Quickly knowing that the woman was a noble, he was terrified since nobles would be angry at the smallest things done to them.
"It's fine, tell me. Why are the templars patrolling the area?" Melisssa asked, the templar jolted as he bowed his head
"T-there are two robed men who trespassed and entered the black tower while killing 5 templars" the templar said quickly
"Tell me their details. How do they look?" Melissa asked once again
"We only caught sight of them once they were teleported inside the black tower" the templar blurted
"I see…you can go now" Melissa smiled as the templar quickly walks away.
"It seems that they entered the black tower, they might never return.." Melissa muttered at herself
"Find an inn where we can monitor the entrance of the black tower" Melissa said at Cellica
"Why? No one has ever returned once they entered the black tower?" Cellica tilted her head
"Just do it or i will not give you the pendant that you want" Melissa insisted as Cellica pouted before leaving the carriage. She hopes that they survive, she needs to pay back the insult she received or she won't be able to sleep for a couple of days. Besides, the capital is near so she can just wait if they left the black tower before the banquet starts since she doesn't have anything planning to do.