4 Chapter 4: Hidden Tower
What await them down there is a room with a circular rusty door, it seems to have experience the passage of time. There are carvings on the door, treasures, nature, beasts and devils, and a little star. The room itself is not that big, but seems expansive for the three of them.
"Where is this ?" Licht ask Leon, after all the only one who knows about this place is Leon.
"This is a Hidden Tower" Leon say, Licht want to ask what is Hidden Tower, but Kazuki already answer that question for him.
"Hidden Tower, it's a extremely tower manifestation, because instead of appearing above the ground it appear under the ground and become undetected, rendering even Scanner Type Awakened useless, this Hidden Tower usually give out the best reward someone can imagine, including power, not item, but power" Kazuki explain, and pushes his glasses with trembling hand.
'This is by no means a stroke of luck or coincidence, Leon know what he is doing, it seems I judged to early maybe his earlier words of blessing being weakened hold some truth' thought Kazuki, as his finger hold his chin.
"Leon just who the hell are you ?" Kazuki ask with a gleam from his eyes.
"The same as you, the students of Leviathan" Leon smiled, meanwhile Licht does not care about Leon identity at all, as long as Leon didn't do harm to him.
Kazuki sighed.
"From this moment on, we have to rely on Licht's strength to clear this Hidden Tower" Leon point at Licht.
"Then I'll take the lead, let's go !" Licht reach the door, and take a look at Leon agreement, Leon nod and then Licht open the door. The three of them enter the door.
"Keep walking and never stop you hear me !" Leon shouted.
What await them beyond the door is not a room. an unknown force teleported each of them into a different location, Hidden Tower is different from the usual Tower, this tower present a trial that you have to complete, different from the usual Tower where you just have to reach the highest floor and reap it's reward.
Every Hidden Tower have different trial, and this Hidden Tower have a trial called, Eternal Night. It will be different in difficulty for each person, because the night represent their own darkness, fear and nightmare.
Leon knows what he have to do, walk just walk in his own endless darkness.
As someone who have readed many books, webnovel, light novel, horror movie, believe it or not what he scared about are as many as an ocean, but what truly scare him is not a things or a living being, it's a situation.
"Being stranded without anything, isolated without stimulation, all senses shutted off, and fall into endless depravity, killing someone is better than going through this" he voice his ultimate fear, his ultimate nightmare.
The true terror will not come abruptly but it will come one by one.
The first thing this darkness deprived of him is his vision, all light faded though in the first place this place has been really dark since the start so it's meaningless he just have to move forward.
The second thing is smell, the smell of this place is almost nonexistent anyway.
The third thing is his sense of taste, for him it's not that much.
The fourth thing is his sense of touch, he can't feel anything including if he have walked or not, what carried him now is only his mind, he can't feel his breath he does not know if he did breathing or not, but at least he is still alive so it's enough as him being living.
The fifth thing, the sense of hearing finally he does not know if he walked forward or not, he does not know, he know the true horror of his nightmare.
Aimlessly walking for eternity, eventually going insane, now it's just whether he can continue to walk without stopping or will he kill himself.
He strongly choose the former, he don't want to die just yet, he want to see his world in clear views, he want to travel it see the things he write in greater clarity.
Step by step he walk, with that purpose in mind.
Time is meaningless in this endless darkness, he is immortal because of his nightmare, one year, two years, three years.
Each passing year will erase a little of his sense of self, but strangely he would still walk, without stopping.
He is by no means a weak willed person, because if he is then he would rather choose to die rather than enduring this kind of torment.
He grow conscious in a orphanage, he left to work and live by himself, part time and working as an author, the only saving grace that world ever give to him, is the books he have writen, it's the comment if he did good or bad in a chapter, the feeling of being exist.
Now he is not existing or living only walking without any clear sense of direction, he thought about this sentence each moment, to preserve his sense of self, but little by little it's being eroded.
'I want to exist' a thousand years passed in this manner, his physical body never change, staying like that.
"Who am I ?...." He question this for the first time in ten thousand years, he is not questioning about his race, that doesn't matter for him.
[Author come on, why did the protagonist have to fall on a cliff, it's so cliche]
[Yeah, why it's have to be a cliff, while a mountain full of beast will do the job]
[Author why did it have to be her ?, Why did she become the heroine ?]
[come on author Leon tell us your new project]
Unknown voices as if whispering beside his deaf ear.
"Yes now I remember, I'm Leon, an author" with a renewed vigor his walking pace quickened.
And as if passing through a membrane or a threeshold, all his senses come back. Blinding light assaulted his vision.
In that blinding light is the spirit of this Hidden Tower.
"More than ten thousand years of time of isolation, without any stimulation and yet you can still come here, what a interesting human. What a tenacious and greedy creature humans are" the voice laugh.
"Because of that I like them, here this is your desired item" the voice is ethereal as if it's doesn't exist, and yet he clearly hear it, it's voice is ambiguous it's clearly sound feminine, but also masculine.
"The three of you have cleared the trial, your friend you called Kazuki receive a power, your friend you called Licht get a item that will help him, and you get a item really why do you desire such destructive item, goodbye then"
The item that he get is something called God's Wrath, the only Hidden Tower that can give him this item is this tower.
It's function is simple, within a selected areas or on selected targets, God's Wrath will bring them destruction, but the price is not that cheap, 5 years of lifespan and including permanent lost of magical power and physical ability.
But it's worth it, because like the name it can even kill and destroy near immortal beings like Devils, and even gods.
He know the danger of this world as he is the one who write it in great detail, only with great ability can he protect himself.
However there is a limitation in selecting targets, it's to know their true name, but for the author here it is easy to remember the name of his characters.
"And also congratulation it seems you have Awakened your Attribute" then with that he was teleported.
"What ?" Leaving those words he leave the bright room.
When he open his eyes he is back on the surface, with the other two sitting on top of the sands.
________________________________________
Leon current status
[Status]
Name: Leon Hart
Variable stats
Strength: 3.3
Agility: 2.9
Endurance: 3.5
Magic: 2.2
Invariable stats
Luck: 1.2
Wisdom: 4.2
Charm: 3.4
Intelligent: 4.5
Attribute:
- Awakaned: ??? (Next chapter)
Art (0/3)
