Shadow of his women
The gods were looking through a crystal to see what Mortis was doing when Tenebris started screaming. "How can he be so cruel, even though it shows his former self?" asked Tenebris. All that could be heard from the crystal was, "When I imagine the face of this god, it's really easy to beat up those shadows, no matter what form they take." Primus looked at everything quite intently and even had a smile on her face, as if this brutality pleased her all the more.
Finally, Mortis got a box that had a shirt and a simple scythe in it, which he was most happy about, so he could finally get rid of the stone that had brought him this far. The scythe made him nostalgic, as it really looked like the first one he had when he came to this world. Full of joy, Mortis made his way further up, where he immediately encountered enemies that were like Hobgoblins. He didn't like that at all, because these beasts were fast and had good jumping power. And if that wasn't enough, they were all elite. Mortis noticed this immediately when he hit the first one several times and it was still standing. He tried to fight them one by one, although it was hard, but he often managed. However, as soon as there were more, Mortis was also hit more often. Fortunately, however, never with a sharp blade, mostly just with feet or a blow to the stomach area. Since his opponents were shadows, he could neither recover nor heal. This caused Mortis to be more cautious, as he had no healing potion and had not been given one.
On the 7th floor, Mortis was starting to get tired, as he always had to kill everything that wandered around this dungeon. Although his stats kept replenishing, he was quickly losing stamina. This led to him getting a few cuts to his stomach as well, which annoyed him since he could dodge all attacks when he was in top form. But his eyes were already falling shut and he became inattentive. With the pain, he got another burst of energy that made him want to clear the floor. But instead of moving on, he went to sleep for the time being to be mentally fit again.
When he awoke, Mortis set off. Neither the 9th nor the 10th floor were problematic, but when he opened the boss room and saw two shadows standing there - one in the shape of Jasmine and one in the shape of Helga - Mortis got really angry. He would never lay his hand on one of his wives, and even if they were shadows, they looked like his wives. At that moment, Mortis just wanted to deal with it quickly, but he inwardly vowed revenge. This bastard would regret what he had done.
Jasmine wielded two swords and danced around the room. As she raised her hands, her shadow buffs seemed to be amplified. Mortis was taken aback, he had thought Jasmine was a simple dressmaker, but obviously she had more secrets than expected. Mortis had to admit that Jasmin's hip swing and movements were breathtaking, and her handling of the two sabers was also top notch. No sooner had he destroyed the light shield than Helga put on a new one, which she did really masterfully. She kept trying to finish him off with spells. Although it was probably the wrong time, Mortis had to admit that he would be the proudest man in the world if his women could fight like that.
As Mortis slowly adapted to the Shadow women and learned a lot from Jasmine, he finally managed to get between the two and attacked Helga first, since she was the healer. Even though he knew they were shadows, he didn't have the heart to kill them painfully or brutally. Instead, he quickly stuck his scythe into its heart and even caught it before carefully putting it down. The way he treated her seemed so loving that even Primus wiped away a tear. With Jasmin he had not yet had such a bond, so he did it quickly and painlessly, but not as lovingly as with Helga.
When the shadows were defeated, a chest appeared, in which there was a black-green ring, which was immediately put on Mortis' right ring finger. The ring had ten holes in it, and as Mortis wondered what this ring would do, the shadows of Helga and Jasmin suddenly appeared again. These began to float and became spheres that grew smaller and smaller. When they were tiny, they floated to Mortis' new ring and each filled a hole to become crystals. Helga's crystal was white, while Jasmin's crystal was red. Mortis still wondered what it all meant, but the system couldn't give him an answer, so he had to wait until he finished this dungeon.
The ball of light reappeared, which said "Unlocked Slash." Mortis was happy to hear this, but when he realized how little mana he had right now, his joy was dampened. With his current stats, he could only use the ability twice and then had to wait until he was full of mana again. But whether this was the last ability or not, he would defeat Tenebris. Tenebris didn't like Mortis' expression at all, even though he had just given him such a nice gift. Primus was having a great time. She knew for a fact that Tenebris had gone too far, and even though she knew Mortis didn't stand a chance, she also knew how vindictive he could be and that he would eventually present him with the receipt.
"The next floors tended to be beefy demons or cubs, so Mortis had to use the Slash ability more often than he would have liked. This always made him feel drained when he had no mana. Mortis wondered how long he had been in this tower. Although from the outside it looked like the tower was getting narrower towards the top, the floors were getting bigger. He would be happy to see a floor that had food and a bench, or even a bed again. Even though he was strangely not hungry, he just wanted some rest. As his mana slowly filled up again, so did his desire, and he continued to fight his way to the boss of floor 15. Here his opponent was a person he once didn't know or had forgotten. However, the most important thing was that he was wearing his chest armor, which Mortis had really missed, as well as the rest of his entire equipment.
The enemy had two daggers, making him an assassin or rogue. Mortis did not like such enemies at all, especially now that he could not heal himself. Mortis had barely thought about how to proceed against this opponent when he charged at Mortis with his two daggers crossed. The opponent was as nimble as a weasel and had a good eye for what was coming at him. He could quickly dodge or block with one dagger and stab with the other. Mortis tried to keep the rogue at a distance, and if the opponent got too close, he quickly jumped back to avoid being slashed. But the shadow did not give up and tried everything to get close to Mortis. This went on for some time, but when the rogue managed to ram his dagger into Mortis' upper arm, enough was enough for Mortis. He changed his fighting style by simply walking forward, kicking the rogue in the chest, hurling the scythe head-on at him, grabbing him by the collar and yanking him to the ground. The shadow didn't really know what was happening as Mortis sat on top of him, pressing the scythe down on him and forcing him to the ground with his knees. Then he just beat barbarically on the shadow's face until it turned to mush."
In the next crate, as he expected, he found his chest plate and even his gloves. Mortis again received +2 stats on all attributes and was healed. In addition, the Mist Trace ability was unlocked, so he could now be a bit faster and strike harder. Although he was a bit tired and already weary of the tower, there was only one way he wanted to go quickly. One thing was for sure, this tower was going to get harder and harder and he was looking forward to seeing Tenebris' face when he faced it. This motivated Mortis to keep moving forward, and he went to the 16th floor.
When Mortis saw bugs and especially spiders, he was not happy at all. He hated those critters and that spurred him on even more to quickly master the next floors.When Mortis entered the boss room on the 20th floor and opened the door, he saw Marina as a shadow figure. Mortis was excited, although he had fought mages before and seen spirits casting spells, he had never fought a mage and was eager to see what his wife's shadow would throw at him. The fight began and Marina struck the ground with her staff, whereupon a wave of ice spread from her and spikes of ice came at Mortis. He ran to his left to see how far this spell was following him. Although the spell didn't reach very far, it gave Marina enough time to cover herself with a mana shield and hurl another spell at him. By the time she was done with the spell, about 20 icicles appeared, not all of them going after Mortis at once, but four at a time to keep him on his toes. Using dodges without really getting close enough to them, he dodged the icicles, making sure to dodge a fireball every other volley as well. It took a while to dodge all the spells, but after a few seconds he managed to get to her. But as soon as he was about to attack her, she disappeared and appeared 10 meters away from him in the middle of the room. Mortis used "fog trail" to get to her faster, minimizing dodging and trying to destroy the icicles with his scythe. It was more exhausting than he had expected, but if his wife could fight like this, he was really proud. Now he wanted to finish it, because there were other shadows of his wife and ugly monsters waiting for him.