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175. From Above
🕑 Added 2024-09-26 14:00:03 +0000 UTCThe shape of the streets formed a human body. A human body, curled up on the ground like a child inside its mother. The walls pressed close around the body’s head and feet, forming the boundary of its world.
“Lord Nors isn’t in control of the town. The town is Lord Nors. All the puppets are him, as much as his flesh body is him, anymore. He spread his power so thin that I was able to destroy the individual pieces with ease, and likewise, we could destroy the Lord himself with ease,” Ike explained, gazing down from the tip of the spire.
“See, this is why no one uses Wizard’s Tower. It’s a great way to weaken yourself,” Wisp said.
Ike cut a look at her. “We were almost consumed by the Wizard’s Tower.”
“Yeah, but we weren’t,” she pointed out.
Ike snorted. He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah.”
She glanced at him. “So what now?”
“I’ve already decimated the town, so that’s not it. Even if we kill Lord Nors’ real body—or should I say, original body, I don’t think that will do anything.” He pointed down at the body. The center of the walls marked the body’s center. In the center of the walls stood the castle. In the center of the body, sat the heart. “I think the core of the Wizard’s Tower is somewhere in this castle. Which is to say, in the only thing my Tempest thing couldn’t destroy. If we go to the deepest part of the castle, I bet we’ll find it.”
“The deepest part of the castle, that he can freely reshape at will,” Wisp pointed out.
Ike shrugged. “Only one way to handle it.”
Wisp grinned. “Destroy everything?”
He grinned back. “You got it.”
Wisp grabbed tight to the spire, then threw herself off it. She kicked through the roof.
Ike glanced at Shawn. The young mountain slept on his shoulder. “I’m going to borrow your weight, okay?”
Shawn had nothing to say.
“Wisp, get out of the way,” he called.
She glanced up, then hopped to the side.
Ike took a deep breath. He’d been instinctively holding Shawn’s weight with his aether, preventing it from effecting his body or the world around him the same way Shawn had. But now, he released that. A low-level constant draw on his aether vanished, and in return, a huge weight bore down on his shoulders.
Ike hopped off the spike and plunged. He slammed into the floor beside Wisp. Wood shattered. Splinters flew as the beam cracked. He broke through to the next floor and shattered through. And the next, and the next, until he slammed down onto stone. Not bedrock, but the stone floor of the first floor. The rocks cracked, but they didn’t shatter.
Wisp slid down beside him on a spider’s thread. “You got close, but no cigar.”
“Take me back to the top. Now that I’ve broken all the floors between here and the top, I bet I can smash this floor if I plunge from the top,” Ike said.
“Smart man, smart.” She paused. “What keeps him from swapping the floors between attempts?”
Ike glanced up, then back down. “We do it real fast.”
Wisp laughed. “That’s the kind of thinking I appreciate!” She reached for him.
“Wait, hold on. Let me grab ahold of Shawn’s weight again,” Ike said.
She waited.
He took a deep breath and circulated his aether, taking Shawn’s weight back on. Ike nodded at Wisp. She wrapped an arm around his shoulder and twitched her thread. They ascended back into the sky, back up to the roof.
The second they reached the roof, the floors began to close. The shattered wood swirled slowly shut, closing the holes Ike had cut.
“Go, go, go!” Wisp shouted. She released him.
Ike released Shawn’s weight and plunged. He fell through the first layer, the second, the third. The fourth wound shut as he drew toward it. The wood closed in around him.
He pulled his legs in tight and punched his way through the edges of the floor. It slowed him down, but not completely. He closed in on the stone below.
This time, rather than only using Shawn’s weight, he activated Lightning Clad and Shockwave Punch. Before he hit the ground, he unleashed a punch toward it. The stones shivered and cracked. They shook in their mortar. Bits of rock flew into the air.
And then Ike struck.
He struck with the weight of a small mountain. His body slammed into the floor, breaking through the already weakened stone. Ike dropped into darkness. A vast, empty space opened around him. He fell, and fell, and fell. Down, down, down, into the depths, into the bowels of the earth.
Holy shit. I don’t think I can safely land this. I’m going to die, for real.
Wisp followed him down, moving slower and more carefully on her spider’s thread. As Ike kept falling, he stared up at her. “Wisp! Help!”
She rolled her eyes and shot a thread at him. The thread held for a split second, then snapped. “Carry Shawn’s weight again!”
“Dammit, I forgot!” He pulled Shawn’s weight back onto his aether. “Do it again!”
This time, the white thread caught him. He pulled to a slow stop.
Wisp climbed down the thread toward him. “How deep do you think this goes?”
“Uh…” Ike pulled up his skills. Do I have a light-creating skill?
[Name: Ike | Age: 17 | Status: Nm | Rank: 2 [Lost in the Loop]]
Skills: Common: 11 | Bronze 5 | Silver 3 | Gold 2 | Rare 2 | Unique: 6
Common: All-Around Runner Lvl 9 | Razor Handling Lvl 9 | Spear Handling Lvl 4 | Axe Handling Lvl 4 | Sword Handling Lvl 9 | Bow Handling Lvl 1 | Primitive Crafting Lvl 9
Bronze: Sensory Enhancement Lvl 9 | Mana Manipulation Lvl 6 | Lunam Manipulation Lvl 0 | Aether Manipulation Lvl 2 | Solam Manipulation Lvl 0
Silver: Flurry of Kicks Lvl 4 | Chlorophyll Lvl 2 | Exsanguination Lvl 1
Gold: Shockwave Punch Lvl 6 | Ice Armor Lvl 5
Rare: River-Splitting Sword Lvl 9 | Mountain’s Weight Lvl 1
Unique: Lightning Dash Lvl 9 | Lightning Grasp Lvl 9 | Lightning Clad Lvl 4 | Lightning Caller Lvl 3 | Body Reforging Art Lvl 1 | Tempest Lvl 1
He gritted his teeth. “You have any light-casting skills?”
“Oh, yeah. Check this out.” She opened her mouth and spat out a spool of web. The web glowed brilliantly, like embers. It drifted from her mouth, illuminating the space as it descended.
“Neat. Is that the new Unique support skill?” Ike asked.
“Yeah. Makes my webs fireproof and gives them a flame attribute. Pretty neat, huh?”
Ike nodded. “Useful, yeah.”
The red light fluttered downward. Slowly, the ground came into view. Ike raised his brows. “Huh.”
“I guess you were right,” Wisp said.
Still staring, Ike shook his head. “Guess so.”
