The floor is going to change. The race is finally beginning again.

  Ji-a thinks as she looks at the High Ranker floating in the air who has carried her and others back into the settlement, before sealing it away for good. Now no one will be able to enter or exit it for a while. At least until the church of clarity is done with their agenda.

  Ji-a keeps her mind sharp and follows the night after that even as every part of her wishes to simply slip away into oblivion and sleep for a long long time.

  She watches as the rest of the church descends from the higher floors, and blocks the next floor altar with a metal wall different from the High Ranker–as this one had moving patches of red inside it. Lava? Thermal energy?--preventing anyone from ascending on the off chance. In a few hours, the altar will be gone.

  In the meantime, the church groups up anyone still alive and in need of assistance, healing them with their touch. Someone also comes to her with the offer, and she lets her take a look at her wounds. She has a nasty one on her stomach, and one on her back, just missing the vertebral column.

  The healing brings another wave of sleepiness, but her high Resistance and will borne out of long life keeps her awake and sharp. Exhausted, and stumbling, but sharp.

  She finds Adrian in the mess of bodies who are laying on stretchers asleep. She knew he hadn't died, as the avatars had stayed with her until the end, only one of them dying mistakenly. Only in the end when the High Ranker purged every magical creature, did it also purge the avatars.

  She knew he hadn’t died, but still seeing him alive and receiving treatment brings her some amount of reassurance and relief.

  She continues to walk through the dead cold night, the fire put out long ago by the High Ranker. In the place of the once lively tree, now lies a charred and blackened one. It too is receiving treatment from the church, recovering its vitality slowly.

  There are many high ranking people who have descended with the High Ranker, so the tree should be fixed by tomorrow. The buildings and the stores though will be built by the people. They’ll name it a bonding exercise, and it’ll work perfectly. Just like it always does.

  Binding more and more people to this floor. The more people will emotionally invest in this floor, the more they’ll feel at peace here, safe from the monsters, unified, the less and less will go up.

  Just like the Tower wants.

  To create a canopy for all the weak willed. A boundary above which they cannot expect life at all.

  She finally finds more familiar faces. It’s Adrian’s party. None of them are dead, except one guy who seems to be on the verge of it. He has a stump on his hand, missing legs, and part of his stomach gone.

  He’s only alive through the grace of the healers who arrived on time.

  Then she also finds her fellow trial members.

  Most of them look okay, except a few missing limbs here and there. The healers will take their time with them, but the limbs will be restored in a few days, without crippling any of them. This is nice.

  She quite liked these people, and wouldn’t want them to die so soon.

  The church orders all the able bodies like her to help in the multitude of work there is yet to be done. Dissecting the myriad of monsters, categorizing the cores, moving the dead, cleaning the soil of the blood before it mutates into a disease, and then the dozen more there probably are.

  Ji-a takes the job of moving the dead because it’s the easiest one with her Hidden Hands. Although she doesn’t have a lot of mana left, she can still conjure two hands for this work.

  Taking two corpses by their legs, or whatever remaining limbs they have left, she drags them towards the place they are gathering the dead, all to be burned at once.

  A man stands at the front of the dump of bodies with a floating pen and notepad in his hands, and a constantly changing light in his eyes. He looks at the bodies in her invisible arms, and the pen automatically moves and notes their information. Then he allows her in, and she throws the bodies in the dump.

  Someone shouts about being respectful, but she simply shows the guy a middle finger, and moves away to the next dead.

  A few more trips later, all the dead are collated and congregated in a small mound of bodies. There must be about 20-30 of them. Very low. Very much so compared to the fight that has just happened in the fight. There must’ve been thousands of fighters just now, but only so few bodies?

  Some might assume that it’s because of the high tenacity of the climbers, but Ji-a is waiting to see what tale the church is gonna fabricate.

  As she dumps the last bodies in the mound, she notices another familiar figure standing beside the mound. John. John Atkins from the trial.

  “You aren’t dead either?” She asks. He looks at her with a confused expression for a few moments, probably because of her dishevelled self and blood ridden clothes, then recognition flashes in his eyes.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “No. I’m quite alive as you can see,” He shakes his head as he says.

  “What are you doing here? Dumping more bodies?”

  “Just trying to understand something,” He says, his expression a little quizzical, before turning into a weary smile, “Also waiting for my orders to burn the bodies. There are a few more of us, I think.”

  Ji-a nods, and waits for the fireworks about to start. And she doesn’t have to wait for too long, as soon the church official with the notepad comes and orders the nukers to blast the mound of bodies.

  John takes a deep breath, a rush of mana inside of him, and then with a snap, a large flame engulfs the bodies. Similar flames appear all around the mound, quickly eating away at the bodies. It starts from the flesh, as it turns darker and falls off, and then it reaches the bones. A popping echo through the night as the skull cracks under the fire.

  Ji-a stands there with John, taking in the demise of the bodies under the raging fire, and smelling the dead body smell. Ugh, she always hates it.

  In a while though, the official comes with a few more jobs for them, and they go their separate ways completing them.

  The night is long, and the exhaustion only makes it longer, but by the time she’s done, the place looks a little better. The church officials hold a massive ritual to cleanse the soil and purify it of any disease, so that won’t be a problem in the future.

  Many hours later, as the night is slowly coming to an end, and the sky starts turning brightening a little, tents are set up for both the unconscious, and the conscious. She is also given some energy bars that she munches on as she enters her tent.

  It’s shared by two other women, who seem to have fallen asleep as soon as they touched the floor, spreading their arms wide and covering all space for her to sleep. With a casual flex of her hidden hands, she moves them away into a corner on top of each other, and she takes the remaining space to sleep peacefully.

  There is going to be.. a lot to do tomorrow… as well….

  #

  Adrian opens his eyes staring at a white cloth roof overhead, and a lock of hair just above him.

  He pushes whoever is sleeping on top of him, and sits up. Well he tries to, but as if put down by the gods itself, his body refuses to move at his command. A momentary fear of paralysis takes over him, but the sore pain quickly reduces that to a sigh.

  He creates an avatar beside him and takes over its mind. The avatar emerges from him and sits up in his stead. They are in a tent it seems, with one another person he doesn’t know. Then he looks at himself through the avatar’s eyes, and he looks horrible.

  Bloodshot red eyes, dishevelled hair, dirty face, and torn clothes revealing the skin underneath. There are no wounds at the very least, nor is there any blood. Neither on him nor on his tentmate. He looks dead.

  I’m really defenseless. I should be fine for a while. I’m sure I’ll feel if something were to happen to me. They must’ve removed it last night.

  The memory of the High Ranker from the church of clarity descending and completing all their worries with just three waves of his hands still rings in his head. The ease with which he completed something which took all of their combined effort.

  This level of strength. Can I have it too?

  He lets go of the ridiculous thoughts for now and leaves his original body behind to rest, and leaves the tent with the avatar itself.

  Outside, the settlement is washed in a wave of white tents, all enclosed under a menacing metal wall which reaches far into the sky, shimmering under the even brightness of the sky. He is sure that many climbers with weird abilities can climb it, but would the church really allow them to?

  He carefully walks around the sea of tents, through the several people who are already up and chatting together. New bonds have been forged in yesterday’s massacre. Tears fall, relationships blossom, and trust blooms. All within this sea of white.

  Eventually a member of the church finds him and asks him if he should be walking, and he reports that he’s just a magical construct, to which the church member looks at him dumbfounded for a moment, before asking, “Are you looking for someone?”

  “My party and friends.”

  She asks him for their names and is pointed towards a group of tents not too far from his. She says he should be able to find them easily.

  Easily, she says.

  Adrian does find them in a while, coming across Finneas first.

  “Oh hey, you came through pretty much in one piece, huh?” Finneas asks as he limps towards him, one of his legs now missing. Adrian looks at it and then at him.

  “The healers said that it’ll take some time to heal, but they’ll heal it eventually. Nothing much to worry about really,” Finneas waves away his concern with a tired smile of his own. He looks a little pale and famished.

  “What about the others?” Adrian asks.

  “Most of them are fine. Himari and Ritsu took the brunt of the damage really, as they have always been utility types. We tried to protect them as much as we could, but eventually we too were overwhelmed,”

  His voice goes down a few octaves as he whispers, “They say that Ritsu is in a coma and no one knows when he’ll wake up. He’s stable though,” His voice returns to his original cheer, “A climber’s vitality will bring him back in no time.”

  Adrian nods, moving towards where their tent is before Finneas stops him. “You should first visit your party. They are… less than ideal,”

  Adrian’s heart jumps a little bit at that.

  He nods and follows Finneas’ direction to his party’s tent. Inside he can hear sobs, grinding of teeth, soft whispers, and he feels fear. Fear and hesitation at entering inside. Should he really? What should he tell them? How bad is the situation? Should he make excuses again?

  The decision is made for him when Matthew walks out of the tent, his eyes red and snot flowing through his nose. Adrian has been about to say something, when the big guy engulfs him in a big hug.

  “You’re fine. You’re fine…” He says softly, touching his back and grounding himself as if confirming that he isn’t dead.

  “I’m… I’m fine. Wh-what happened?” Adrian asks, escaping the big man’s hug.

  Matthew doesn’t say anything to that, and only opens the flap for him to enter. Adrian doesn’t dare enter, standing outside as he looks outside.

  Buren is lying on a medical table, as healers continue to work on him. His arm and legs are gone, a part of his stomach missing as more flesh grows within. A pipe is stuck directly in his throat for food and water.

  He looks terrible. Almost dead, and yet not there. Leah sits by his side, softly cradling his hand. She too looks terrible, famished and sunken in, as if in a dire need of food.

  She notes him, and softly says, “Adrian, so you finally came,”

  #

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