Unfortunately, while Asher’s demon hunter class informed him that there were demons somewhere within the tower, it didn’t function like any sort of radar. For all he knew, they could be all the way down on the ground floor, or slowly creeping up right behind them. The best they could do was keep their wits about them and make sure they weren’t wandering into any sort of trap that might have been left by the lich.

  Cautiously, he and Samantha made their way down to the next level, where he poked his head through the door. Inside was a large room filled to the brim with bones of all shapes and sizes, just like the last time he’d been here. There were far too many bones stacked about here and there to make out if any had been moved or added since his last visit, but he did pick out a few that were more interesting than the others. Now that his Identify had leveled up, he was able to actually make out where each individual bone had come from. Most of them were in fact human, disturbingly enough, but there was one pile that drew his attention.

  [Bones] - Griffin

  Griffin bones? He blinked, staring at the seemingly ordinary bones just lying out on a table among all the others. Curious, he stepped fully into the room, slipping back into the material realm just long enough to shove the interesting bones into his rift before meeting Samantha in the stairwell once more. He didn’t know if those bones would be worth anything, but he still had to talk to someone about selling his greater demon corpse at the grand auction, and he figured having the bones of a rare magical beast probably wouldn’t hurt to go alongside it.

  “A bunch of bones, but not the walking and talking type like we were hoping for,” he said, earning a snort from Samantha as they continued on down to the next level.

  The third floor down from the roof was dedicated entirely to act as a magical morgue. The last time he’d been here, there had been a half-dozen bodies lying on simple stone slabs, each corpse in a different stage of examination. It would seem the lich had been busy, however, as that number had more than tripled. Now, there were just over twenty bodies scattered throughout the room, many of them containing burn marks on their exposed flesh.

  These have to be people from the villages the demons attacked, Asher thought, his blood going cold as he realized what he was looking at. He held his breath as he walked from body to body, waiting to spot a familiar face from Horntho village. If he ended up finding George, or Martha, or Logan of all people, he didn’t know how he’d break the news to Samantha and Brian.

  Thankfully, none of the bodies belonged to anyone he knew, and he let out a sigh of relief before returning to Samantha once more. He wasn’t foolish enough to assume anyone from Horntho village other than them had actually managed to escape the invading demons alive, but having their corpses dragged back to be poked and prodded by the lich responsible for their deaths and the destruction of their home seemed so much worse for whatever reason.

  “Corpses,” he said solemnly, seeing the unspoken question in Samantha’s eyes as he shook his head. “Nobody we know.”

  “Silver linings,” she muttered, frowning at the closed door. “Let’s keep moving.”

  Remembering his earlier time spent within the tower, the next floor was the first one he was excited to return to. Sure enough, slipping through the door revealed the same massive alchemical workshop he’d discovered previously, and he grinned as his eyes swept over the massive bounty before him. There were Potions of Restoration, rare, high quality ingredients that would no doubt fetch a huge price in the capital, and all sorts of random potions they could use.

  Jackpot, he thought, ending Astral Dip and returning to the material realm directly in front of a row of Potions of Restoration. Don’t mind if I-

  The room exploded without warning. Magical, multicolored flames encompassed everything in an instant as the unexpected explosion shook the very foundation of the tower, shattering all the potions within the room all at once. Along with having a handful of potions splashed along his front, Asher was smashed into the hard stone wall, before something gave and he suddenly found himself tumbling through the open air. His head was pounding and he barely understood what was happening, but he could tell he was plummeting rapidly toward the ground. Right before crashing into it, he managed to focus on Samantha’s Eternal Mark, activating Recall and twisting the world around him, depositing himself unceremoniously at her feet back in the now dust-filled stairwell.

  “Samantha?” he croaked, coughing out dust as he struggled to get to his feet, only to find that either the explosion or having his body smashed into the tower wall had broken both of his legs in multiple places. His face was tingling, almost numb, but he ignored the strange sensation as he hunted for his partner. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m alright,” he heard through the dust, her voice warbling and sounding far more surreal than ever before, as though she were in shock. “Though the same can’t be said for my wings. Winged Savior saved my life.”

  “Well that’s good,” he said, waving at the dust that was thankfully clearing rather quickly. “That was some explosion, huh? I wonder…”

  Asher’s words died in his throat as the last of the dust cleared, and he found himself staring up.

  At a remarkably blue sky rather than the bland, grey stone of the tower ceiling.

  “The tower,” Asher gasped, coughing again despite the lack of dust. “It’s gone!”

  With the dust cleared, it was rather obvious to see what had happened. The force of the explosion had been so great that the top few floors of the tower had been blown clean off the rest of the spire, having crashed down into the forest below. Asher was blown away at the fact that he’d survived, before realizing what must have happened.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  The tingling in his face that was finally beginning to fade was a solid hint.

  “I think I ended up getting doused in a few Potions of Restoration when the room detonated,” he said, groaning as he pushed himself into a sitting position along the wall. “The serpent armor we had commissioned back in Poltar must have helped with the force of the explosion as well, otherwise I think I’d be in pieces right about now, regardless of any potion. Though even with all that, my legs feel like they’re broken in a dozen places, and my chest doesn’t feel much better. I’m going to need some time to heal.”

  Asher was also acutely aware of the fact that The Council of Death needed him alive in order to extract the element of Eternity from his soul. There was every chance this trap had been carefully constructed to ensure that it wasn’t lethal, despite looking entirely otherwise.

  Lethal for him at least. By now, he suspected the Council had a decent idea of what the Eternity element was truly capable of. At the very least, they knew he'd been able to regenerate an entire missing limb in only a few days' time.

  “I thought we were expecting traps,” Samantha said, crouching down and placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder, almost more just to make sure he was still in one piece for her own sake than for his. “You didn’t see any sort of trigger?”

  “Not a thing,” he said, chuckling before wincing at the sharp pain such movements cost him. “I’d hoped my evolved Identify and Secret Seeker would be enough to find any sort of trap, but I suppose that was wishful thinking when our opponents are millennia-old wizards.”

  Just as he was about to suggest she take a look and see if any of the potions had managed to survive the explosion, there was a roar, and a familiar, hulking red form emerged from the stairwell.

  “The Interloper!” the lesser demon shouted, its eyes widening as it lowered the monstrous mace it had raised to finish off whoever had triggered the lich’s trap. Asher didn’t know if the demon turned to run because it knew of his Sever the Thread skill, or in order to contact its master, but it didn’t matter.

  The demon didn’t even make it five feet back down the stairs before Samantha’s glowing violet arrow slammed into its back, piercing straight through its spine and sending it crashing to the ground.

  “They really are afraid of you,” she muttered, the disbelief clear in her voice as she stared down at the screaming demon already begging for mercy. Her arrow must have severed the spinal cord completely, as the demon’s limbs were splayed out numbly along the floor. “Every time I see it it’s just as wild as the first time.”

  “They love death, but only when they’re the ones dealing in it,” Asher said, hissing as he tried and failed to get to his feet yet again. “Sorry, I can’t actually stand just yet. You mind helping me out here?”

  “Not at all,” Samantha said, her voice hard as she stared down at the demon that looked identical to the ones who had destroyed her entire village and killed just about everyone she’d ever known. Pulling his arm over her shoulder, Samantha took the brunt of his weight as she hoisted him to his feet. As the two of them staggered over to the demon, the monster continued begging for its life.

  Though demons begged rather differently than most people did.

  “Let the girl with the bow kill me, I’ll never return to the material realm, I swear!” the demon shouted, its black eyes wild and panicked as it craned its neck to look at them. “We didn’t know about your skill! We never would have accepted the master’s summon if we had!”

  “You know, saying you wouldn’t have taken countless innocent lives if you knew there would be any sort of repercussion for you doesn’t really make me want to kill you any less,” Asher pointed out, frowning down at the panicking demon. “What can you tell us about your master’s whereabouts?”

  “The master is-” The demon’s words were cut off by a blood-curdling howl as a glowing violet band around its neck materialized and yanked tight, burning its way into the demon’s flesh as it physically prevented the demon from finishing its sentence. Panting, the demon shook its head, clearly exhausted. “I can’t say! I can’t! The binding ritual prevents me!”

  “How many of you are there?” Asher tried, determined to get some sort of information out of the monster before he killed it. “How many demons did your master summon?”

  “There are hundreds of my kind up here under the master’s control, but only two other greater demons dared accept the master’s summon after you extinguished the life of the last,” the demon gasped, eager to answer what it could. “It’s been countless centuries since the last greater demon truly died, at the hands of the ruler of demons, and news that you were capable of such a feat has already spread through the nine hells like hellfire. They’re not here, but they know what you can do and came anyway.”

  “Two greater demons still took the offer, though?” Samantha asked, her face turning pale at the very thought. Turning to look at him, her lips trembled slightly before she steeled herself. “Asher, you barely managed to take down one of them, and you literally got torn in half doing so. How are we going to defeat two?”

  “We’ll figure something out,” he said, doing his best to ignore the memory of having his legs separated from his torso. His battle with the greater demon had been incredible, but even he had to admit the damage he’d suffered had been a bit much. Not to mention the greater demon hadn’t realized just how devastating his Sever the Thread was until it was practically too late. With that element of surprise potentially gone, he didn’t fancy his current chances of going up against another greater demon just yet, let alone two of them.

  “What else can you tell us?” Asher demanded, pointing a dagger at the demon’s throat as it hurried to speak. It was clear the demon wasn’t used to begging for its life, as it actually sputtered and seemed at a loss for words.

  “I can’t say anything about the master due to the binding ritual, but I can tell you about the nine hells!” it offered, nodding frantically. “I can tell you about my battles down there!”

  “Not interested,” Asher said, creating a tunnel of compacted space and shoving his dagger into the demon’s neck. Just as he’d suspected, even his steel dagger managed to pierce through the demon’s thick hide with only minor resistance, thanks to his currently equipped demon hunter class, and he watched as the last light left the demon’s eyes as he killed the monster for good.

  Never again would the demon be summoned to the material realm to claim innocent lives.

  Sever the Thread - Lvl 19

  “One level away,” he muttered as Samantha gingerly placed him down against the wall again. “Killing demons really does level Sever the Thread like nobody’s business.”

  “That’s great, but I don’t think you’re concerned enough about there being two more greater demons roaming around up here that we need to worry about,” Samantha said, looking worriedly at him.

  “It’s not that I’m not concerned, it’s more so that we have more pressing things to worry about,” Asher said, giving her a tired smile as he pointed to the stairs. “For starters, the itch in the back of my head hasn’t gone away. This lesser demon was only the start. There are more demons waiting for us down below, and after blowing the top off the tower, I’d be shocked if they didn’t know we were coming.”

  two greater demons you say? That doesn't sound like a very fun time.

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