The Fractured Tower

Beak was fast, but Sorin could match him as long as he wasn’t dodging Scars. Scars had strangely good control of her blood weaponry, but that also was nothing he couldn’t handle as long as he wasn’t dealing with being shot full of lightning at the same time. It was both of them together that created an overwhelming force.

Still Winter slowed them down enough for Sorin to stay ahead of them, but that wasn’t its only function. It had taken a bit of time for the chill to really settle in, but now that Beak had been directly submerged in the domain for over a minute, it was time to activate the soulprint’s secondary effect.

With a surge of anima, Still Winter condensed into solid ice. Daggers of it grew out of thin air and spiked into Beak from every direction. Those were more of a distraction for Scars, though, who responded by immediately intercepting them with her own blood-shaped weaponry. The plummeting temperature hardened the blood and caused it to shatter on impact, disrupting her control and showering the area with chunks of red ice.

The real attack on Beak was the crystallization of the blood in his body. Thousands upon thousands of tiny, minuscule daggers flowed through his veins, shredding him from the inside. He lurched to an immediate stop, his eyes bulging and weeping blood. Healing magic pulsed through him, trying to counteract the damage, but it wasn’t a one-time attack.

More and more frozen shards of blood kept building up, doing damage faster, spilling out of ruptured veins and arteries to shred other parts of Beak’s body. Recognizing the source, he did what any smart climber would do: he got the hell away from Sorin’s Still Winter domain.

It was too late for that to save him, however. Maybe if Sorin hadn’t been there, or had been willing to passively ignore him, Beak could have worked some magic. That wasn’t the case, though, and Sorin pursued him. Beak tried to defend himself, even going so far as to activate what was likely a contingency defense soulprint that wreathed him in lightning.

Sorin’s sword cut through him anyway. He accepted getting shocked to do it and even took a long slice all the way down the arm when Scars grabbed hold of the blood slurry leaking out of her partner to hack at Sorin. Then his blade bit into flesh. Sorin put every bit of strength into it he could, not knowing for sure what defensive measures Beak would have.

Whatever they were, if they existed at all, he didn’t get a chance to trigger them. Sorin’s sword started at his collarbone, sliced through it, hacked through ribs and sternum, and ended in Beak’s heart. With a savage twist, he shifted the angle of the blade sideways and tore it out the rank 15’s side.

Scars screamed something—Sorin didn’t catch the exact words—and spun up more weapons out of Beak’s blood. That really did seem to be her only trick, but it was far stronger than a D-rank soulprint could manage on its own, which made Sorin suspect she’d built her soulspace up to enhance one specific ability.

It didn’t mean she wouldn’t have any surprises waiting for him, but he was reasonably confident about expecting only one or two. If he was fast enough, she wouldn’t even pull those out. Unfortunately, Scars wasn’t the only opponent left standing.

The bounty hunter had, apparently, committed to the fight, and Beak’s death wasn’t enough to make her break and run. Two more needles came flying out of her hand, one aimed straight for Sorin’s eye and the other accurately predicting which way he’d turn to avoid the first. The eye-bound needle skimmed the bridge of his nose, and the second one slammed into the wrist of the hand holding his sword.

Some sort of magical poison hit him, causing his hand to spasm and release the blade. Sorin noted with some annoyance that his bracer hadn’t been up to the task of protecting him, but considering it was made of Floor 2 materials, he supposed it was to be expected that it couldn’t withstand a targeted attack by a bounty hunter above rank 10.

Yet another problem Yoru’s family could fix for me, he thought sourly.

Sorin sprinted across the open space between him and Scars, who had the good sense to pull all of her blood back to form a barricade of whirling razors that would slice him to ribbons if he tried to get into melee range. It was a strong tactical decision, but it reinforced the idea that she’d devoted all her soulspace to enhancing one singular ability.

Sorin didn’t bother to reclaim his sword—the needles stuck in both arms would make it difficult to wield, anyway. Nor did he slow his charge at Scars. The worst thing he could do was give her time to think. He didn’t need his hands to fight, not so long as he had anima to burn, and unlike his opponent, he’d used relatively little of his own reserves.

Force Edge wasn’t strong enough to cut through the blood on its own, but backed by a wave of Still Winter and the ice it summoned, Sorin tore Scars’s defenses to shreds, followed quickly by Scars herself. She hit the sand with a wet, meaty crunch, leaving just one final enemy to stand against Sorin.

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The bounty hunter vanished in front of Sorin’s eyes as she turned to flee. She couldn’t defeat Blind Sense and Earth Warder with that trick. Blades of force sliced into the backs of her knees, sending her stumbling, but it wasn’t enough to stop her.

Durability soulprint, I think. Maybe some automatic defense, but if so, it’s being hidden by her camouflaging ability.

Durability was a slog to defeat, and honestly probably the best way to defend against Sorin. He was punching up, after all, and endurance contests were a good way to lose, especially in a five-against-one fight. He briefly debated the merits of letting her flee, but he still had two needles sticking out of his body.

None of the soulprints he had would do for this, and he had moments before she got out of his range of perception. A free cast D-rank force spell was his best option for pure penetrating power with range, so that’s what he went with.

Something that looked vaguely like an eight-foot lance flashed into existence next to Sorin. It spun fast enough to be a blur, and with a gesture, he unleashed it to snap across the empty space between him and his target. The lance tore through the bounty hunter’s back, easily piercing whatever armor she might have had beneath her coat or defensive soulprints that hadn’t been strong enough to protect her.

Sorin let out a weary breath and ripped the needles out of him. Rather than discard them, he pocketed the weapons in hopes of finding the rest of the set on the fallen bounty hunter. They’d be worth something, he suspected. A channeled healing spell repaired the damage, but it would take something else to fix the muscle tremors. He’d deal with that in a minute.

After reclaiming his sword and ensuring that all four of the Black Hellions were dead, he marched over to where the bounty hunter was lying face down in the sand. He’d seen climbers survive worse injuries, though not generally without at least C-rank soulprints fortifying their bodies. Beheading the woman was a quick way to confirm she wasn’t faking anything, so that was exactly what he did.

Her coat was ruined, but he did find ten more needles in a steel case in an inner pocket. The case was cracked now, but the needles were intact, and every one of them was enchanted. Sorin couldn’t see himself using them as weapons, but he was sure he could get a decent pile of danirs for them.

There wasn’t much that interested him personally on the bodies, mostly because he was looking for enchanted gear, and they didn’t seem to have much of it. The two rank 8s had nothing more powerful than some basic swords enchanted for durability and sharpness. There was nothing wrong with that, but he didn’t know anyone personally who’d want them.

The spear he decided to keep, possibly to pass onto Odric. It had a storage enchantment on it, making it the most valuable weapon he’d looted from any Hellion. There was also a bracelet that enhanced lightning-based soulprints, which Sorin pocketed to possibly use later. He didn’t have anything that fit the bill yet, but he’d used a few in his old builds and was willing to incorporate them again.

Scars was simultaneously the most and least valuable corpse to loot. She had no less than six pieces of jewelry all enchanted in various ways, but everything revolved around blood control. She really had gone all-in on that method of fighting, so much so that Sorin suspected she’d been carried up to rank 15, because there was no way she’d survived just the environments in some of the floors the tower threw at people with her current build.

Since he had no interest in blood weaponry and didn’t know anyone else who might, it was all functionally worthless to him. At the same time, it was the biggest haul of loot, andit functioned as a set. All put together, he suspected it was worth even more than the spear.

Unsurprisingly, none of them had any money on them. It was too bad, because Sorin could definitely use some, but climbers being taxed every time they returned to Floor 0 ensured nobody wanted to carry cash up the tower.

Getting sick of being attacked by climbers with crap gear and no money.

He was just finishing his looting when he saw three figures detaching themselves from the portal hub to walk his way. It took only a moment to confirm their identities as Yoru and his two vassals. They reached him a minute later as Sorin stood up and patted the sand off his knees.

“Good timing,” he said. “Are you guys ready to get going?”

“Are you ready?” Kashi shot back.

“I’m fine. Wouldn’t want to get into another fight like this one for a few hours, but I can handle a few giant scorpions or sand elementals if it comes down to it.”

“What rank were they?” Yoru asked.

“These two were 15. Those two were 8. The bounty hunter was 11.”

Yoru gaped at him. “How the hell did you even survive that, let alone win?”

Sorin shrugged. “Better prepared. They underestimated me, though maybe not as much as I would have liked. I’ve been waiting for these Hellion pricks to make another move on me for weeks.”

It did seem like every time another group hunted him down, they were a higher rank than the last. At the rate he was going, it wouldn’t surprise him if the next set was above rank 20. That would be the point where he’d have to worry about them having a soulspace with multiple D-ranks or a single powerful C-rank, which meant he needed to do some heavy farming if he was going to win against a whole team of climbers.

“You know anyone who uses blood magic?” he asked Yoru.

“Yes. My healer.”

“Oh? Really?” Sorin asked, turning to look at Vendis.

“I am only starting out, but it felt like a good offensive option,” the vassal replied.

“Huh. Lucky. This woman went all in on it. I’ve got a whole bunch of tools to help with blood magic soulprints, and I’m sure your employer would be happy to trade me for them.”

“I’ll let my father decide those terms,” Yoru said dryly. “One more reason to get this over with so we can go talk to him.”

“Right. That. So, back to scouring the desert for my missing team. Let’s get going. I’ll show you where they were last holed up at.”