Demonic Devourer ch. 108

The 25th Floor

Adrian finds himself in utter darkness. He should have Nightvision from his still-unevolved Warrior class, but the system refuses to function for him.

On top of that, the Ascend objective should have triggered. That’s part of the system, too, he supposes.

“Kirin!” he shouts. “Kirin?”

No response.

Adrian instantly regrets calling out for help. This is a trial, isn’t it? Kirin knows much more about the tower than he does, but even Adrian remembers chatting with other climbers about the “trials.” They’d never mentioned that the first one came as early as the twenty-fifth floor, but here he is.

The tower judges him during the trail, so he hears; will crying out for his temporary comrade affect that judgment?

Adrian shakes the thought aside. There are more important things to address first.

Like, for instance, his lack of vision. Thankfully, whatever mechanism sent him here hasn’t removed his weapons, which he’s grateful for, but the only sword he has access to that actually works right now is the Channeling Blade, which is terribly useful when he has the force of an ocean to pour into it.

Right now, he has nothing. His entire arsenal is, for all intents and purposes, just hunks of useless metal.

“A quick study,” a voice lilts across the darkness. “Pleasing to witness.”

“Who’s there?” Adrian calls out. “Show yourself.”

He closes his eyes and draws the Channeling Blade alongside the Soulshard Rifle. He’s not entirely sure if the latter works without the system assisting it, but if it doesn’t, he can use it as a club. Adrian’s learned every swordfighting technique under the sun, including several schools that operate in weaponry that is unconventional, to say the least.

“Allow me to tell you a story,” the voice says. Adrian can’t tell if it’s man or woman or something else altogether that says it. He’s not even sure if it’s the same voice as the first time. After it speaks, only the words remain emblazoned in his mind; he finds himself unable to recall its timbre, the memory slips away like sand through open fingers. “In a certain divine corpse, there rises a tower for angels. Travelers come freely, but when they seek to advance beyond the first gate, they are faced with a certain challenge.

“Those who cannot surpass the trial and overcome their mortal limitations may not advance.”

“Some story,” Adrian mutters once the voice is done. The intonation in the air—that sensation that the words themselves are magical—he knows this. He hasn’t personally experienced it in years, but even one experience with it was one too many.

This is exactly why I didn’t want to come, he thinks. He didn’t expect them this early, but if this is the impossibility he has to face, then so be it.

The others are likely facing worse.

“Are you a gatekeeper?” he asks. He can’t force the same magic into his words, of course. Adrian is only human. “Or some other kind of fae?”

The voice hisses in amusement, and Adrian shudders.

“I am no gatekeeper,” it says. “No noble. I have no honorable name, but if you must address me, I am simply a Blessed One.”

Adrian remembers another who’d called herself a Blessed One. Back then, the system still worked for him—and more importantly, Sierra, who had Appraise, and it was incapable of identifying the Blessed One’s name.

What it was capable of was showing just how far above him she’d been. With one blow, she’d cut Jess’ torso in two. With a single word, Beaumont simply vaporized.

Whoever this is, he can’t fight it. Not yet.

But I will, he swore and swears. If he wants to save Sierra and Evelyn, finally one-up them in breaking the world, he has to.

“Blessed One,” he says, wary of the way his voice cracks on the words. “What trial do you have for me?”

“Traveler, you are low in the castle of the once and eternal monarch, so your assessment will be simple.”

Light burns away the darkness, blindingly bright, and Adrian instinctively strikes out with his sword, imbuing it with—nothing, because he has no skills.

Even without Swordfighting, he’s still a master of the blade, so it’s no surprise when he blocks the incoming weapon without even seeing it.

“Good,” the voice says. “You may yet pass, traveler.”

“What are you?” Adrian asks. He knows there’s fae in the tower. He knows the tower has trials.

Why are the two of them in the same place? How did a single fae turn his system off?

“Worry about the challenger you face first, traveler.”

The light fades, but not entirely, and Adrian finds that he’s inside something that he’d call an arena if it wasn’t so barren. His shoes scuff on a thin layer of sand over stone. It’s familiar territory for him, bringing back memories of a land he’s long since left behind.

Across him is a shadow, visible only as the absence of light in the limited area he can see. It blends in with the infinite void outside of the thirty-foot arena. Its shape is impossible to make out.

The sword it wields, however, isn’t. Adrian can see the blade, shiny and sharp and deadly just as his own is, and it bleeds water. Water that he can’t control.

Adrian stares at where he thinks its head should be located, and he gets the impression that it looks back at him. The two of them are mere paces apart. Neither wants to be the first to make a move.

Or so Adrian thinks.

“Another story, then,” the Blessed One says. “Once, a brave traveler observed a particular mirror and found he had forgotten what he was; from that god in the reflection came a being that was everything he was and more. The traveler fought and fought and fought, but the rules he held so dear no longer existed; for it was the echo that had created those rules in the beginning.

“There are two endings to this story. In one, the traveler perishes, never understanding how to regain that which he has lost. In the other, he survives, creating his own rules. Which will you be?”

Broken gods, Adrian thinks as the shadow-figure’s outline snaps into being. It’s me.

It’s him, but it still has the system. He watches as the water around it swirls into a hurricane.

Pain seizes his entire body as the water within his own body rebels against him.

Dehydrate.

The copy rushes him, and Adrian fights.

He parries the first blow with ease, but the second comes with the system-assisted skill of a level 50 Warrior, and he stumbles back. Water deluges him, trying to pierce his body, and it’s only with his agility that he’s able to keep himself from being run through entirely.

Think, Adrian, think! He does his best to as he engages in a deadly dance, one where he is constantly on the backfoot.

The echo is holding back, that much is clear. Dehydrate hurts, but it doesn’t kill. It hasn’t summoned the Blade of the Eternal Sea. It hasn’t overwhelmed him with speed.

“Do as you will with what you have learned,” the Blessed One says.

The speech. It holds clues, doesn’t it? Adrian wastes precious moments completing that thought, and he stumbles. Though he catches himself, pain spikes across his entire front as the dark reflection slices an eighth of an inch into his body from left shoulder to right hip.

“Shit!” he exclaims, firing the Soulshard Rifle.

It doesn’t work. Figures.

The story talked about a mirror, which is obviously a metaphor for the tower, Adrian thinks, ducking under a blow that would’ve taken his head off if the echo was a half second faster. And… the god in the reflection? The “rules” it talked about probably refer to the system, right? If the god in the reflection was the creator of those rules, then… is it saying that the fae created the system?

That has to be wrong, right? Nobody knows the origins of the system. Do they?

A question for another time, Adrian concludes, dropping painfully to his knees to roll past a blast of high-pressure water.

The echo barrages him with water, then the sword, then both, giving him no time to rest. It’s getting faster, and Adrian realizes that if he doesn’t figure out a solution soon, he’s fucked.

What would they do?

The fae broke the rules already—it took access to the system from him. Sierra would find a way to win within its twisted game. Evelyn would break the rules further.

Adrian can’t do either.

I will forge my own path, he thinks. He’s smarter than most people think at first, though—

The echo’s sword pierces his off-hand’s shoulder, and his thoughts are cut off by sudden, blinding pain as it disrupts the water within his body with the blow.

It stops there, as if waiting for him to recover before it continues killing him.

This is a trial, after all. Not an execution.

Adrian takes the blessed moments of relief to process.

He needs to create his own magic, he concludes. Just like Kirin was telling him to before. He needs to learn how to create something from nothing.

How is he supposed to do that? Maybe if he had fifteen years and a safe school… but he has neither, and it’s do or die.

The perfect place to learn.

Evidently, the echo has decided that he’s had enough rest, because it tears its sword out and swings it again, aiming for his throat.

Adrian parries it without thinking, then attempts a strike of his own. Water rises to meet it, slapping it away.

This would probably be easier, he thinks, if I wasn’t so damn powerful .

He fights by feel alone, trusting in his instincts to block each and every strike his mirrored opponent attempts, and Adrian attempts to summon the water.

It doesn’t work, of course. He has the fuel within him, he knows that—but he doesn’t have the system to spark his skill. He doesn’t have the framework.

So he keeps on trying, hoping beyond hope that he can find a way to spark his magic on his own. He tries to summon the skill in different ways. He tries to reverse the feeling it normally gives him. Tries to use his memories to aid him.

Nothing.

The echo increases in speed once more, forcing him onto the back foot. He’s already fighting defensively, but now it gives him even less room to navigate in. All he can do is parry, parry, dodge. He takes hits that slow him down to avoid hits that will end him.

Think differently. Think within the context of the story. Assume what the fae said is true, because right now, it is.

Adrian is running out of room. Though he leads his echo around the space the trial has allocated him, he’s being forced further and further back, and he has to add “don’t fall into the infinite void” onto his list of shit to deal with. It says something about the current situation that it isn’t even close to priority number one.

Let’s say the fae created the system, and let’s say they can take it away too. But the story says the man was able to reestablish his own rules. That means the magic is still there, waiting to be used. There just isn’t a system that can use it.

His limbs move almost without him bidding them to, nerves firing faster than the blink of an eye to meet attack after attack after attack. Even without any form of resistance, Adrian no longer feels the pain of his wounds. He’s pretty sure that’s a bad sign.

Even as his hands grow numb, he fights on, carried only by instinct.

And so he realizes. I’m moving faster than a human should be able to. I’m fighting better than anyone without a system could.

My instincts are still driving me.

Adrian’s been thinking of how to break through this situation all along. He’s tried to think like Sierra would, or Evelyn—but that’s the issue, isn’t it?

Don’t think. Feel.

He closes his eyes, and though he can no longer see his echo coming at him, he matches its blows all the same, unheeding of the cuts it opens on him.

“You are not long for this world, traveler,” the voice says. “Adapt or perish.”

Adrian ignores it, and he remembers.

He doesn’t go searching for the memories of the magic. He remembers the desperation. The acceptance. The refusal.

I will not die here.

And somehow, impossibly, he remembers the spark, and the fuel of his latent magic ignites.

Just as it does, the echo knocks him off his feet, throwing him to the ground, but it’s too late.

“The ocean does not forgive,” he says, watching it raise the blade in preparation for a final blow. “You should’ve killed me when you had the chance.”

And he pulls upon the magic that he does not need—has never truly needed—the system for.

Whereas the usage of a skill or a domain with the system is simple as breathing, this is a fight. That magic isn’t only his, he realizes. Just as Sierra told him, to draw magic is to take; there is something on the other end, resisting, but it’s weak and old and dead and so he takes and he takes and he takes.

The ocean explodes out from his body, and Adrian survives once again.