Neo led the way.

He already knew the path well enough to avoid being seen. They moved along the outer edge of the camp, where almost no one should have been awake at that hour apart from the black-haired girl near the graves of her fallen companions.

Snot followed close behind him, lowering his voice without thinking about it.

"You’re sure it’s this way?"

Neo didn’t turn around. "Yes."

Snot kept walking for a few steps more, but his unease was already starting to crawl up his spine.

"Why do I get the feeling I’m not going to like where this is heading?"

Neo gave no answer.

That only made it worse.

Snot clicked his tongue and kept following until the tower rose ahead of them from the far side, where the white stone leaned above the cliff and the whole place looked one bad step away from becoming a grave.

The moment Snot saw the drop, his stomach turned.

He stared at the cliff, then at Neo.

"Neo," he said, his voice much less steady than before, "I should probably say this now, since you clearly weren’t planning on warning me about anything. I really don’t like heights. I don’t think I mentioned it before, so I’m mentioning it now."

Neo finally turned his head toward him.

A faint smile appeared on his face, the kind that immediately made Snot regret speaking.

"If you’re already shitting yourself here," Neo said, "I’d love to see your face a little later."

Snot frowned. "What’s that supposed to mean?"

Neo’s smile deepened just enough to make it worse.

"You’ll see."

A chill ran through Snot’s whole body.

"Neo, you’re creeping me out. You’re joking, right?" He kept looking from Neo to the cliff and back again. "Right? Neo? Tell me you’re joking."

But Neo didn’t answer.

He just kept walking until they reached the base of the tower on the side where the overgrowth covered the wall and the cliff waited below.

Snot looked up.

Then down.

Then back at Neo.

"No," he said. "Absolutely not. Not a chance in hell."

Neo finally turned fully toward him and laughed under his breath. "Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize his lordship was afraid of heights. And you still call yourself a man?"

A vein almost popped on Snot’s forehead.

"Right." He pointed upward with open resentment. "If you think you’re such a man, you go first."

Neo gave him a mock bow. "As you command, Your Highness."

Beast Strength surged through his grip, into his fingers, into the pressure of his feet, and he started climbing.

It was almost insulting how quickly he made it look manageable.

Hand. Foot. Pull. Push. Another hold. Another root. In a few seconds he was already halfway up, moving through the curtain of overgrowth like someone who had been born doing this.

Snot stared up at him with deep personal hatred.

By the time Neo reached the opening, he turned back and mouthed silently:

Come on, princess. Or do you want me to carry you?

Snot read his lips and felt fresh rage rise on the spot.

"Oh, look at this bastard," he muttered. "When he wants to, he can talk just fine."

There was no way around it anymore.

With his feet already threatening mutiny, Snot started climbing.

Neo watched from above without the slightest intention of helping. Snot had embarrassed him in the mall, loudly enough that half the store had turned to stare. Letting him suffer a little here felt fair.

Snot climbed with the stiffness of a man trying to negotiate with gravity.

Neo made it worse.

"Remember," he said mildly, "don’t look down."

Snot immediately looked down.

A terrible choice.

The cliff opened beneath him in one brutal sweep. The dark below seemed to tilt and pull at the same time, and for a heartbeat he felt his whole body go hollow.

"Son of a bitch!" he hissed upward.

Neo said nothing.

That somehow made it worse. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

He simply waited by the opening while feeding the vine down into the tower again, giving Snot all the time in the world to suffer his way up in private.

By the time Snot reached the top, he was breathing like he had just outrun death and insulted its mother on the way.

Neo slipped through the hole first. Snot followed with all the grace of a condemned man.

The moment his boots touched the floor below, Snot dropped to the stone, pressed both palms against it, and kissed the ground.

"Oh, sweet earth. How I missed you."

Neo glanced at him and rolled his eyes. "It wasn’t that bad."

Snot lifted his head enough to glare at him. "Forgive me for not being suicidal. I happen to value my life."

They stood beneath the opening, inside the first floor of the tower.

The chamber was as Neo remembered it. The same circular hall. The same torches burning along the walls. The same white angel statue planted in the center with her spear and stone wings.

The staircase curved upward along the inner wall.

Neo stared at the statue and thought, with genuine sincerity,

’Please don’t activate.’

Snot finally got to his feet and brushed dust off his clothes. "Well? What do we have here?"

"Nothing on this floor except that statue," Neo said. "We head for the stairs and go up. Once we’re there, summon your weapons. We’ll need them."

Snot nodded. "And the formation?"

"I go first. You stay at my back."

"Very romantic."

Neo gave him a dead look.

Snot raised both hands. "Fine. Fine."

They started walking.

Passing the statue felt longer than it had any right to. Neo kept half expecting heat at his throat, or the grinding roar of stone dragging over stone, or something even worse. Nothing happened.

The angel remained still.

Neo exhaled inwardly.

’Thanks for keeping your mouth shut this time.’

The thought brought another after it, one less immediate but harder to ignore.

Twice now.

Twice the ring had reacted to hidden places.

First the ruin under the mountain. Now this.

It couldn’t be random anymore. Which meant there were probably more places like this in the world. Hidden chambers. Buried paths. Sealed things waiting on the right key to stir.

’So every locked place needs something that wakes it,’ Neo thought. ’And somehow, this ring keeps doing exactly that.’

Not a comforting realization.

They reached the stairs without trouble.

Neo invoked Gravebite.

The long sword appeared in his hand with its ugly, toothed edge catching the torchlight in a way that made it look like it wanted flesh more than steel. Over his shoulders and torso, Vagabond’s Rag formed as well, draping him in ragged cloth that looked halfway between armor and something a starving drifter might have died in.

Snot froze when he saw it all.

"A new Soul Relic?" he asked, surprise pulling the words out before he could dress them up.

Neo gave the sword a small testing motion. "Yeah. Thought it was time to replace the old one."

Snot’s attention dropped to the cloth wrapped around him.

Then back up.

"What’s with the rest of it? Are you doing Zone 0 cosplay or something?"

Neo turned toward him with pure disgust on his face.

Snot raised both hands at once. "Joke. It was a joke. I know you don’t like that kind of comment."

He summoned his twin daggers a heartbeat later, perhaps deciding steel was safer ground than further conversation.

Neo went first.

He climbed carefully, Gravebite low in his hand, each step measured as the second floor drew nearer. Torchlight from below stretched up the spiral in long broken strips. The upper darkness began thinning as they approached the top.

Neo’s head rose above the final turn.

What he saw made him stop so abruptly that Snot nearly walked into him from behind.

"What?" Neo said.

Snot pushed up one step higher out of sheer curiosity and looked past him.

His voice came out just as startled.

"What the hell is this?"