Neo stood off to one side of the third floor, watching the healer work through the line that had formed in front of him.

The poor bastard had a whole trail of wounded Awakeneds waiting for him, each one carrying something torn, broken, punctured, or poisoned from the climb so far. Neo kept his attention on the man while people stepped forward one after another, hands glowing, Soul Essence thinning, wounds knitting where he could manage it.

’A class like that would be useful.’

Beast Regeneration was good. More than good, honestly. But it was not the same as this. Not the same as closing a wound in moments, stopping blood loss, forcing a body back into working order before it decided to collapse. A healing class that strong would be absurd in Neo’s hands. The thought stayed with him while the line crawled on.

The healer managed a few more. Then his hand dropped.

"I’m out of Soul Essence," he said, voice thin and exhausted. "I can’t keep going."

That was bad. The line behind the last person froze. Murmurs rose almost immediately, low at first, bitter and frightened in equal measure. There were still around ten people waiting to be treated, and none of them had minor wounds they could afford to ignore in a fight like the one waiting upstairs.

The boss was already bad enough in Neo’s head. Numbers alone would not save them. If those ten went up in that condition, they would not be fighters. They would be bodies for the boss to cut through on the way to someone else.

One of the injured men was the first to say it aloud.

"I can’t go up like this," he snapped. "I’m not facing that thing in this state. I refuse."

The words caught fast and spread through the wounded group like sparks through dry cloth. Another voice joined in. Then another. Some cursed. Some said the same thing more quietly, but with no less fear. They would not climb in that condition. They would not throw themselves at the boss room half-ruined already.

Neo said nothing. If they wanted to stay behind, that was probably better than dragging themselves into the last fight only to get in the way. They had already lost two people. Ten more unable to fight properly dropped the real count to forty-one. That was the part no one wanted to say clearly, though everyone felt it anyway.

Snot, standing near him, studied the gathering unrest and gave Neo a sideways glance.

"If you keep frowning like that, you’ll have wrinkles before you’re eighteen."

Neo did not look away from the wounded.

"My face is flawless, Snot. Maybe I still have dark circles, but wrinkles are out of the question."

That got a short huff out of him.

"I’m glad you’re keeping your spirits high while this goes to hell," Snot said. "Makes me feel better."

Alice, Max, and Marika were nearby, eating what little they had brought and drinking water in silence while they could. No one was comfortable. They were only using the pause because it existed.

That was when Neo noticed something missing. He turned slightly and searched the floor again, slower this time.

"Hey," he said. "Where the hell did the gray-haired bastard go? I don’t see him anywhere."

That caught the others at once.

Snot straightened a little. Alice stopped chewing. Marika scanned the floor around them. Max lifted his head and did the same. The third floor was broad enough, layered enough, broken enough that someone could disappear behind balconies, pillars, collapsed sections, or the stacked levels without much effort.

Neo disliked that immediately.

He could see the other four from the gray-haired group, but not him.

’Where did he go?’

A bad feeling tightened under his ribs.

A short while later, the gray-haired boy reappeared and slipped back toward his people with the kind of ease that made it worse, not better. He moved like he had never been gone at all. Worse, there was a sinister smile on his face now.

’He did something.’

Neo turned to his group instantly. "Summon your weapons. Something’s wrong."

Marika frowned. "What happened?"

Neo raised his voice.

"Do it."

That was loud enough to turn a few heads around them. Snot focused on him properly now. Neo could feel it from the way he shifted, from the way his attention narrowed. Whatever his class picked up from blood, it was telling him enough. Neo was tense, and not without reason.

Snot didn’t know what was coming.

He trusted him anyway. That trust had not appeared out of nowhere. Neo had already told him things he did not say lightly. About Nep. About slipping into the tower before the others knew the truth. So Snot didn’t argue now. He summoned both daggers at once.

Alice brought out her axe. Max invoked shield and sword. Marika raised one hand, ready to cast.

Byron saw the movement and stiffened.

He didn’t understand it. Nothing visible had happened yet. No monsters nearby or attack on the floor.

Then the sound came.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Many legs from far below and they were climbing.

The whole floor turned toward the stairs of the second floor. What came up from there made the air in Neo’s lungs turn cold.

Night Walkers were racing up the spiral stairs, but not alone. Vagabonds rode on their backs, crouched low with weapons in hand, the two Soul Beasts moving together as if they had always known how. The Night Walkers climbed in brutal bursts, claws scraping stone, while the Vagabonds stayed balanced above them with shields, spears, serrated blades, and ruined armor flashing in the light.

They were not separate anymore.

They were one fighting unit.

Neo stared. ’How the hell are two Soul Beasts working together like that? How is that even possible?’

It made the whole tower feel worse.

It meant they still did not understand the rules of this place well enough, and the last stretch had just become far nastier than before.

Byron understood the danger in a heartbeat.

"TO THE BOSS FLOOR!" he roared. "NOW! WE SEAL THE ENTRANCE ONCE WE’RE INSIDE! MOVE IF YOU DON’T WANT TO DIE!"

The third floor broke apart at once.

The wounded who had just been refusing to climb were the first to stumble forward in panic. The rest surged after them. Neo moved with his group, Gravebite already in hand, though his head stayed full of the same ugly thought.

’That bastard did this, also I don’t know if it’s the smartest thing to do, though... although it’s better to fight one thing than fifty.’

He had gone somewhere. He had done something. And now the tower was answering.

The climb became a slaughter before it became a retreat.

The mounted Night Walkers were fast enough on their own. With Vagabonds riding them, they turned lethal in a different way entirely. One sprinted along the outer edge of the staircase and a spear flashed out from above, punching straight through two Awakeneds from the healer’s line before either understood they had been reached. The force of it lifted them together for an instant, one behind the other, blood rushing down the shaft as both bodies sagged on the same weapon.

Screams tore through the climb.

More of the mounted beasts kept coming. Twenty at least. Maybe more. They did not stop. They did not hesitate. They flooded up the staircase in a stream of claws, ragged cloth, gray flesh, and steel.

Neo was midway up with his group by then.

He could not afford restraint anymore.

Beast Strength surged through him as a Night Walker leapt from the side of the staircase and climbed toward him, trying to reach his face over the railing. Gravebite moved left to right in a hard, vicious line, punching into one eye and out through the back of the skull. The body dropped, but another was already coming. Max held behind them, taking strikes on his shield and blocking whatever reached the group’s rear. Snot and Neo cut where they could. Marika stayed in the middle, flame spilling out in sharp controlled bursts whenever the staircase gave her a line. Alice was farther up near the front of their cluster, using the axe to clear bodies out of the way and keep the climb moving.

Near the very back, the gray-haired group held their ground and cut down whatever got too close.

That irritated Neo almost as much as everything else.

The bastard had done this. He was sure of it. Yet now his group was helping make sure everyone reached the top. Not out of kindness. Because whatever game he was playing still required the rest of them alive for a little longer.

At last, the top floor came into view.

The boss room.

Awakeneds spilled onto the stone one after another, boots slamming into the floor as they rushed in through the entrance. The throne waited ahead. And on it, the thing at the center of the whole tower had already begun to move.

Three meters.

Six arms.

Six swords resting around the throne.

It rose and started taking them into its hands.

Byron reached the room with his people moments later. One of the men in his group, an awakened whose class clearly allowed him to shape materials out of Soul Essence, threw both hands forward and began forming dense, rough construction blocks near the entrance. Byron shouted over him while others stumbled inside.

"Faster! Faster!"

The wall rose while people still poured through.

The gray-haired group made it in. Two of the mounted monsters slipped past the narrowing gap behind them. A heartbeat later the opening sealed shut under the fresh-built barrier, cutting off the staircase and the flood below.

But the boss fight had already begun.

The thing moved exactly the way Neo remembered.

The gray-haired group threw themselves at it first and managed to slow the first exchange, forcing steel against steel near the foot of the throne. It almost looked possible for a blink.

Then the boss crossed two steps.

That was all.

Two steps, and all six swords cut in the same motion.

The target was one of the injured boys who had not been healed earlier, a half-crippled awakened who had still made the climb because panic drove him higher than courage ever could. The six blades passed through him so cleanly that his body remained whole for the smallest fraction before separating into pieces and falling apart on the boss floor.

Six pieces.

Blood hit the stone.

Panic broke open.

Shouts rose. People recoiled. Formation vanished before it had truly formed. The room had barely sealed and already the boss had turned one of them into butchered meat in front of everyone.

Neo did not waste time staring.

He, Snot, Marika, Alice, and Max focused on the danger nearest to them, because two monsters had made it inside before the wall closed, and one of them was already in front of their group. A Night Walker with a Vagabond mounted over it, both of them staring at the room full of fresh flesh with the same dead intent.

The situation was shit. And it had only just started getting shittier.