At the array’s core lay a mound of freshly slain bodies, already liquefying, flesh melting into pure ebony ghoul energy that the formation drank like wine.
The corpse-reek on this floor had thickened into a tangible fog, clinging to the lungs with suffocating weight. Jared’s voice cracked the tomb-like silence. “What happened? Where did the corpses go?”
A siren screamed inside Jared’s mind, cold and metallic.
*Not good… Something’s terribly wrong!* “Kid, your last intrusion woke something inside the tower,” the Vermilion Demon Lord warned, his tone knifing through the gloom. “It has sped up its feast on ghoul energy. It either wants its strength back, or it‘s preparing a ritual.”
As he spoke, the black light at the array’s heart swelled like an eclipse.
From that glare rose a monstrosity three stories tall, sculpted entirely from boiling ghoul energy. It had no face, only two crimson points burning where eyes should be, exhaling violence and death in heavy waves.
“Intruder… Die!” the Corpse King hissed, the words arriving as a rasp inside the skull rather than through the ears.
An arm fashioned from rancid ghoul energy swept toward Jared, its claw larger than a chariot. Every inch of air it touched blistered and peeled away, as though the atmosphere itself were rotting.
“A mere corpse-fiend dares block my path?”
Although startled, Jared kept his head clear. The Dragonslayer Sword left its sheath in a burst of blinding gold. The Golden Dragon Aura rolled out with the blade, light made tangible and furious.
“Golden Dragon Banishment!” he roared.
A dragon-shaped wave of sword energy thundered forward and rammed straight through the Corpse King’s chest.
The fetid mist sizzled like frost under sunlight, dissolving around the gaping hole.
“Unless we shatter that array, it cannot be killed!” the Vermilion Demon Lord barked.
Jared’s brow tightened. He hammered the formation, but the lattice was welded to the tower itself—unyielding stone, iron, and ancient spellwork.
*I can’t continue fighting him!*
He made the decision in a heartbeat, sliding past the Corpse King’s swipe and sprinting for the staircase that spiraled toward Level Two.
The Corpse King rushed after him, but an unseen force at the stairwell throat slammed it back, leaving it howling in impotent fury.
Jared crossed onto the second floor, and the world changed once more. Hundreds of human and beast corpses still stood in rigid ranks, but now every dead eye snapped open, glowing with seductive, alien light.
Pink mist, thick as syrup, pooled across the entire level, carrying a sweet scent that made pulses race and thoughts stumble.
The “corpses” began to sway, posing with shameless allure, their throats releasing a chorus of moans that slithered under the skin.
The pink vapor seeped through every unseen seam, angling for the seven vital channels in Jared’s head, eager to gnaw at his consciousness.
“Another filthy trick, really?” Jared growled, contempt slicing through the haze.
He answered the mist with a low, derisive scoff, locking his mind inside a silent, crystalline core.
The twin pillars of his vast spirit and ironclad will held firm, leaving those honeyed currents with nowhere to cling. Yet the illusions refused to melt; instead, they sharpened, wearing the polish of reality.
Catalina, Catina, Lizbeth, and even Cyanna herself glided toward him, every step dripping with wordless invitation.
“Cheap mirages, you dare test my resolve?”
A shard of ruthless clarity flashed across his eyes. He shed the last restraint.
Drawing a breath that felt like drawing steel, he let the ocean of sword intent inside him erupt. A thunderous hum rolled outward as an unseen field blossomed from his soles.
Within that circle, blades of will crisscrossed, severing every lie. The writhing corpses, the pink fog, the syrup-sweet apparitions—under that sun-bright purity, they burst like soap bubbles in noon light.
A heartbeat later, the second floor lay bare and honest. Only true corpses remained, standing silent, their tricks finished.
*So my sword intent can shatter illusion as well. Another layer understood, and just in time…*
He wasted no breath, taking the stairs two at a time toward the third floor.
