Chapter 30

When the Skies Weep (I)

Over the course of half an hour, and the immense projection of bragging, Cain had come to realize that most of the people in the party were highly-educated, remarkably smart, and all-around a ragtag bunch that Cain had never viewed them as such. For instance, even the old man Rick, Cain learned, has Masters in business and computer engineering. Furthermore, Diya has just gotten her Masters in applied physics ahead of the 'normal' schedule.

Jamal, too, has Masters in engineering, and Lamia even has a doctorate in neurolinguistics. Most other guys, as well, have at the very least a bachelor's, with only Cain, Emma, Sam, and Justin lacking a college diploma. Emma and Justin stood out there, Cain knowing that the former was more than equipped to get a degree if she wanted, while the latter was only seventeen.

That left Sam and him who looked at each other with encouraging looks for a few moments, before sighing and regressing back into a temporary bout of depression.

Cain, however, quickly recovered, putting on a smile. He always knew he was hardly the smartest person in any room ever, and this way he’d surrounded himself by truly much smarter people -- It ought to passively raise my intellect as well... right?

The atmosphere was far chirpier this round as there was no fighting beforehand and nobody was truly exhausted. People had begun opening up to each other more and more, with the excited Rick leading the charge.

"--yeah, I started my first business when I was seventeen!" he exclaimed. "It was in '94, and the internet was just starting to rip itself from the ground. A couple of my friends and I got really into it and decided to try and make a few apps. Within a year, we had bids flying our way, but we held out for three-four years before selling. I made so much bank that my mom literally threatened to whoop my ass on daily if I spent any of it stupidly!"

“... what’d you do after?” Jamal quizzed further, nibbling away at an apple.

“Invest, mostly,” Rick replied, drinking a mouthful of water. “The money just slowly started to trickle in at the start, and eventually it was like a torrent.”

“... damn,” Jamal shook his head, smiling bitterly. “You make it sound so easy...”

“... it’s really not, though,” Rick chuckled, shaking his head as well. “I know I don’t really have a right to bitch and moan but... it hasn’t been easy... what about you?”

“Me?” Jamal leaned back and stretched for a moment before continuing. “Bouncing from a job to a job. Mostly the shill shit. Tried applying here and there to work as an engineer, but no luck. Still live with my mom man... it’s kinda sad...”

“Eh, you’re hardly the only one,” Lamia chirped in from the side. “Half my college friends still live with their parents. Jobs are scarce, man...”

“What about you, Emma?” Rick asked. “Ever thought of going back to school?”

“... eh,” Emma shrugged indifferently. “Not really. I made more than enough as an accountant, and I got to spend a lot of time with Lana. Was good enough for me.”

“... you don’t have to pretend to be oh-so-holy, you know?” Cain spoke out suddenly with a faint smile. “Even when we were still together, I’d often see you ramming your ass through books, or looking up nearby colleges.”

“... at first, maybe,” she replied. “I don’t know. I guess... I cooled off?”

“... we hardly ever ‘cool off’ from our dreams,” Rick said. “We just... experience life.”

“I always wanted to be a carpenter,” Jim spoke out as everyone else fell silent, his eyes shining in a strangely nostalgic splendor. “But my folks forced me into becoming a lawyer. God, I hated my job so much... I know it sounds awful... but... I’m somewhat glad these things appeared. At least, I don’t have to sit in a room with a bunch of self-entitled pricks telling me how they deserve ten million instead of eight...”

“...” Cain listened in silence, soon after learning that most had similar life stories. Wants and needs... rarely coincided. It was one of the first life lessons that people truly learn, and most don’t even realize it until too late.

“What about you, Cain?” Jamal turned toward him and asked. “What did you think you’d be when you grew up?”

“...” Cain fell silent momentarily, trying to even remember. It was difficult, peering back fifty years -- for him, at least -- into the past, trying to remember his childhood memories. “A teacher,” he said. “I think... at some point, I wanted to be a teacher.”

“... you did,” Emma nodded, chuckling suddenly. “I remember, this one time, he sat like a bunch of year-under kids from our neighborhood, and he taught them geography or something for a whole hour as a practice. God, those poor kids avoided both of us for years after with how much you scarred them...”

“Ha ha ha ha...”

“Oh, shut up,” Cain flinched in embarrassment. “They all passed, didn’t they?! I don’t know what they were bitching and moaning about...”

“Ah, yes, every kid really loves being sat down and force-fed geography...” Rick said, still laughing.

“... I think... it’s nice...” Diya joined the conversation suddenly, drawing attention to herself. She quickly lowered her head, her cheeks flushing in the faint rosy-crimson. “I... I mean... wanting to teach others...”

“... yeah,” Jamal nodded, looking up. “It really is. One teacher, Sarah... she’s practically the reason I hadn’t turned to complete shit. To think just how much I ‘hated’ her, back then... haah...”

“... what about you, J’?” Cain turned to Justin, startling the young man who was just minding his own business. “Any of our profound life lessons resonating with you?”

“Whatever,” the boy shrugged. “I don’t plan on becoming a bitter ass like the rest of you...”

“... oh, yeah, ‘cause we all thought when we were seventeen -- Geez, I just can’t wait to become an embittered jackass...” Cain responded sarcastically. “But I guess J’ is riding his high now. No school, learned magic, got a girl... man, your life is like some sort of a Disney tale. No, wait, in that case, you’d be a princess. No way you can be a princess with that ugly face of yours.”

“...” Justin lowered his head further in embarrassment, glaring hatefully at Cain who merely grinned in response.

“What about you, Diya?” Emma asked shortly after the temporary silence settled. “You don’t say much, huh?”

“... a-ah... I’m... I’m sorry,” Diya spoke out, flustered. “My English... isn’t great. That’s... that’s why...” it was clear from their looks that nobody bought the excuse, causing her flush to deepen. “I’m... I’m not used. I’m sorry.”

“... you always wanted to be a physicist?” Emma probed.

“Hm,” Diya nodded faintly. “Universe... fascinated me. Always. Scary, but also beautiful.”

"..." Cain closed his eyes as silence, once again, settled between them. He enjoyed the simplicity of the moment -- no fighting, no planning, no fearing of someone stabbing you in the back... yet, his body was fidgety. Unaccustomed. In many ways, it still believed it was in the Tower -- in the hell that it turned into twenty and extra years in the future. In many ways, signs of it, the foreshadowing of sorts, was already here. With every corpse discovered that remained untouched by the Tower's creatures, it was another line in the story being written that would culminate in the 'Superstar Act', perhaps one of the greatest crimes against humanity ever committed.

The ‘gates’ behind them shuddered all of a sudden, causing Cain to glance at the countdown and realize that the hour’s break was over. He slowly stood up, followed by the rest, and stretched, yawning lazily. We haven’t slept in a while, he looked around at the rest, though they appeared not to care. Even if people could stand awake for weeks inside the Towers due to the abundant Mana, it still took its toll on the body and the mind. After the next one, it should be fine to sacrifice some time to have them all get at least a few hours of sleep...

He led the charge once again, stepping through the gates. A faint feeling of nausea overwhelmed him for a moment as he felt the world around him ripple and rip in strange patterns, tossed and hurled through a tunnel-like funnel until he limped out onto the solid ground, landing with a roll, panting. He was covered in sweat, realizing quickly that the cause of this was long-distance teleportation -- one even larger than the distance between the 'floors'.

Turning around, he noted that everyone else was hunched over on all four, vomiting their guts out in a serenade of voices that even nearly made him go.

Refocusing, he stood up and faced the front, frowning. All around them, just like the last stage, was darkness -- but there were no ‘gates’, nor was there an old man sitting there. There were no sounds past the gagging ones coming from the side, nor there were any flickering lights. This cold air... shit... he sucked in a cold breath, recognizing the 'cold air' -- or often called 'Corrupt Mana' by the denizens of the Towers. The presence of it signaled one thing -- that they were about to face a Voidspawn.

It could go one of two ways -- either it will be one of the easiest battles they will fight in their lives... or it will be a grueling nightmare that will end up with some of them, if not all of them, dead on the ground.

/ Welcome to the Harrowing!

During the Dynestel’s War, a bloody conflict that stretched for nearly three centuries and opened Void Gates across the Empire, Harrowing was used as a sealed prison for the Voidspawn of the age. Empire’s Heroes would then be trained here.

Your challenge is as follows: Face the last surviving Voidspawn, and defeat it. There is no time limit.

Good luck!/

Just as Cain finished with the last part of the notification, he saw a flickering light in the distance -- part crimson and part violet. There were six altogether, he realized, and they were growing larger by second -- indicating the creature’s approach.

From the side, as the hard light hit the creature’s features, he saw four tentacles stretching out in a wormy fashion, soft and slime-looking, connected not to the body but to the head -- as the head was the body. Its shape was spherical, with flattened top and bottom, lacking any features past the six eyes and scalded skin with hundreds of scars.

Swallowing a mouthful of saliva, Cain steeled his nerves and looked at the creature’s status screen, praying it was one of the so-called ‘Blooming Voidspawn’, rather than a fully-fledged, semi-mature one.

//Nightmare Race: Voidspawn

Level: 56 (First Awakening)

Traits: Incomprehensible

Skills: Energy of the Void(S-), Eyes of the End(A+), Coalesce(SS-) //

Ah, to the shitters and crappers of the motherfuckin--

“Stand up everyone and get into the standard formation!” he hollered with alarm, rousing everyone from their dizziness. They shuddered at the sight of an almost Lovecraftian-seeming horror, its size seemingly the only thing holding it back. Though large, it was still within the scope -- standing roughly at thirty feet tall, and over ninety wide with tentacles spread out.

I can’t even use Death’s Touch, he grunted inwardly, wondering why was the Tower tossing an already-awakened creature at his party.

The creature stopped roughly two hundred feet away from their party, stretching out its tentacles suddenly and whipping them forward. Two arched spheres of crimson-violet light were suddenly flung from the tips, rounding in half a circle toward the party and attacking from the flanks.

“Emma to the left, Rick to the right! Shields up!” Cain cried out, realizing that if those spheres exploded within the party’s circle, they’d all be fried.

Emma and Rick quickly moved, sprinting toward their designated spots and immediately raising their shields, with Emma also charging Mana into her warhammer and slamming it forward.

Two explosions pushed the party closer together as both Rick and Emma found themselves nearly ripped from the ground and tossed into the air. Noticing this, Cain’s frown deepened further. Their Strength stat... is lower than the creature's?! How's that fucking possible?! It's clearly energy-focused Voidspawn... oi--wait---don't... don't tell me it's a goddamn Mutant?! Oh, fuck me in the ears-

“Jim to Rick and Sam to Emma -- I don’t care if you have to break your arms, make sure to keep those two in place!” Cain quickly hollered further orders, cursing once again whoever hid the truth behind the Molten Cove. Treasure trove my ass!! “Lamia, Diya, focus on those two exclusively -- they can’t fall. Jamal, you take the frontal charge and try to close the distance as much as possible. Justin, you trail behind slightly and look for the openings. I’ll cover you two! Decker and Gerald, you two stick to Lamia and Diya like glue and if a stray goes for them, throw your bodies onto it! Otherwise, none of us might come out alive!”

Jamal and Justin rapidly broke ranks and began sprinting forward, the former already gathering starlight in the soles of his feet and the hand tightly holding onto the sword’s handle. The latter had already covered himself in the shadows, melding into the background, appearing almost invisible.

I don’t think I can hold back here either, Cain tried to dismantle the creature as quickly as possible based on other Voidspawns he’d seen and fought in his previous life. Tentacles imply energy manipulation... and the length suggests medium-skill at best... six eyes denote it has six cores to draw Energy from, so it’s unlikely we can outpace it with resource consumption... relatively spherical head suggests it’s not that old... and if it wasn’t a Mutant, it’s likely we could easily wipe the floor with it... but... there are no obvious parts that had Mutated -- is it the cores? The Void Crystal? That attack was damning... but it was clearly just a probing strike. I’d wager Intelligence is in the high 300s, perhaps even in 400s... his skills are a relative standard with the Voidspawn... just what fucking part of you Mutated, you furred ball of death?

The creature shuddered all of a sudden and whipped its tentacles together in front of it, startling Cain.

“JAMAL, JUSTIN, JUMP TO THE SIDE -- NOW!!!” he cried out immediately at the top of his lungs, causing the two -- almost instinctively -- to toss themselves sideways. Right after, a ripple in earth shook the world as crimson-violet energy erupted from the ground in a straight line that nearly reached the party itself, resulting in most people sweating buckets.

Oh man... this is bad... Cain thought, charging Mana into his hands, mentally preparing for a grueling battle. Let’s just pray it can’t manipulate Space--wait, no, don’t goddamn jinx it... crap!