Sounds of the fighting between Perry Pullman and the Grey Knight grew distant.

Nico panted, his breath heavy and wet. Every muscle in his body ached, even ones he didn’t know he had. His stamina bar hovered above five percent merely by pure will and the grace of fear pumping adrenaline through his body. By some miracle, he hadn't broken a single bone. Once again, he was thankful he had Measure to make up for his severe lack of coordination, moving his body with the efficiency of an automaton coded by a thousand tech graduates of MIT.

It felt like having a super computer working in his subconscious, giving him the greenlight to do things he never thought he could with his body and spell formations. Efficiency couldn’t make up for raw endurance, and the Russian was as heavy as a wet bear.

Yuri kept as much of his weight on Nico's shoulder, doing his best to keep up. Nico grunted as quietly as he could, not wanting to show weakness in front of his companion.

The young Russian made no protest, his face stoic as a statue, but he was clearly in pain. From the small amount of Russian literature Nico read over the years, he was pretty sure it was just a part of their culture to endure life's bullshit. If he had to sum up Russian culture in a couple of words, it would be ballet, borscht, bearing bullshit, and vodka.

The clear liquor wasn’t Nico’s preferred choice of drink, but holy mother of god did a swig of that sound good right now.

His eyes drifted to Yuri's broken hand, and he frowned. If their positions were switched, Nico would definitely not be the strong, silent hero bearing the weight of his struggles in the solitude of his own mind. He'd be complaining in little groans or curses every other step.

Yuri was stronger than Nico. Not just physically and magically, but in will as well. According to Gallahad’s general magic theory, that made sense. Most of the magical world based their theories off the Four Aspects Theory. It lauded that everyone was composed of four things: the physical, the mental, the magical, and their soul. Although, the soul part divided the community as well when it came to the factor of a pranic barrier.

To some schools of thought, they believed the pranic barrier was the soul. Others believed it protected the soul. Nico kept out of that argument.

Like with everything, Nico deferred to Gallahad’s view on it, which was the older, but simpler Three Aspects Theory. Gallahad claimed the mental energies and workings of living things were directly tied to the physical. That made more sense to Nico, especially with his stamina bar confirming it. The lower his stamina bar had been that day, the more sluggish his mind felt.

That just left it down to the physical, the magical, and the pranic. All three of these things were intrinsically tied. Knowing a little about one aspect reflected the totality of the other aspects.

Yuri was a prime example of that. He was strong in every corner of the triangle. Nico couldn’t trust him completely, but he did respect the Russian. The broad shouldered blond had an unwavering gaze, almost like a soldier who had seen too much, but kept on the narrow dangerous path. Not only was his magic and physical bearing powerful for someone so young, but so was his spirit.

Nico felt years of comparison climbing up to the surface of his mind to crash his self esteem, and caught himself. You know what? Yuri was strong, but so was Nico, in his own way.

The sheer fact Nico survived a lifetime's worth of insanity in the span of half a day deleted the doubts about his own strengths. Nico not only survived, but he saved the three treasure hunters from before. He confirmed his own knowledge of magic by improving the magic of more experienced magicians. In fact, they had heard about him on the west coast. Nico felt his chin lift a little.

And yet, the image of Perry straddling the defenseless Yuri and breaking the fingers of one of his hands sent a shiver up Nico's spine. Nico and Yuri may have been exceptional for a first class mage and hedge mage, but they were not warlocks.

Pullman's casual cruelty had shocked Nico in the moment. The farther he was away from the situation, the less it surprised him. How many people had Pullman killed in his lifetime?

It was at least four, counting the sacrifices to the spell array that created the portal at Larkin Square. Yuri would have spiked the minimum to five. Nico pushed their deaths to the farthest back corner of his mind.

Yuri was heavy, and only got heavier as they walked down the seemingly endless hallway of obscure grey stone. Thankfully, the torches that lined the walls were lit.

Nico's leg muscles were past burning and were now beginning to lock up into a cramp. He stopped before it got any worse, and huffed, "Let's take a quick break."

"Nnet," Yuri growled like a courageous soldier. "Rest kills momentum. Like winds of my homeland, blood will not warm after rest freezes it. We move. We endure."

Leave it to the Russian to incorporate freezing blood into his metaphor. Nico forced himself to not roll his eyes, and sighed. "Look, man. Pullman is occupied or dead by that death knight. You're on the edge of collapse.”

Yuri gave him a death glare. He repeated, “We move. We endure.”

So, apparently appeals to his emotions weren’t going to work. Nico checked any glib response at the roof of his mouth before they escaped past his teeth. Instead, he calmed himself and focused on reason. “This isn’t me complaining. It’s simple math. I'm half your weight and a third your muscle. This isn’t rocket science. I. Need. A. Break."

Yuri's jaw set, but he pulled himself off Nico. He waved a tired, non-broken hand at Nico before crashing his butt to the floor. His finger rubbed against a bump on the clavicle of his shirt. It looked like a pendant or something.

The modified Gallahad mind formation on Nico's eyes slid off the bump of the pendant, telling him there was no magic in it. Yuri's pendant must have been some sort of sentimental item.

Nico took the wall opposite Yuri in the large hall, massaging the knots out of his legs before they could spasm into cramps. He occupied his mind with questions to forget how exhausted he really was. Were the torches always lit? If so, the amount of magic power required to sustain that in this huge tower would be enough to power a major city.

No, that didn't feel right.

The arrays he encountered since entering the tower were the most efficient and creative spell formations he'd ever seen. Whoever designed this tower wouldn't waste magic power like that. Rather, they would have installed the magical equivalent of motion sensors.

It was ridiculous how confident he was in the magician who designed the tower. He didn't know where that confidence came from, maybe simple admiration. To create a tower this grand with these many traps and Grey Dead would probably require several top grade magicians.

Even that, Nico doubted. Something about the magic of the tower convinced him there was a single hand in all of this, which impressed him even more. The formations he’d encountered from the tower were too unique, had too much of an invisible pattern beneath them.

His thoughts were cut short as Nico’s body shook as if in an earthquake. He looked around and to Yuri, and saw neither the tower or the Russian were shaking at all.

Measure opened his Map screen. The grey dot on the map moved at an alarming rate, exponentially faster than the slow but inexorable speed it showed when chasing Nico earlier. On top of that, its movements were too sharp, and altered directions at odd angles.

Nico's experience as a graphic designer kicked in. Most of his freelance work required only two dimensional drawings. However, sometimes a client would want a three-dimensional integration to the image or animation. He had enough experience in Blender 3D to know what he was looking at.

He muttered silently enough so Yuri would only think he was speaking gibberish. "Reconfigure map from two-dimensional space to three-dimensional. Calculate possible width, height, and length of space using grey knight's location as origin, cross-referencing with dimensions of the treasure room."

Measure came up with a model almost instantly, which surprised Nico. It gave insight to how incredibile his ability really was. At its base, Measure could calculate very simple information that didn't require breaking through any pranic barrier. It also used his own knowledge and thoughts as the base.

His ability was like a smart version of him, calculating with....No, calculate wasn't the right word. Divine. That felt more accurate. If the information was free and easily accessible, it required little to no magic power.

That meant his ability had somehow divined the energy of the death knight from this distance.

Nico checked his magic power. Not a single full point of MP was consumed to keep track of the death knight.

"Holy crap," Nico swore under his breath. Already, his mind spread out in several directions of questioning. He took a moment to contain his excitement, narrowing it down to a few possible conclusions.

At first, it seemed like Measure was actively searching out the death knight's location. But that would require considerably more magic power to maintain tracking than what Nico was capable of. That meant Measure wasn't tracking the death knight itself, but the residual energy it gave off.

If that was the case, Measure didn't need to pierce the grey knight's pranic barrier. The residual energy it radiated was free information.The grey knight’s residual energy was so powerful, it’s echoes resonated all the way to Nico. Something close to fear wriggled up Nico’s throat, and he swallowed it hard.

Scary, but cool.

Yuri raised an eyebrow. "You okay, comrade?"

"We're trapped in a tower full of death traps, grey dead, and magician least one class above both of us combined. On top of that, we have no way of returning back to the mortal world. But yeah, sure. I’m peachy. Peachy as pie."

Nico was pretty sure that wasn’t a real idiom, but he didn’t care.

Yuri didn't look convinced but left Nico alone, closing his eyes for a brief rest.

Nico retreated back to his own thoughts. His ability didn't just Measure things he could see or imagine, but almost anything that required not breaking a pranic barrier. Anything. Possibilities bloomed in his mind.

The grey dot on his map kept moving until it finally stopped. He commanded the Map to reveal the movement of the death knight with red lines at twenty five percent opacity.

It's movements and speed didn't look like a bipedal warrior. Even at its fastest speed, the death knight wouldn't have moved at a tenth that speed.

How was that...

Then it hit Nico.

"Remodel map as if the grey knight did not move from the treasure room," Nico whispered, and he resisted the urge to bite his nails in suspense.

The three dimensional map glowed in a blue translucent model, reconstructing the hallways and rooms Nico had encountered. They moved and whizzed about the map, re-positioning like Optimus Prime shifting from his firetruck mode to a standing robotic warrior in the Transformer movies.

"Uh oh. The tower is shifting the rooms around," Nico blurted louder than he intended.

He looked to Yuri, worried he'd accidentally revealed his ability to the Russian. But Yuri’s eyes were closed.

Nico said, “Uh..Yuri?”

The Russian didn’t move.

Worried his new companion was dead, Nico scrambled over to the opposite wall, feeling for Yuri's pulse on his wrist. Nico let out a grateful sigh. Yuri was still alive, just out cold. Nico couldn’t believe his new companion had insisted on still moving. Yuri had needed to rest more than Nico.

An alert appeared in Nico’s vision, cancelling out the three dimensional map. Several blue arrows pointed in both directions of the hallway.

Over one hundred slimes crawled out of the darkness.