Straif is the Ogham rune for the Blackthorn tree. We use it for another purpose—to mark the graves of unknown cultivators.

~Morrigan, The Mysterious Goddess of Fate

The Clocktower challenges proceeded from that point without issue, and even without Coyote’s interference, he realized that this was the last round of the trial. It was the gears near his knuckles. The first one was the golden one near his pointer finger, the next was a silver one in the middle of the back of his hand, and he assumed the last would be near his small finger.

The first challenge was a maze of cogs and gears. The way they were used to block his path also made it so openings would randomly appear and disappear. At first, he followed the route and memorized his pathing, but he’d had enough after a dozen or so dead ends. Ghosting was like a cheat mode for mazes, so he phased through the cogs.

With Sage’s Mind, he could map the place out in no time. The door was actually in the center of the maze, but he realized that the entry point would have only been open at certain times of the day.

Phasing into the locked-down area, he stepped through the door and arrived atop of massive platform. The area around him was built with tightly fit stone blocks giving it an almost glass-like surface where the seams could barely be seen. It had a diameter of roughly thirty meters, so the space wasn’t big nor small. In the middle of the platform was the door he entered through. After exploring, he realized there were a total of thirty-two platforms, but he was the only one present. Unlike the door on his platform, the others were still active.

“Hello?” Crow called out.

No one answered. Hours went by, and Crow investigated every meter of the platform. Rather than waste time, he sat down and cultivated. Ever since starting the Clocktower trial, he’d felt as if his Source had achieved a qualitative change. He hadn’t even thought about the Soul Burn curse, which still purified all the mana coming into his body. It just no longer impacted him, and he wondered how much resistance toward fire he’d built up.

Two days of that, and Crow switched to Qi Gong. The only upside was that he apparently didn’t need to eat in this place. He knew it was the mana that suffused his body with what he needed, but it was still strange—

“Who are you?”

Crow stopped and turned toward a platform he deemed was to his north. Without the sun and stars, he just based it off his door. A bald guy, about the same age as him, stood two platforms away. He had a dirt-brown robe with strange adornments that Crow had never seen before—he had a feeling he didn’t want to know what they were. The peculiar white tattoos on his dark blue skin gave him away as a witch doctor.

The problem was, Crow wasn’t sure if this person followed a righteous path or an evil one.

“I assume you are Vodun but do you practice Vodou or Hex?”

“All Vodun are one,” the bald-headed guy snorted. His smoky gray eyes looked lifeless, and Crow ignored the man for now. In a sense, he wasn’t wrong, the Vodun were all one people, but the Hex were the ones that introduced the Corpse Blood curse. Even going as far as invading tombs to augment their armies. It could be considered a boon that these witch doctors couldn’t bring in their undead monstrosities.

Less than an hour later—he knew by the sounds in his head—Mara appeared. Crow used one of his hand gestures to tell her to ignore him. She replied without glancing back at him and remained silent. With a glance over at the bald guy, she immediately understood Crow’s intentions. Before entering the third round, all three of them had another talk and came to an understanding. The treasures they needed to claim came down to priorities. Whoever was first would claim the Python’s Tongue because they could not allow it to fall into the Hex Vodun’s hands.

Next was Torcail’s item, but none of them knew why he wanted a seemingly mundane thing. However, if it was a reward for the Clocktower, they suspected it wasn’t something with an ordinary history.

Reluctantly, they also ended up telling Acco their plans. Crow felt the guy was a bit of a crybaby but had to admit he was helpful. It wasn’t that Crow wanted to snub the guy, but all he did was complain. The only reason he ended up agreeing was that they were part of a Constellation. He knew enough about the Astrologers to know that even Acco would not betray

The bald guy looked up at the girl that just appeared and then dismissed her. The diss wasn’t missed by Mara, and Crow nearly laughed at her fiery rage. In the end, she had to sit down and cultivate to clear her mind.

Despite no sun or stars, the realm did have day and night cycles. By the end of that day, almost a dozen people appeared. Three days later, Acco finally showed up, and he was nearly one of the last platforms left without a contestant. He immediately noticed Crow and Mara were ignoring each other, so he felt for their intentions through the Constellation.

Acco had long been used to sensing emotions, thoughts, and intentions through this method. He immediately figured out that Crow was trying to hide the fact they were all together. It provided all three of them with a hidden advantage over the others.

There were a lot of conversations shouted back and forth as everyone speculated about this event. Not that everyone shared their thoughts because they knew there were no allies here, only competitors. Another day went by before something finally happened. Once all thirty-two pillars had a contender on them, they moved and spun outward until they formed a large ring with nothing in the center. Then, before they stopped moving, the whole column dropped at a rapid rate.

At the rate of descent, Crow felt that if he jumped or potentially moved, he’d lose contact with the surface. If that happened, he’d fall to his death. It was that feeling of falling and weightlessness that left him feeling light-headed. A few minutes went by, and he heard screaming as two people did something rather stupid, and the distance between them and their platform grew by the second. Crow could only cringe while others watched in horror. After that, most of the other contenders sat down carefully and tried to keep their center of gravity as low as they could.

When the pillars slowed down, Crow noticed that the two platforms without contestants suddenly had meat paste splattered across them. He was pretty sure those two contestants were already dead before they hit, but either way, it was a gruesome way to go. Those two weren’t his main concern as he also spotted five witch doctors, although two of them wore a different robe, and their skin wasn’t the pale blue that looked like death warmed over. Instead, their skin was more vibrant, almost violet in its richness.

The platforms continued to drop until they finally stopped a few centimeters higher than a large body of calm water. If it wasn’t for the ripples caused by the pillars sinking, he might have thought it was solid ground he was looking at. Regardless, once the water stopped rippling, it was like a thin sheet of ice, and Crow sensed danger emanating from its dark depths.

In the center of their ring of platforms, a tower rose from the water. It kept climbing higher until a circular platform appeared. Crow guessed the distance between the edge of the water and the tower was almost a hundred meters. Mara and Acco both looked at him, and he shook his head. Something about the water bothered him, so he even stepped back some, and his allies trusted him and did the same.

Minutes ticked by, and no one moved nor said a word. It was like everyone was waiting for something to be revealed, but all was still. Finally, one of the Vodun dove into the water and swam toward the tower with all his might. Crow had to admire the guy’s courage—or rather the man’s stupidity. Immediately, others jumped in and followed until almost half the contestants were in the water.

Crow wanted to warn them but knew they wouldn’t listen to him.

“Arrgghh!” The Vodun man screamed and swam harder. Crow noticed he was now leaving behind a crimson trail on the surface of the water. He didn’t have time to shout a second time as he was pulled under. The water bubbled and churned, but the man never resurfaced. All that remained was blood and bits of his shredded robe that surfaced.

After that, more and more people went under and failed to come back up again. Those that were still in the water had already turned around and swam as hard as they could. Once the water was calm once more, there were only eighteen contestants left. Crow should feel excited but couldn’t muster that kind of emotion in the solemn atmosphere.

Haha!

Laughter rained down on them, nearly crushing their legs under the pressure of this god-like master. More than a handful of people were even forced to their knees. Crow knew it was the Coyote messing around but had to admit the laugh was pretty sinister.

“I always provide the rules. Why are some of you so impatient? First rule…” Coyote laughed hysterically—or more aptly, he bayed. “No swimming! However, this is a good lesson. For this last challenge… failure is death!”