Uncle Grey’s voice was the first thing he heard upon regaining his wits.

On your guard, quickly!

The entire staircase was filled with dust and debris, and he couldn't sense any signs of life. Hugging the soot-stained walls for support, he tried to push himself onto his feet only to freeze up in horror as a sudden shift in dust revealed a dishevelled, blood-covered Drasin. The dignified disciple was missing his nose and lips, along with all of his hair, his scalp warped like blood-braised putty. Bone was visible where skin and muscle had been shorn from his body, and his robes were completely destroyed. An amulet with a dull black gemstone was all that remained, though this quickly shattered and fell to the floor in bits.

Realizing that the amulet must have protected Drasin enough to allow him to preserve his life, Nolan jumped down the steps as quickly as possible and made to use the Emerald Thorn Piercing Technique, his only offensive martial skill, since there was no time to take out the bone sword.

Unlike many of those before him, Drasin hadn’t hesitated to unleash his full strength when faced with somebody with such a low cultivation in comparison to his own. Nolan's hand broke as soon as their fists collided, but the mass of emerald energy that he released had turned into large, deadly thorns that peppered every centimetre of the young man’s body. Only, they disappeared without inflicting any further damage, as if his flesh were a pool of water and the projectiles a supply of sinking stone. Meanwhile, the force of the collision had sent Nolan crashing into the terribly solid floor of the tower's sixth level. Drasin had summoned a talisman from his spatial bag, which had been blown to a different part of the staircase by the blast, and used it to nullify the attack. He held this slip of paper between two fingers, his hand in front of his face as it began to shine with a golden light. His more severe wounds stopped bleeding, but his skin didn't regenerate and he retained the same grotesque appearance.

He absorbed it?

Just as Nolan was about to eat a follow-up punch to the nose, something struck the back of Drasin's neck and caused him to lose his balance. The ebony arrow only stabbed about half a centimetre into the man's already mutilated flesh before it bounced away with a distinct clatter. Nyla was right behind the missile like a black shadow in the soot-filled world, just as fast as somebody in the later levels of the Integration stage thanks to her movement skill.

Her jade sword was batted from her hands by a swift strike, though she avoided a second by ducking down and kicking at Drasin's left knee, as that leg was causing him to limp. While she had distracted him, Nolan took out the bone sword and ran it through the young man's upper back, piercing his heart from behind. With the essence fusion effects of his weapon activated in full, Nolan let go of the hilt and jumped back, as did Nyla. They watched Drasin die a few moments later, at which point Nolan fell onto his ass and took a deep breath.

Heavens, you’re lucky I got rid of that talisman while you were busy with those barrels, or you’d have just died without knowing why.

As he realized that he’d overlooked something so crucial to his survival, it seemed as if a lead weight had settled into his stomach. He was the sort to think too much about things whenever he fell into a moment of crisis, which sometimes made it so that he overlooked important information. This time around, he’d made a novice mistake that could have been deadly, which he looked at as a lesson on how to handle delicate situations like that one that had just passed. He’d killed plenty of people since his arrival on Venara, but almost always in self-defence. With Dartan’s death as the possible exception, this was one of the few times that he had plotted to murder somebody before a fight broke out.

"That was fucked.” He hugged Nyla’s leg with his right arm, staring at Drasin's mangled body and then at the messy stairs beyond. "You’re the best, for real. You always come in at the right moment."

His teacher cleared his voice.

You too, old man. I really owe you for this one. Thank you.

Nyla’s gaze was locked onto the dust-covered stairs, which were littered with splintered wood and powdered particles. "I can't believe you did that again, with the barrels. Who else would think of something like that?" She took a seat beside him and they spent a short time considering the aftermath of the battle.

He’d used the same method to save her from the bandits that had abducted her and Quin, though unfortunately he hadn’t made it in time to save her brother.

"Sean, or Esteban. Maybe Jason, if he were alive. Aside from you guys and the others, nobody else knows what gunpowder is, right?"

"I wasn’t being literal."

They grew quiet at the mention of their fallen friend, somebody that Nolan missed just as much as his brother Thomas despite only having known him for a short while. They'd faced the terrors of this unknown world together, some of which had gotten the better of Jason right at the beginning.

Nolan took out a barrel of energized water and poured out a third of its contents. "RIP." He then summoned thirty more barrels and gestured at the stairs. "The water should be able to dissolve all this stuff. Let's hurry up and clean this mess before anyone else comes up here."

They split the supply of Divine Spirit Fountain water and stowed away their respective portions.

Uncle Grey, he said as he approached the stairs, I know you just helped me out big time, but I need an arrayment to get rid of this body.

No, it would be better to clean this mess and cause it to explode from within. Didn't you want it to look like an accident?

Ah, yeah, good call. Can you teach me how to do it while I clean?

Uncle Grey's explanation was interrupted partway through, when Avril appeared at the bottom of the staircase. He hadn't sensed her aura since his perceptions were limited to the stairwell.

"Hey..." said Nolan. "So you made it to the sixth floor, huh?"

"What are you d—doing?"

"Minding my own business. You should too." Looking closely, her entire body was shaking and beet red. Suddenly, blood began to fall freely from her eyes, mouth, ears and nose, and she collapsed onto the ground. "Hey," he said, rushing over. "What are you doing? Get back down to the fifth floor!"

She began to lose consciousness, but he prevented this by pouring an entire barrel of water onto her and then placing her inside of a second one. The gentleness of the energy within helped to offset the tower's tyrannical aura, though she couldn't move around or cultivate comfortably since she was vastly overexerting herself.

"Why did you force yourself to come up here?" he asked, leaning in close and snapping his fingers in front of her eyes. "What's wrong, Avril?" When Nyla began to draw near, he motioned for her to keep working.

"What are you guys doing?" mumbled Avril. "Where's Drasin?"

"How do you know his name?"

"I was cultivating near the top of the stairs leading up from the fifth floor when an elder showed up at the bottom. He tried to come up here but then took a seat halfway and began to work on an arrayment diagram. What did you guys do? What's all this mess?”

"Well, we were sitting there and then this, uh, black powder suddenly appeared and then..."

"You killed Drasin, didn't you?" Strained as she seemed, Avril put on a hungry smile. “Do you think I’m blind? He’s right there.”

"Stop looking at me like that. No, we didn't. All you need to know is that he fell onto my sword and—"

Nolan’s voice died out as a bright light appeared at the other end of the room, a vibrant beacon of azure energy that completely cloaked the old man who had just ascended to the sixth floor.

Him?

This man had presided over the participants just before the tower climb had commenced. He had been floating in the air at the time, which guaranteed that he was at the Genesis stage. The first thing he looked at was Drasin’s body.

Nolan wheeled around, frantic. "Nyla, go up to the next floor!"

She ignored his words and appeared in front of him, ready to fight despite the futility.