The black teleportation shroud evaporated, leaving Rhen and Aki standing on a rocky overlook at the base of Illuth tower. Rhen turned around a few times, taking in the surroundings. There were several towers clustered together where they stood at the top of a ridge, and a few mile expanse between them and the massive neon city he’d seen from the balcony of the guardian tower that rested below.

In the distance he could see many other tower clusters, just like the one they stood in, that lined the lip of the massive crater that the city was nestled in. Rhen looked up to the glowing purple sky. Was there a sun on the other side of those thick clouds providing the dusky illumination, or did they live in this eternal twilight? Rhen wouldn’t start missing the sun just yet, since it was only his first day there.

A breeze ruffled Rhen’s unruly black hair and he turned away from it, back to Illuth. “We put our hands next to the doorway and say its name to open it, right?”

“Words have power.” Aki repeated Zedis’ last statement.

Rhen spread his fingers out on the cracked orange stone next to the split dividing a blackened archway. Aki stretched out his tentacles and placed them on the other side. They counted down together again, and spoke the tower’s name.

The tower trembled, flaky orange rocks chipping off the doors and rolling down the crater. Then, they opened, spilling sulfuric steam into the air. Streams of molten lava carved through the darkened stone path, illuminating the low-ceilinged first level. It wasn’t the most ideal, but far from the worst.

The last level of Rhen’s trial tower had been torture. Darkness, silence, solitude… madness. Rhen had tried to turn back at one point, days into the blackness when the hallucinations started, but he couldn’t find the exit. Instead of losing his mind, and his life, he’d meditated on his predicament. The only way out was forward, and so he moved. Nothing had changed. This was the same predicament.

Rhen leaned through the scorched archway. The heat of Illuth tower’s first level was bearable from outside, but inside was like an oven. He knew that he’d soon be battling for his life, and not just against monsters. Dehydration was not how he wanted to go down.

Oh no.

Rhen looked at Aki. “Are you going to evaporate?”

“I can control the temperature of the water, but there will likely be some uncontrollable loss.”

“Well, speed run it is.”

Rhen pulled his blades from their holsters. Their familiar grip in his hands grounded him. This was just another level on the way to becoming Deathless, but this time he had a companion. They would show all those haughty guardians their worth.

Smoke burned Rhen’s eyes as he stepped into their tower. He squinted, looking left, then right. The maze-like passages of this level seemed to follow the streams of lava. The largest stream might lead them to the center, or at least where the lava was coming from. Perhaps they could disable the flow somehow, collapsing the low ceiling, and at least make their journey a little cooler.

Rhen took off with that plan in mind. Aki fell in beside him and the archway closed behind them. As if sensing they were locked in, a monster called from somewhere in the maze. It was unlike anything Rhen had heard; a high-pitched tune like metal on metal that shifted to a low, guttural grinding.

“Don’t suppose you’ve ever heard anything like that before?”

“Never,” Aki replied, pulling all the water in his body close, as if he was a spring ready to explode into action.

They came to a stop at an intersection with three paths leading in different directions. Rhen hadn’t been able to tell where the noise had come from. He raised his arms to twin snakes bare fangs and listened. The nervous energy in his arms craved combat, anything to release it. Rhen wondered if that was the power of the Syntial.

The grinding tune came again, and this time Rhen could tell it was down the right path.

“Ready?”

Aki mirrored his pose. “Ready.”

Rhen turned right and hopped over the cracks of glowing stone. The soles of his shoes were not suited for this, but he heel-toed down the path with his mind focused on the fight to come, not his burning skin. The path twisted and the grinding ring of an enemy blared louder. He could feel the blades vibrating in his grip from the power of the noise.

Rhen turned the corner, his blades poised for action when he caught sight of the—what was that? Part liquid silver, part crystal blocks, the obstruction in their path defied definition. The center of it pulsed and undulated while the crystal arms stretched out in every direction, cubes falling over one another as it slid down the path.

There was one obvious thing Rhen could make out about it; the dark cloud of black fire radiating off the surface, just barely visible. It was infected by Kavga.

Rhen charged forward. The monster shrieked like breaking glass and the cubes of crystal collapsed in on themselves. Like lightning, Rhen’s blade covered fist snapped out and cut through the retreating monster. Crystal shards exploded out from the impact point, cutting Rhen’s arm and cheek.

The silver liquid vibrated so low Rhen thought his eyes were going to pop. The creature splat up to the low ceiling and crept into a lava crack. Aki splashed water against the spot and the monster rang out in pain, frozen in place in the cooled lava. Aki condensed the steam, pulling the cloud back around him and into his body.

Rhen punched his blades into the cooled mass over and over, a thousand needle strikes, until the silvery blob shattered and dropped to the ground. The black Kavga anima leaked out, moving with purpose down the hall.

“Aren’t we supposed to absorb that?” Aki asked.

Fear zapped through Rhen as he thought about letting the Kavga energy inside him. That was what Zedis had told them to do, and then cleanse it. It was the only way to expand their anima and get more syntial powers.

It was the only way forward, so Rhen banished his fear. He held his hand out, imagining the reverse feeling of when the orb took his own anima. He didn’t know if this was what he was supposed to be doing, but it felt right. The Kavga energy didn’t stop, but it did slow.

Aki kept up with them, reaching out for the energy with all his tentacles. The black essence stopped in its track, then, like smoke in the wind, pulled toward their hands.

“It’s working!”

Rhen concentrated on pulling the blackness into him until he felt it like a cool mist on his fingers. The energy flowed up his arm, stinging like ice as it made its way to his left peck. Rhen breathed through the pain until the black Kavga essence was fully absorbed.

“Is that it?” Rhen asked, feeling very little difference in his body.

“Cleansing. I’m not sure how to do that.”

Another ringing tune sounded farther down the hall and Rhen raised his blades.

“We’ll have to check the library later. Ready to do the same thing again?”

Aki whipped his watery arms about in a flourish. “Speed run.”

Rhen charged down the maze, punching crystals with his blades, then falling back to allow Aki to splash the molten silver with icy water, then punch some more. On their third crystal monster, Rhen tried pulling the essence from it before he’d finished cracking the body. To his surprise, it worked. The weakened creature gave up the Kavga anima without much of a fight.

After thirty minutes of non-stop crystal punching and essence sucking, the paused to let Rhen hydrate. The inside of his bag was cooler than the ambient air, and Rhen knew there must’ve been more to that enon syntial than Dua had lead on. The cool water was refreshing, but he paced himself, saving some for Aki’s water body.

He’d lost about two percent of his total water already and didn’t think he’d make it more than four hours without being at dangerous levels. So, Rhen hurried his break. He relished the moments the icy Kavga energy flowed down his arm and gave him momentary relief from the intense heat. All the more to move them forward.

They marked the halls with an “X” as they passed through an intersection and kept track of how long each passage took. After two hours of battling the liquid crystal monsters, they came upon a welcome reprieve.

A narrow crack in the hall led to a darkened room that Aki said he could “smell” water in. So, Rhen took the lead and squeezed through. It was dark, but Aki made his skin glow yellow, providing just enough light to see.

There was indeed a deep pond sitting at the center of the small alcove. Aki reached down to touch it and Rhen stopped him. “Won’t there be chemicals in it, from the lava?”

“I can remove them.”

“How?”

Aki glowed brighter and hummed. “I can feel the harmful particles and tune body to move just them. I use breath, light, and vibrations to repel different substances I don’t want inside my ecosystem.”

“That’s so cool.”

Rhen caught his breath while Aki absorbed and cleaned the water from the pond. What if cleansing the Kavga anima was just the same, and Rhen had to vibrate or something? Rhen closed his eyes and inhaled deeply as he imagined the black Kavga energy flowing around in him.

He didn’t know if it was just his imagination, but he saw it settled in the pit of his stomach. Meanwhile, his own white anima that he’d seen the orb and the dressing needle take, flowed through the channels in his body that he’d seen in the anima mirror.

He focused on the flowing white anima grabbing the black and pulling it into the channels. Cold flushed through his veins in his legs as the black energy moved through him. That couldn’t be his imagination too, could it?

The energy moved up through his legs and to his heart, lungs, and head. The icy sensation spread to his skin and the sweat beading around his forehead began to run down his face. It smelled worse than the sulfur pit before him. He cringed and wiped at the sweat to see it was pitch black.

“Gross.” Rhen wiped his hand on his pants. “I think I figured out cleansing.”

He looked up to see Aki had also figured out cleansing. His water body had grown by several inches, and he was leaking his black goop back into the pond he’d been leeching from.

“Dude, this is our tower we have to live in. You’re just inking into it?”

“It’s better than wearing it.”

Rhen grimaced, feeling the goopy sweat trapped in his clothing. Shower and food jumped to the top of his priorities over getting new shoes. Aki splashed Rhen, wicking the black goop from his face and cooling him down.

The salty water left on Rhen’s upper lip sent a shudder if disgust through him, and he spit. That water had been all over and inside Aki…

“Time is of the essence and there is none to waste on frivolous discomfort. I can remove this goop from you with greater expediency and deposit it somewhere else. We can clean up the tower later when we’re Deathless.”

Rhen sighed. Aki wasn’t wrong, but still… gross.

They gathered their things and moved back into the main hall. They moved on to the sixth passage of seven they’d identified, and Rhen honestly hoped there was no more to discover. While he wanted a lot of resources to mine, the level was just too hot.

The tell-tale groaning whine of a crystal monster pulled Rhen out of the heat thoughts and into the coming battle. But this sound was different. It wasn’t just one tune, but dozens overlapping and playing in concert with one another. The sound vibrated him down to the core, making his empty stomach turn.

It was boss time.