“Attack!”

Raven’s grand Construct army crashed into a menagerie of experimental monsters, iron tide meets chittering swarm. We fought in the doorway, cramped like a blade jammed in its scabbard.

“What you’ve done is just evil, against the Creator’s intent… why the sudden attack? I still had two lines of declaration.”

A fight’s a fight. Better we loose the first arrow than bleed under a surprise raid.

Also, out of my wicked taste, I love to cut in when bosses preen, like tossing grit on a lacquered mask.

No.

I leap from the trench. I drive my Greatsword into a stone troll’s skull to the hilt, shock traveling like a bell through bone. I toss down a few fixed “Desire Thorns” as cover, thorny shadows sprouting like brambles, and count the mana humming in my veins as I think it through.

Seems I want to undercut anyone who grandstands, a needling urge like sand in the gears.

What a nasty little hobby, a worm in the wood.

In the Silver Era, there weren’t phylacteries. They rise where they fall, like weeds after rain. So I lace the ground with Shadow traps before he returns; let the darkness bite like wolves.

For insurance, I scatter a handful of anti-magic factor on the boss’s respawn point. It looks like dust in a sunbeam, but it’s high-grade alchemical stock sold by the gram.

Its effect breaks spell and mana alike, turning ordered threads back into chaos, like a loom unraveled.

“You— you lot— aaah—”

Good. Regeneration failed; his body won’t knit like bark to trunk. By habit, he tries to shape a shell from his strongest mana. Next time he’ll project matter through pure concept, and the anti-magic dust will fail like rain on stone.

As a lich under Slaughter’s blessing, Sorek spawns a fresh shell whenever his worldly body dies; the concept of Slaughter births it anew like a red moon rise. Later liches copy the trick, but none have his peak eight lives.

Lich Sorek: five lives remain.

This isn’t even Slaughter; the concept’s thin as mist. Kill him five more times, and he’s dust.

If I’d told Catherine to add a “Pursuit” gift on her bow, we could’ve stripped three lives in one breath, like arrows in a storm. But I shouldn’t have known this boss was undead. So Catherine tuned for single-hit lethality, one stroke like a thunderbolt.

It’s fine. We grind stone and keep cutting.

Our squad flows without words, fish in a stream. Raven rings Sorek with Construct ranks like iron walls. Princess Golia shields our two casters and helps pop lone heavy beasts, ties snapped like rotten rope. Stini and I weave spells, raising barriers and laying ambushes like nets for Sorek.

“My God, look upon me! Let me behold Your glory even in the pit!”

Common Divine Art: Watch Over. In gameplay terms, a temporary full-stat surge from mana cap to muscle fiber, doubling like spring flood.

Divine Healers are monsters. Every adventuring party should bring one. That’s why they’re the first target under a villain’s opening strike— fire cuts the torch that holds the light.

Back in the Demon Realm, bored out of my skull, I polled my younger siblings: When a Hero Squad attacks, who do you kill first?

Sixty percent chose the Divine Healer. The Mage got twenty. Cold math, hot battlefield.

“You will taste the anger of the Eternal…”

My Shadow corrosion has been coiling for a while, a snake under leaves. Stini’s family swordwork reinforces the concept of Severance, edge like winter ice. Sorek doesn’t even scream this time before he drops back into Slaughter, a lantern snuffed.

Lich Sorek: four lives remain.

No jokes now. With half his lives left, Sorek finally shows his craft. In the Tower of Final Stars, where mana grows sluggish like silt, he summons swarms of wind and lightning, storm-wolves and sky-serpents. He stops brainless charges and recovers a mage’s caution and calculus, stone laid on stone.

It’s clear: he won’t rebuild his body till every passive is set like wards in a circle.

If we keep playing around, dread creeps like frost; we’ll wipe before we even see Anna.

Words are wind. Clear the adds. Cut the weeds before the tree.

“Saint bears the shadow lance and sings. O Shadow without form, if it serves great good, let this body sink to the abyss!”

Unlike Ironwood Forest, where endless piercing hell handled swift blood-drinking banshees, I shape sky-piercing spears like tower pillars, lances that stitch the clouds.

Spear of Wicked Deeds for Good— a boosted single-target strike, one needle for one heart.

I don’t need many lances. The besieging beasts are massive; concept erosion kills with one or two hits, rust chewing iron.

“Stini, blessings.”

“On me. Let this body be forged of iron.”

High-tier applied magic: Iron Fortification. With enough mana, the body hardens to steel, skin ringing like armor.

“This valiant frame won’t age on a sickbed.”

High-tier applied magic: War God Unparalleled. It heightens reflexes, max muscle output, burst power, and coordination, sinew and spark.

If we had an applied-magic specialist, they’d chant for three to four minutes and squeeze the best from the spell, song rising like a tide. Sadly, only Stini, Raven, and Catherine handle applied spells here. Raven uses them for instant Construct forging and quick enchantments, metal flares on steel. Catherine’s gift magic in applied form only buffs herself, one flame fed.

Stini’s not the most reliable, but we count on her. My Shadow Sorcerer kit has no applied spells; mine is the night’s road.

Princess Golia sees the main boss pause. She hands protection for the Divine Healer and the mage to Stini, who’s mid blessings, words like incense. Then she barrels into the mob and goes to town, thunder in boots.

Don’t think “adds” means weak. This force could breach a city guarded only by regular troops in three minutes, flood through a gate.

She leaps with earth-crushing intent and slams like a cannonball into the beast skewered but alive. Its head is mammoth-like, six spider-thin legs, a green-glowing carapace. Thirty meters tall, yet Gloria knocks it back and down, mountain meets mountain. The shock tears the shadow lance through its flank, rent like cloth.

Then Gloria crosses her hands. The massive head rolls to the ground like a fallen boulder.

I must watch the respawn to stop Sorek’s ambush, hawk over nest. I can’t clean adds too. Raven steers the Construct ranks so Stini and I can focus on Sorek, lines tightened like a drum.

“I admire you, boys and girls.”

Wrapped in wind and thunder’s blessing, Sorek appears again. An elven beauty flickers like morning light, then crumbles back to withered ugliness, petal to husk.

“You remind me of my youth, my brightest days. Girl over there, I smell my people’s blood on you. You’re my descendant, aren’t you?”

His voice sheds frenzy and dark impulse. As Slaughter’s blessing thins, Sorek regains a cleaner mind, water settling clear.

“I’m so close. I don’t want my dead wife to wake to blood on my hands. So I ask again. Leave. You’ve earned enough rewards. I won’t pursue.”

“My answer is no, cold as iron.”

Stini drops the grin and answers, righteous as a bell under snow.

“No one returns from death. It’s law, iron law. Any attempt to break life and death won’t be permitted.”

“Permit? Whose permit? I fought for the Kingdom of Layered Woods all my life. I held the Demon Realm gate on the Arctic Tundra alone against demonfolk, never yielding. I came back, and my wife lay assassinated by demonfolk. Is that the Divine Being’s reward for an oath kept?!”

Sorek’s face shrivels further, apple to twig. Black mana climbs like smoke around him.

I shoot Stini a look. The deeper he leans into darkness, the heavier the negative power, stones on a scale. We can’t stoke his rage; it only fattens the fight, storm to cyclone.

She glances back. I’ve never seen Stini this cold. No— I have. In the old Andor days, she slew her father turned Headless Rider, then cursed me with eyes that froze the world, winter poured into a stare.

“Sorry, Andor. I think I must lay it plain. It may be inefficient. It may endanger you. I insist. Sorek— he’s my mother’s younger brother.”

How does she know? I didn’t know that. Shock pricks me like a thorn, then eases like breath.

I don’t know who told her. It’s her tale, a Hero’s story. Not the Demon King’s, not her squad’s, river runs in its own bed.

The grief and ache belong to her. Who told her? What storms she weathered? What vows she cast in shadow? We can’t interfere. We have no right. So…

I step back. I lower my blade’s tip like a leaf falling. I leave the stage to the lead.

“Sorek, my uncle. The dead don’t return. Never have. Don’t chase a mirage. Come back. I believe you can still be redeemed.”

“No. Never. I’m just a breath away. I feel her hand move, her eyelids tremble, her heart beat. Just a breath more. My wife will return. So I beg you— leave. If she revives, I’ll accept judgment!”

“No one rises from death. The dead must yield to the living. That’s how the world turns; too many bodies burst the world, birthing famine and disaster like locusts.”

“I know all that. I still want her back!”

“That’s corruption!”

“Yes. I’ve embraced it!”

“The Divine Being won’t let you drag the dead back!”

“My god has abandoned me!”

Silence falls like ash. At last, Stini speaks, a farewell elegy heavy as rain.

“Don’t. I’ll kill you.”

“Rest easy. I’ll fight with the same resolve.”

Words are over. Only resolve and obsession collide, antlers in winter, steel to steel.

Sorek lifts a bone-thin staff and calls storm and thunder, sky blackening like ink. Stini raises the Holy Sword Yingfeng; the gods’ blessings blaze around her like dawn.

This is the true beginning of the Tower of Final Stars— the Sorek Hunt.

I feel blessings and force flood me, fire in veins. I start slow, feet drumming like rain. Then I sprint full tilt.