Chương 238: Chapter Two-Hundred-and-Thirty-Eight

Adam and Kat sat in the garden, watching Meilo flit around and tend to the flowers. The moon's silver light was the main illumination over the island, but Meilo's inner glow helped make it easy to see what she was working on. They had said goodbye to Beck, Lasse, and the rest. As much as he hoped to make it through the next stage, the farewells had felt final. Even Beck, though he wouldn't admit it, hadn't seemed certain about his odds.

But with the wrath of two Absolutes aimed at them, what hopes did they truly have of surviving? The only saving grace was the safeguards the All-Seeing System had in place, but it was clear they were not as robust as they needed it to be. Adam had tried to talk to Alivida about using the orb of insight again, but she said it wasn't possible. The uncertainty of who he would be grouped up with in the Tower worried him.

"We don't have that much time left," Adam started, "but I want to tell you everything I know about the future stages, and, most importantly, the Self-Devouring Eye." Kat frowned.

"Is that the relic that lets Beck go back in time?"

"It is."

"Why would you tell me about it?" she asked.

"There's no guarantee he'll survive, so it's better someone else knows, such that this universe can keep going. If no one loops again and the Trials remain unbeaten, this universe comes to an end. I've seen it happen and I'm trying to prevent it from happening again. I think you're strong enough that you can make it there."

"What about you?"

"I'm not giving up," Adam replied, though it didn't seem like she believed him.

"I can't control the outcome of stage ten. No one can. As much as Beck claims he'll beat it, there's no way of truly knowing, not when everything is so different from his previous loop and Nwetrou's worshippers are gunning for him this hard. You're low on the Flayed Lady and Nwetrou's shit list, so you don't have to worry about their interference like we do." Kat sighed.

"Fine. Tell me." As the minutes ticked down to the end of the second day, Adam and Kat remained in the garden, her head slumped on his shoulder and his arm around her.

"When you die, I will never see you again," Kat remarked sombrely. It sounded like she was trying to force herself to get used to the thought.

"You won't even notice when I'm gone," Adam said.

"You are wrong. You saved my life. You gave me back my ability to choose. How could I ever forget that?" Adam sighed. Even without the power of his crimson glass hand, he knew what she would ask next.

"If there is a way, find me again. Remind me that I can be happy." Adam nodded, despite how he felt about making such a promise.

"I'll find you, no matter where I end up."

"I know there are other versions of me that are struggling in the same way, dealing with Pétr and his twisted ways."

"It won't be the same you," he said.

"I am okay with that." He met her gaze and held it as the final seconds expired. Then darkness took them as the day came to an end. < < Now Entering > > < Stage 10 > < Tower of Mirrors > < 6-hour Timer > Adam opened his eyes, finding himself standing in front of the Tower of Mirrors. A large doorway, like the one he'd seen in the vision from the orb of insight, stood in front of him, and he moved through it, his movements puppeteered by an unseen force. Inside the bottom floor was a vestibule.

The floor, walls, and ceiling were all made of mirrors, and there was a door directly opposite the entrance he'd used, its darkness inviting him in. The moment he reached the middle of the chamber, the air warped and twisted, depositing three other players around him, each at a cardinal position, and all of them facing towards the centre of the chamber in a way that they could see each other.

Adam had worried about who might replace Sarah Ayala and Melissa, the two players he and Kat had eliminated with the challenge stones, but despite his fears about who might take their spots, he hadn't expected what he saw before him. To Adam's left and right were two Flayed Lady worshippers. They didn't have the full-on bloodfiend appearance going on, which Adam assumed was proof they hadn't served their patron that well throughout the past stages, but both had Blood Mage sigils on their hands and looked anaemic.

The one on his right was an Asian woman with shoulder-length hair and a small nose and mouth, which gave her face a pinched look. The other was a strongly-built European woman with dirty-blonde hair and a naturally furrowed brow that made her look mean. Directly in front of him was the Nwetrou worshipper.

He was a bald man with pale and clammy blue skin, gills below his jaws, and webbing between his hands, along with other fish-like body modifications, such as tiny catfish whiskers below his chin and holes instead of ears on the sides of his head. It was impossible to say what race and origin he might have had, but it looked like he was heading towards a full-on fish transformation.

Adam couldn't see his relics, but one of his weapons was an obsidian spear that looked like Solbor, though with slight differences, making him sure that it was a fused weapon, except not one with the Javelineer evolutions. His other weapon was the tainted bulwark. It's a speed build, Adam realised. And a strong one at that. He probably has the scarf of the fleetfooted, the chimera helmet, the body of sloth, and the slothling spring boots to round out the set.

The Nwetrou worshipper would be the real threat, but the other two were sure to become thorns in his side as well. [Welcome to the Tower of Mirrors,] their cubes announced in unison. The other three paid no attention to the cubes and just stared directly at Adam. Great… Killing Sarah and Melissa made no difference at all. In fact, it might have made things worse… Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

[To complete this Stage, Players must reach the 22nd floor and defeat the final boss.] < < Stage Objective > > < Reach the 22nd floor and defeat the Boss before the timer runs out > [The first nine floors of the Tower of Mirrors will be a reflection of past encounters and challenges, tailored to each Player. The 10th floor will reflect the present, and the 11 that follow will be a look into the future stages and their challenges.] [While you must each climb the Tower separately, it is possible to help or hinder other Players. Each of your Towers are linked to the one belonging to the Player on your right. You may affect your Linked Tower with your actions on floors 7, 14, and 21. However, it is only possible to affect your Linked Tower so long as their current floor is below yours.] [Should the Player of a Tower perish, their Tower will be pulled from the Linked Tower chain, and the connections will be reformed, such that all active Towers are always linked.] [If a Player reaches floor 14, their Linked Tower will immediately lose its bottom 7 floors. If a Player reaches floor 21, their Linked Tower will slowly lose floors 8 to 14 at a rate of 1 floor per turn.] [Each of you will begin on floor 1, but when you complete its challenge, you are faced with a choice of three actions. You may ascend 1, 2, or 3 floors for your next turn, but the following floor will have its difficulty raised according to the number of floors you skip. It is not possible to skip past floors 7, 14, or 21, and once a Player completes floor 21, they must wait until all other surviving Players reach and clear the floor, before it is possible to climb to floor 22 and face the final boss.] [The Tower of Mirrors will announce the current floor of each surviving Player at the start of every turn, in order for active Players to have a fair overview of their own position in relation to everyone else.] [The Tower of Mirrors must be completed within the time limit of 6 hours. In the event that Players are still below floor 21 when 20 minutes remain on the Timer, their Towers will collapse if at least 1 Player is waiting on floor 21 to challenge the final boss.] [Lastly, each Player is given a maximum of 18 turns to reach floor 21. If a Player runs out of turns, their Tower will collapse.] Adam was glad he'd already heard this information from Beck, because there were a lot of rules to keep track of. With the lengthy explanation out of the way, the four of them were marched forward to the doorways in front of them. They were moved in such a way that they perfectly passed by each other at the same time, without anyone colliding.

The entire time, the three players stared holes into Adam. This is going to be a fucking mess, he predicted. The moment Adam walked through the doorway into darkness, he was immediately transported upwards, emerging from a doorway onto a floor that was eerily similar to the Magical Forest of stage one. The doorway disappeared the moment he stepped out of it, replaced by a dense treeline.

He looked ahead at the apple tree and up into the ceiling, but it was actually impossible to tell he was confined to a chamber and not outside, reliving the damn stage one again. Then the floor announcements rolled in, and Adam frowned at the names of the other players.

< < Tower Overview > > < Player Adam has reached Floor 1 > < Player Seek My Forgiveness Adam has reached Floor 1 > < Player Hercal of the Abyss has reached Floor 1 > < Player Only I Can Save You Adam has reached Floor 1 > Well, that's fucking creepy.

Based on the order of names, and the fact that one of them literally had ' Abyss' in their name, Adam guessed the order matched the way their towers were linked, meaning 'Forgiveness' was the player whose tower he could affect, and 'Save You' was the one who could affect his tower. I just have to stay above whatever floor 'Save You' is on to avoid them fucking with me on floor seven and fourteen.

Fortunately, it meant he could avoid having to worry about Hercal for now, which was good, because he clearly had some kind of speed-based build if he was using a Solbor and Lancer fusion with the bulwark. But they'll absolutely go for me as soon as we are reunited on floor twenty-two to fight the boss… Adam pushed the dread from his mind for now. It was important that he didn't get stuck looking at future challenges, when the ones directly before him were unknown. [The 6-hour Timer has begun.] < < Floor 1 Challenge > > < Find and defeat the Orange Slime > From the treeline opposite Adam emerged nine slimes of different sizes and colours. There were the small blue and larger purple and green variants that he knew, as well as a flat and wide red one, a bouncy black the same size as him, a side-jumping and nimble tiny yellow, a human-shaped white, a tall and narrow brown one, and a rolling-pin-like pink.

He readied his weapon, but none of them seemed interested in attacking him, so he looked around, trying to see if there was an orange slime hiding somewhere, while the nine distinct slimes all started moving around the forest clearing. The word 'find' might be misleading. Maybe they are referring to the ability to evolve slimes by inserting cores into their bodies. He scrutinised the nine slimes and realised that all of them only had one core within. Maybe it's as simple as combining colours, he thought.

In which case, I should kill the fast yellow one and put its core into the flat red one. That should make an orange slime. If it's not orange enough, maybe I can add the white's core as well. Adam was fairly sure he'd have to be quick about it, because it was unlikely that the slimes would remain peaceful the moment he started harvesting their cores. He waited until the yellow and red slimes were close together, and then he threw his spear at the yellow one, right when it zipped up into the air for a moment.

With his mentalist's locket, Adam directed the spear and its four copies to strike the small slime's body perfectly around its centre of mass where the core was hiding. The yellow jelly flesh exploded away and he ran over to grab the core, before tossing it into the red slime's body. Since he wasn't using his Ghost kunai anymore, there were no copies formed of the core he threw, which was fortunate, since otherwise he might have super-evolved the red slime into a dangerous boss variant.

The yellow core slipped right into the flat slime, and the two cores orbited each other for a moment inside its red body, while the other slimes started moving towards Adam, intent on harming him. Then the red slime turned orange, and its pancake body grew significantly wider, with spikes protruding from the top.

Since the other slimes were converging on him, Adam activated his spring boots to go straight up into the air and fired the crossbow bracer down at the ground, causing an explosion of five simultaneous bolts, which were lightly empowered by his previous five hits to the yellow slime. All but the black and white slimes immediately popped, but Adam threw a few spears as he fell down, killing them before landing safely back on the ground, all of his downwards momentum absorbed by the boots.

[You have cleared the floor 1 challenge,] Adam's cube announced. [Please select a door to continue your climb up the tower.] Three doors appeared in the treeline he'd emerged from. Bronze, silver, and gold, each with a numeral for one, two, or three respectively. Adam had decided to pick the silver door, but then a new announcement rolled in.

< < Tower Collapse > > < Player Seek My Forgiveness Adam has perished > < Player Only I Can Save You Adam has perished > [Your Linked Tower has been changed to Hercal of the Abyss. Likewise, you have become the Linked Tower of Hercal of the Abyss.] Adam turned around and sprinted for the apple tree.

He didn't know what secret it led to, but he knew he had to find some way to get ahead, and he would rather gamble on an unknown than attempt to face Hercal earnestly, since the Nwetrou worshipper was sure to have a lot of help from the Absolute, while Adam had nothing. Swapping to the Tome Keeper had saved Adam, but he hadn't received any unique powers to put him ahead, while the weapons Hercal carried would suggest he'd been given a tailor-made endgame build.

Just like the orb of insight had shown him, there was a faint outline of a door in the side of the apple tree. Adam dug his fingers into the narrow gap and tore it open, revealing darkness. The moment he stepped through, he returned to a place he had thought he'd never see again. Ahead of him were three people standing in line to the counter, and a fourth came in to stand behind him. The L-shaped counter had a display of pastries, and on one of the shelves, he saw those damn croissants.

Adam had returned to Jameson's Bakery. < < Tower Overview > > < Player Adam has reached Floor 0 > < Player Hercal of the Abyss has reached Floor 4 >