He heard a sound.

In the middle, one small area was illuminated by ominous blue glow off a nearby brazier while everything else was hidden behind a veil of darkness.

He touched the cold stone surface as he moved on his feet, accompanied by a half-broken sword and chipped buckler. An unskilfully put together armor of rusty plates above a thin layer of cloth loosely cloaked over his malnourished body. It clanked with each movement, but his footsteps were silent, seemingly making him the ghost of this ruin.

He was glad he was woken up from the sound of an intruder. It meant that he didn’t have to dream more of his depressing past. He put his hands over his face, rubbing his eyes until his vision cleared up to make out the creature’s shape.

A monster posed as pseudo humanoid blended with the darkness around it. If it weren’t for the blue flames illuminating the chamber, it was near impossible for one to notice it.

It was a Shadow not as powerful as the Wizard, Knight or the Headsman. Nonetheless, he could not afford to take its appearance lightly. If one discovered him, there were bound to be many of the same nearby. He knew they move in groups and attacked anything different from them.

They were abominations who took the lives of his friends. Fuelled by nothing but hatred, he stomped towards the Shadows with broken equipment while seething in rage.

The rest of the Shadowed creatures emerged around the corner and slowly moved to encircle him. Various cries and gurgling were used to intimidate, but to no avail, they couldn’t get one grunt from him. One of them rushed him from behind and was met with claw hold grabbing its face. It saw silver flames engulfing its vision before its body disintegrated.

He ducked down as the other Shadows launched their assault. He waved his tattered cloak above him, blending with the dark and threw his sword into one of them.

He quickly pulled out shivs and loose blades of sharp pieces of metal pocketed all over his body, impaling them in each of his attackers one by one while nimbly dodging their attacks.

Normal steel were ineffective to finish off these monsters. However, his weapons were imbued with silver flames which were effective to burn off the protective miasma enveloping the Shadow’s bodies. Simply touching the Shadows with enchanted weapons was like a hot knife running through butter.

He retrieved his equipment after he made certain no bodies remained around him. Carefully holstering his weapons, he kept his eyes vigilant around the perimeter and spotted one more foe.

Occasionally, a big one emerged. It was much resistant against the flames than its lesser variants. This one was armored with scrap metal and carried spiked ball connected to a long chain.

It hurled the bowling object at high speed and crashed into the brazier. Thanks to the object overly secured into the ground, it did not flip over, but the cage holding the blue flames was indented with the shape of a spiked ball. The weapon was slow and when thrown, it needed time to launch its next attack.

He took this opportunity to rush his opponent. He flicked out weapons from both hands, and took a running leap, plunging his broken sword and a shiv in its body. His attack was followed by an explosion.

This attack was effective but not enough.

Blazing, the Shadow swatted him off. It pulled on the chains, sweeping it towards his feet.

He jumped only to be met by a tackle that sent him sprawling back. He landed on his feet, feeling something warm dripped down his nose. It was blood. He wiped blood off his nose and dropped back into his guarding stance, analyzing the Shadow’s movement carefully.

He lacked strength to penetrate its defences. In this case, it was time to retreat to try a new tactic.

The Shadow noticed its opponent turned away and chased after him. It was lacking speed, but it possessed endurance to chase him endlessly through this floor. At one point, it lost sight of him at an intersection.

Suddenly, an object unreeled down from the ceiling and clink detonated. A bright flash blinded the Shadow, allowing him to drop from the ceiling and assassinate it.

His legs wrapped around the Shadow’s neck, sliding two spikes into its eye sockets. Raging flames burned over the black miasma on its body, eating the Shadow from inside out and left its weapon behind.

He coiled up the chained weapon and toured around to keep a lookout for more enemies. This was not a weapon he was familiar with and fed it to the blue flames.

Strange hieroglyphics and pictures spread across the floor. Yes, floor. In fact, he climbed his fiftieth flight of stairs today, making this the three thousandth floor since the tower was opened to him. A teleportation circle conveniently allowed him to continue his progress with ease. This was the tower he saw near the village, the only place where the darkness and isolation comforted him. While he was in here, he could painlessly forget everything else outside the tower.

But he couldn’t stay in here forever. There were those buried in graves outside the tower he vowed to visit in order to repent for his cowardliness and guilt.

How long has it been? At least a decade had passed. He lost track of time ever since that day.

After he left the tower, the loud noise of leaves shuffling ambushed him. He shut his eyes and curled up, thinking the Wizard, Knight or the Headsman have found him.

It was pitiful to see him at this state. He was someone who had great interest in an unknown world that was once closed off to him. He was the kind that dove headfirst into dangers ahead and become an admired adventurer to help those in need. Now he became someone who feared it.

He gathered himself and raced through the forest when he felt safe to do so. He ran and ran, towards the mass graveyard of tombstone he built upon bodies that he retrieved from the village.

He wasn’t the only one when he arrived. A group of armed men stood by the graves, inspecting the land. They had scaled bodies, Lizardmen. They were armed, their equipment were slathered with bloodstains on them.

His first impression of them was that they were here to hunt him. Frightened by their appearance, he took a step back. His foot snapped a branch.

*Crunch*

“Who’s there?!”

The Lizardmen quickly mobilized and dived into the forest. They were agile and swift. Their lean and hardy bodies allowed them to slither through tight gaps into the forest to form a perimeter in mere seconds. They flushed him out of hiding as the only safe route he determined was to run and hide behind one of the tombstones.

The intruders looked at him as if he was a strange animal. Recognizing who he was, their jaws opened to resemble a smile when in fact, they appeared frightening to others.

“Is that…?”

“Did we find him?”

“I believe so, we, we did it! Our efforts have paid off!”

They were suddenly full of cheers and laughter. He continued hiding behind the tombstone wondering what the Lizardmen were going about.

“Our country can be saved now! We can get rid of those pretentious Dragonkins who think they can rule over us and those Shadows!”

“Let’s bring the Oracle back.”

One of the Lizardmen approached him and kneeled before him. He was confused as to why, but he peeked behind the tombstone and watched.

“Oracle. We’ve travelled and fought against many terrors of the land to find you. We were a dozen soldiers and now, there are five of us left. We ask you to lend your powers and save Stusis from the conflict it is in.”

To him, he thought it was some sort of trap, to capture him and be sold off like a slave. It wasn’t an exaggeration. He’s been visited by various groups before, each with different motives. He’s an Enui, one of the last of his kind. It’s not common to be wary there were buyers in the world that would pay large sums of money to keep him as a trophy.

“Bah, this is a waste of time. We should just grab him.”

“You’re scaring him.”

“Our people are counting on us. We can explain everything to the Oracle on the way home.” Another Lizard marched towards him and reached out its scaly claws and grabbed his wrist.

“N-no! Let go!”

“Stop struggling, we need you!” It hissed.

He flailed his legs, kicking and thrashing. He kicked the Lizardman’s jaws and crawled backwards until his back hit another tombstone. This one was well decorated with withered flowers and molded candy.

“Ouch! Why you-!”

“Wait, don’t hurt the Oracle!”

“I’m not going to. And this thing here is annoying!”

When he saw the Lizardman trampled over the graves, his emotions boiled. Once again it reached its claws towards him.

“AAAARRRGGHHH!”

He stabbed a shiv into the Lizardman’s claws, snatched its spear and skewered the guy foolishly kneeling. Then, he unsheathed the kneeling Lizardman’s sword and plunged it up the clawless Lizardman’s jaws and jabbed his shiv into the heart. In a barbaric manner, he dragged the blade from its neck down to its belly.

Two Lizardman flopped dead within five seconds. Their blood and internals spill onto the soil around the graves.

He was speechless for a second, absorbing the scene. A chuckle escaped his mouth as the corner of his lips curled up.

His mouth laughed on its own. His hands smeared blood of his foes on his face. He violently yanked the sword off the Lizardman’s jaws and looked at the rest of the group. His head was aching, he was crying. His emotions were all over the place.

“He killed him. Why? I thought the Oracle…”

He gave the sword a twirl and pressed the tip at his neck.

“N-no! Don’t! Stop him!”

The others quickly rush him to stop his suicide attempt.

Except, he faked it.

He plucked a spear off the corpse and hurled it at the one in front. Then, he quickly slaughtered the last two who were easy prey. It was done clumsily but the surprised attack worked in his favor. One of the Lizardman still breathed.

“Oracle…. Why? You… After how much we believed… you... were our... last hope…”

Believe. He hated that word.

He spat on the Lizardman and frowned.

Irritated, he held onto the spear’s shaft, cruelly twisting and churning the spear to hear the Lizardman’s last painful cry. It heavily gasped for air for each time the spear moved in its stomach. Its eyes rolled back, blood dribbled from its mouth and chest. Its body twitched, spasmed, and begged for mercy. In the end, like a flame, its life was extinguished.

Standing there, his face carried a villainous expression while being soaked in blood. His blank eyes held no regards for anything else other than protecting his fake sanctuary that being this graveyard.

He dragged the corpses by the tails while humming a disturbing tone along his way. Monsters nearby fear him, stalking him in the distance as he trekked through the forest far from the graveyard. Knowing he had new equipment looted from the corpses, his worries about advancing up the tower faded.

The bodies were brought to the where all intruders ended up. He dumped the Lizardmen down a cliff into the remains of hundreds of bodies skinned to the bones by scavengers. Monsters below found the bodies and ate to their heart’s content.

“That was super cruel of you, don’t you think?” A person sat on the branches and whistled at him.

He hurled an axe at the person only to be disappointed his weapon phased through him.

“If I wasn’t a spirit you would’ve killed me.”

“Henrick...”

Henrick, the only person other than Him living in this forest. After He unlocked the tower, Henrick mysteriously appeared, claiming to be one of the heroes from the grave. He was the mysterious apparition that saved Him from the Shadow Knight in the past and thought to be responsible for implanting the cursed sigil on his arms.

The density of Henrick’s color slowly faded. Right now, he was but a phantom spirit.

When He asked what race he was, Henrick answered he was human. Not quite… He was a homunculus modelled after the human race. Henrick would tell no more, his excuse was he had amnesia, but He knew Henrick retained his memories.

“What… do you, want?”

“I’m here to tell you the time left of my seal. It won’t be long before Shadows crawl out of the towers and overrun the world.”

He was silent.

“Hmm? You’re not scared the world is going to be destroyed?” Henrick chuckled at His villainous attitude.

“If, someone wants… the world, to be saved. Someone… decent will come.”

“Really, you won’t even try to look for them?”

More silence.

“You’re such a hassle.” Henrick puffed a light sigh and vanished. “You just wanted to see the world burn, right?”

Now alone, He hummed while coldly staring at the Lizardmen dismantled corpses before heading back to the tower.