Tower of Endless: Death Granted Entry

Slave 135 stood on the platform, staring into the broken space as the rift widened before him.

He didn’t know how the world could break apart, leading to a different place, but he hated to believe what his eyes saw.

Hungry monsters’ cries echoed from beyond, distant but unmistakable.

The ugly mechanical voice still lingered in his ears. He didn’t think twice... There wasn’t any way he could fight these swarms.

He turned and ran without hesitation in the direction of the fractured gate he had come from.

Death had already found him once. He had no intention of meeting it again. Fighting a losing battle was not courage; it was foolishness.

Yet, the rift widened.

Opening like the maw of a starving beast eager to swallow him whole, it left him not daring to look back. He ran for his life in a wild sprint, ignoring the pain in his ribs.

Until...

The pressure struck again, and the direction of gravity suddenly shifted beneath him. In the next instant, he was falling, dragged helplessly into the rift with no way to resist.

~Thud.

He landed headfirst in the mud. ”Ugh,” he groaned while forcing himself up with hurried, shaking hands.

A dark swamp spread around him. Barely any light touched the sky, and the twisted silhouettes of withered trees loomed on the horizon like wraiths waiting in the dark.

Yet, these were not what he was running from.

Goblins... They ran at him, their yellow eyes glowing in the barely lit swamp. Green skin and crooked limbs. Thin, short, starvingly bony bodies.

Behind them came the wolves.

Too tall and lean. Their ribs visibly protruded from their skin like cages, their jaws split too wide and locked in permanent snarls. Hunger burned in their eyes, and saliva dripped from their maws.

They did not hesitate. They did not wait for him to understand. They lunged.

Slave 135 couldn’t understand...

He was forced into a battle that would result in his death, yet he didn’t try to understand...

In combat, thoughts are a luxury, and luxury is death. If he was dying, then he would die fighting.

Slave 135 moved at once, sprinting toward whatever stretch of ground seemed to hold fewer enemies.

The swamp’s muddy foothold was not a place where men moved freely, and he had no ally here to trust with his back.

The mud slowed his feet; his body felt heavier than usual.

Several goblins blocked his path while more closed in behind him. They charged him the same way he charged them, and when one came within range, he placed all his strength in his legs, splashing mud and dashing forward.

He slammed his shoulder into a goblin.

The impact knocked the air from the goblin’s lungs, but the mud robbed him of his foothold as well, sending him crashing onto his back.

Even so, he had achieved what he wanted.

While sliding, his hands managed to snatch the weapon the goblin had.

A short blade now lay within his grip, one too short to fit a goblin’s stature. He groaned while...

Stab~

Stabbing the goblin in the neck before forcing himself back onto his feet.

A second goblin leapt at him, its claw tearing through the air aiming for his ribs, but he used the size difference to his advantage and stretched out his longer arm, stabbing the goblin’s neck without slowing his desperate run.

Before he could orient himself and run again, a third plunged a blade into his thigh.

With no way to run, he gritted his teeth as pain exploded through his body. ”Ugh.”

Thud~

He struck back immediately, splitting the creature’s skull.

He gritted his teeth and ran on his leg, groaning every time it touched the ground... The mud made it worse, yet he didn’t pause.

The wolves had reached him, and the circle where he could run or evade was rapidly shrinking.

Their crazed howls warned him a heartbeat before one lunged for his shoulder.

Slave 135 reacted instantly. He planted his uninjured leg, twisted toward the sound, and stabbed.

The strike landed, but his hand buried itself inside the wolf’s mouth as the dagger-sized blade pierced its upper jaw. He tried to pull free, but...

~Snap.

Pain flared. ”AUUGH!” he cried, as a sickening sound of snapping bones was heard instead.

The wolf’s jaws crushed his wrist even as the blade remained lodged in its mouth.

With no other way in sight, his decisive mind showed a small possibility. Slave 135 slid beneath the beast’s body and used his free hand to hold onto the lower jaw.

He attempted to force it open.

Luckily, he managed to tear his arm free at last.

The fangs dragged out of his flesh on the way, scraping against bone.

Screams ripped out of him until his lungs burned, yet he didn’t pause or rest.

He didn’t catch his breath; instead, he jerked himself back onto his feet while moving the blade to his uninjured left hand.

For a moment, he thought he had escaped, little did he know... There no longer existed a place for his arms to stretch freely.

From every possible direction, goblins rained down on him.

One stabbed his shoulder. Another’s claw aimed for his head; though he barely managed to avoid death, his forehead tore along with his left eye.

Blood flooded his other eye, but he still forced himself upright and swung blindly through the chaos.

His blade struck something soft. A goblin’s stomach burst open, and its screech cut through the swamp.

Then, a wolf lunged for his throat. He raised his injured arm on instinct in the direction of the closing sound.

Its teeth sank into the same wound, tearing it open wider, but he still drove the blade toward its neck and managed to slit the beast’s throat. The wolf collapsed, yet by then, it was already obvious.

He was dying.

Since the beginning, since he saw the world tear open...

He knew he was dying... He knew too well, yet he couldn’t help it.

Wanting to live, trying to...

The same cold, inevitable weakness he had felt before was already spreading through his body, and no amount of struggle would save him.

His arms went numb.

More attacks followed, claws and blades cutting into him from every direction, and he fought blindly, striking at whatever came within reach. He was no longer fighting to survive.

He was dragging them with him.

He wasn’t dying alone.

Before long, his body finally gave out, and he collapsed into the mud, unable to rise.

Something dragged him. His numb body could no longer feel pain, and the familiar cold sensation spread through him as claws tore open his back and teeth sank into his stomach.

Blood filled his mouth.

He looked at his left hand... It still held the blade.

He gritted his teeth and screamed while swinging one last time, missing everything, but the beasts at his back still recoiled.

He wanted to stand, but his shattered leg failed him.

A goblin drove its blade deep into his gut.

The world tilted. His body convulsed. Strength leaked away with his blood. His torn hand grabbed the goblin’s face and forced his fingers into its eyes.

It shrieked.

A wolf bit into his ruined shoulder. Another tore into his other side.

Slave 135 no longer screamed. He couldn’t feel anything, nor did he have the strength.

A weak sigh escaped his lips. ”Brothers... it seems even death cannot do us part.” His voice was drained of emotion.

It was unclear if he was bitter or rejoicing.

He lay staring at the dark sky of the Trial Zone as the monsters kept feeding.

They did not care that he was dying; they only cared that he was meat.

His vision blurred until everything began to meld into one another. His fingers loosened, and the goblin pulled its face free.

The blade slipped into the mud.

Cold settled in his chest. His breathing slowed. His heart stuttered.

This time, there was no voice.

No interruption.

No miracle.

Only the certainty of everlasting death.

So this was how it ended. Light dulled from his eyes.

The Trial Zone faded.