Tower of Endless: Death Granted Entry

Slave 135’s attempt to replicate the dance was not very fruitful.

He tried to do it time after time, but each attempt ended with him dying faster than he should have.

He could have killed them slowly. It was the obvious and safest route to take. The numbers were already thin. He had learned their patterns. He had paths that worked. Paths that led to survival.

But he chose the dance, and that very dance was what ended his life, delivering his neck to their blades and maws in a seeming willingness.

The first attempt ended when he delivered his ankle to a wolf’s maw mid-turn. The momentum carried his body forward, his ankle still anchored between fangs.

What followed was teeth and clubs raining down, crushing his head instantly.

Darkness came quickly.

The second attempt lasted longer. He slipped between two goblins. He cut deep. He moved as he remembered.

He almost took the fourth step in.

It was almost fluid and correctly executed.

Almost.

Before he accidentally stepped into the path of a charging horned wolf, getting stabbed in the chest without any resistance or a way to slow down the momentum.

Before he could regain any distance from the wolf, lifting his body off its head, a ragged blade whistled in the air, sending his head flying.

He died staring at the ground.

He realized first that he died faster during the dance.

He was in his most vulnerable state, or rather, the dance was based on baiting with absolute vulnerability. But that very vulnerability exposed his fatal points, or simply led to death due to his lack of awareness of random variables.

But of all attempts, his third was the worst.

He committed fully, with no hesitation and no retreat.

He let himself be surrounded, just like the warrior had done. He moved, spun among monsters, and struck where he planned to.

For a moment, it worked.

Then everything collapsed.

The moment his leg failed to step where it should have, due to a minor miscalculation, confusion set in. His body halted, unable to pick a direction.

His body resisted the motion. A fraction of delay was enough.

They tore him apart.

The Trial restored him.

Again.

Along with the monsters, since he failed to finish a single one during the third attempt.

When he stood restored, he did not rush this time.

”Dammit,” he cursed out loud.

But he did not charge. Not this time. There was still too much to take in.

Too much to digest.

He stayed still, breathing slowly.

The monsters also waited. Unlike their nature, this time they seemed cautious.

They waited and watched, moving in circles.

But he wasn’t bothered. He had a more pressing matter to think about.

He was not sure about so many things when it came to that dance, and the more he thought, the more uncertain he became.

But this dance, in essence, was not refined violence turned into art. That much he was certain of.

It also wasn’t just observation of terrain and calculation of movement.

His body was different from the warrior’s. The height difference was not devastating, but he was shorter, and the body proportions were also off.

He had seen everything. Every step. Every strike. Every impossible escape. He had experienced it from inside the warrior’s body. He had felt the instincts fire before thought.

And yet he could not reproduce it, because seeing was not enough.

Borrowed experience had limits. The body was not his, and the process by which the style came into being was not his own.

The warrior had not been copying anything.

The warrior had been deciding.

Slave 135 understood it then.

There were missing components. He was not sure about most of them, but he was sure about one.

It was a certainty. Not blind confidence or arrogance.

It felt like a commitment, a promise to take the next step.

The warrior had never questioned the step he took. Never hesitated between two options. Never left space for doubt. The body had moved because there was only one acceptable outcome.

Survival.

It was never about escape or victory, but to be alive after the next exchange.

But then again, he questioned if he understood the warrior at all.

The body was not only surviving. It was protecting, guarding, and unquestionably killing.

It was betting one life against another. Or countless others.

He rubbed his face, unsure of anything but the fact that he lacked certainty. His steps were not steady enough for this act of madness.

And his very own life was not in his control to bet. Not in this space. His sense of death and danger had long been blurred.

Slave 135 had still been choosing how to fight. He had the luxury of not dying. He could afford to lose as many times as he wanted without consequence.

The warrior had not chosen. The path had already been decided the moment his gaze fell back on the battlefield.

It was dying or living. He alone carried the consequence.

Or maybe not.

He remembered how help was denied.

Now he was even more confused.

’What exactly was his goal?’

But amidst battle, he could only focus on battle, and so should he.

Certainly, through everything he had experienced, this was the essence of survival and instinct.

Thus, he decided that he needed to clear his mind.

He lowered his blade slightly, letting out a pent-up breath.

The monsters felt it. They sensed his intent, and thus both sides stood still.

The battle was about to resume, but in a less chaotic way.

He had already decided to return to the fighting style that thinned down the monsters.

He did not attempt the dance again. Not yet.

It was still too early for him.

Not until his life was his own.

Thus, he returned to what worked.

Cut.

Reduce numbers.

Kill.

One monster at a time.

Death no longer came as frequently.

”Still a long way to go,” he said to himself as his blade separated a greater goblin’s head from its shoulders.

He slowly adjusted again, adjusted better, and the process became smoother.

He did not chase elegance.

He chased efficiency.

Looking brutal was also fine.

The wild tendencies he acquired before the memory fragment had not disappeared, but he was trying to be the one in control.

He stopped trying to look like the warrior.

He started fighting like someone who needed to live.

To end this trial.

His life was not a toy.

Nor was it a game for someone to play.

That was the decision he came up with.

Until he found what was exactly missing, he would always choose to live.

The blade became familiar.

His steps grew cleaner.

His breathing steadied.

His timing sharpened.

The swamp filled with bodies.

The ground grew uneven with corpses. Mud turned dark. The smell thickened.

One by one, the monsters fell.

No theatrics.

No hesitation.

And soon, it was the last of everything.

A greater goblin riding a horned wolf.

That was everything left of the armies he fought.

Each side took its stance. The goblin lay low, close to the horns of the wolf.

It gave up the club it held and instead held a blade.

The wolf, on the other hand, crouched, ready to leap at any moment.

He rested his own blade down softly.

Slowly.

His lips parted, whispering softly.

”Come.”