Tower of Endless: Death Granted Entry

”I, the greatest fighter to ever walk down the first floor.” Moon looked at the ground. ”To fight me at the same stats.”

”Saying I could even use my weapon.” His voice was low.

Moon raised his face, contorted to a frightening degree, and asked, ”Are you looking down on me now?” He spat the words through gritted teeth.

At the peak of the audience seats, Ed started laughing hysterically. ”Ugh, how many lifetimes did we need before finding a crazy bastard like this?”

”Hey, Mishu, do you think he can put up a fight against Samuel?” He asked the orange cat, but the cat was too focused to be bothered with him.

Or maybe he’d just lost interest in Ed altogether; it wasn’t clear, but Ed wasn’t bothered in the slightest, even if he did act hurt from time to time.

Ed’s gaze fell again to the arena. ”Oh well, look at him...” He started laughing all over again.

Below, Moon marched aggressively toward the audience seats. He started to take off his scabbard along with Liquid Mountain, his shoes and socks, as well as his brown shirt.

He placed them down before walking back toward the center of the arena across from Samuel.

He loudly pulled the straps of his pants and tightened them hard before he bent forward to roll up the legs.

Getting battle-ready again, the same ritual he went through before every arena-based fight. His body looked both unimpressive and malnourished as usual, thanks to the days he spent sleeping instead of eating.

His displeased, or rather, utterly pissed face remained. ”You think you’re doing me a favor; I think you’ve done yourself dirty, Teacher Samuel.” The words came slowly off Moon’s contorted face.

Samuel stood there unmoving for a while; his expression, hidden between the darkness, the light produced by the seals, and the shadow of his own face, became completely unreadable.

His gaze went to the audience seats, at the very top, where Ed was laughing hysterically under the cover of the darkness and his own Echo.

Samuel averted his gaze from the painful sight. He looked into the dark emptiness of the night sky before shutting his eyes tightly...

”Come on, show me how well you can fight,” Moon taunted, his initial confusion and wariness completely gone now, replaced by a fighting spirit.

He rubbed his fists together threateningly.

Samuel decided it was better to ignore whatever the wild child was trying to do. ”When you first came to the second floor, or even before that... once the first trial is concluded, you usually get a stats increase...” He went straight to the point and didn’t waste time on Moon’s crazy act.

Moon’s pissed face suddenly turned back to normal, and his normal face began to form a frown, one full of confusion. ”What are you talking about?” he asked, before adding, ”Isn’t that obvious?”

”Did you feel it, or just go with it?” Samuel asked again, more accurately; he gave Moon a very specific and straightforward question.

”I...” Moon opened his hands, clenched them into fists, and then reopened them once again.

”I’m not sure.” He had indeed become stronger; at least according to the rules of ascension, everyone becomes stronger after ascending.

But did he feel this very strength course through his body? Did he feel himself become stronger?

No!

Not at all.

”No, I didn’t feel any difference,” he admitted, uncertainty written all over his face.

To Moon, the only difference between the first and second floors was the absence of the seal that once made him into a slave.

”Feeling the minute change in your physical condition is essential if you want to master what you were given; you are oblivious to your own body, always negligent.”

Samuel shook his head. ”You’ve lived a life where assessing your own condition was meaningless as long as your legs could and did still carry your weight.”

Moon raised his golden eyes to look into Samuel’s. He blinked a few times before nodding.

”Yeah, I guess as long as I could still move and my hands could hold tightly onto a weapon, nothing else mattered,” Moon admitted.

”An entire 9 value of your Echo was sealed in your left hand; did you feel any difference?” Samuel asked again.

Moon thought for a moment before shaking his head.

”You should know by now, Echo isn’t as simple as it seems... It is not just a form of power and the arcane. Echo supports your life, sustains it, and lets you live longer,” Samuel spoke slowly, walking around.

”But now, your body doesn’t have this support in the slightest, unlike with the previous seal I placed. That one only sealed your energy output; the new positioning of the seal completely locks this Echo away from your body.”

”Don’t I still have my 7 value of Echo free?” Moon asked, trying to get clarification.

”This lump of Echo won’t flow; it has resided in your abdomen since you were born on the first floor. It never flowed thanks to the rules of the first floor, and it won’t flow now thanks to the old and stagnant nature it was forced into,” Samuel explained slowly.

”The 9 value of Death Echo completely integrated into the 7 value of untainted Echo; this allowed it to flow and become heavy, like how we saw it. Once it was sealed, this Echo returned to its old nature.”

Moon waved both hands. ”Wait, just a second, something is wrong.” He refused this explanation. ”Does that mean the tower rewarded me with Death Echo?”

It was the only conclusion Moon could come up with.

Samuel didn’t confirm or deny. ”We couldn’t find out about that, nor do we know what will happen once you pass the second floor.”

Moon held his forehead. ”Fuck dammit, why won’t this shit let go of me?”

Samuel waited for a moment before speaking again, looking deeply at Moon. ”If our assumption is wrong, it could also be an opportunity,” he said.

Up above in the audience seats, Ed watched and listened attentively. He also wanted to figure out what was messing with Moon. The boy’s condition was impossible to replicate and should have been impossible for whoever was suffering it to stay alive.

Death Echo was untouchable by the living, an ironclad rule deeply rooted in the history of the tower for countless years... but he also enjoyed the conversation, the way they investigated back and forth.

”No wonder you’re the teacher and I’m the cook.” Ed smiled, appreciating his old friend even more.

Knowing too well that Samuel was pressured into this situation where he was giving away his life’s worth of everything to a kid they had just met a little over a week ago, he felt bad.

Nonetheless, he appreciated the efforts Samuel had been putting into nurturing someone who had a few screws loose, was completely uncivilized and uneducated, and was sometimes painful to listen to.

”Stay strong, friend; we still need you for many more years,” Ed whispered to himself, no longer bothering Mishu.

Still, he couldn’t help shaking his head. ”I thought the beating was about to start, but these two played me again, back and forth,” he sighed.