A Necromancer's Guide to Clearing a Game Like Tower

Chapter 177: Chapter 177: The Thing He Feared II

Alice kept talking through all of it, and none of it slowed her down.

”You are using it,” she said, ”like a thief who found a king’s blade.”

James didn’t answer. He disabled a living man’s guard-arm, stepped around the body as it fell, and put a Necro Blast past its shoulder into a transformed one beyond it.

[GRAVE COMMAND ACTIVATED]

[COMMAND: PROTECT]

The Dark Knight, Python, and wolf shifted together at his word. Camillia moved to Maeve’s right. The Python laid itself across the floor in front of Declan like a wall with teeth. The wolf cut left and slammed into an Incubus Thrall circling behind Saoirse.

James used the reshaped formation to step forward instead of back.

Alice broke it herself.

She slid between Marcus and Finn before either could close the gap, caught Marcus’s sword on one wing, kicked Finn’s axe shaft down out of line, and reached James before the Python could re-coil around anything.

He blocked with the sword because that was what was in his hand.

The first hit nearly tore it loose from his grip. His guard held for one beat longer than it would have a floor ago, Swordsmanship E buying him that much — and her second strike opened a line across his ribs anyway.

[JAMES GANNER — HP: 1,260/1,260 → 872/1,260]

Maeve turned to reach him, and Alice snapped two fingers without even looking at her. Three living thralls rushed Maeve’s position at once. Declan blocked one. Camillia knocked one flat. The third got a hand around Maeve’s wrist before the wolf tore him off her without killing him.

Marcus stepped into Alice again before she could finish James.

This time he didn’t swing to kill. He swung to force her wing open, and Finn read the movement and drove in at the side it exposed. Saoirse cut at the tail the instant it whipped toward Finn’s axe.

For two full seconds, three S-ranks made her defend from three directions at once.

[ALICE — HP: 100,830/102,000 → 100,310/102,000]

Alice used the living thralls as cover again. One stumbled into Saoirse’s line. Another grabbed Finn’s axe haft with both hands. Marcus had to twist his blade at the last instant to keep from taking a civilian’s head off along with hers.

The fight kept switching, second to second, between hurting Alice and not murdering the people she was wearing as armor.

Maeve pulsed the circlet harder, and her holy light collided with the red-gold weight of Alice’s authority in the air between them.

For the first time, James saw threads.

They ran between Alice’s fingers, her wings, her eyes, and out into every living thrall still standing — thin, glowing, veins hung in open air rather than under skin.

[PURIFY PULSE COLLISION DETECTED]

[LUST AUTHORITY THREADS EXPOSED]

James cut at the nearest one on instinct. His blade passed straight through it.

He fired instead, aiming for the same thread while Maeve’s light still held it exposed.

[NECRO BLAST ACTIVATED]

[MANA: 1,635/1,740 → 1,625/1,740]

[LUST AUTHORITY THREAD DAMAGED]

[THRALL CONTROL PARTIALLY SEVERED]

The thread blackened, frayed, and snapped halfway. One living thrall collapsed forward mid-lunge, gasping, hands shaking, no longer reaching for anyone.

Alice stopped smiling for exactly one breath.

Then she crossed the room, slipped past Marcus’s guard before he could finish turning, and hit James with a wing that sent him into the lower steps of the throne itself.

[JAMES GANNER — HP: 872/1,260 → 536/1,260]

The impact knocked the air out of him completely. His sword stayed in his hand out of reflex more than choice.

He pushed himself up with it anyway, mind already running through what was left: sword for the living, Necro Blast for exposed threads, Corpse Explosion once something transformed was actually dead, Death Chain if the right kill lined up, the Python for binding, Camillia to hold an angle, Maeve to expose the next thread, the scythe if none of it was fast enough anymore.

An Incubus Thrall lunged at him before he’d fully stood.

He stepped into it instead of back.

[SWORDSMANSHIP (E) EFFECT ACTIVE]

[WEAK POINT STRIKE]

The blade opened the knee joint clean, and he fired point-blank into its chest as it buckled.

[NECRO BLAST ACTIVATED]

[MANA: 1,625/1,740 → 1,615/1,740]

[INCUBUS THRALL SLAIN]

The body came apart against him, hot and heavy with rot-smoke, and he caught it by the shoulder and waist before it hit the floor.

His ribs screamed doing it. Blood ran warm under his armor from the wing-cut. The corpse weighed more than he expected, dead weight fighting his grip the whole way, and he twisted with everything his body had left and threw it toward the gap Marcus and Finn had just forced open in her guard.

”Now!”

[CORPSE EXPLOSION ACTIVATED]

[MANA: 1,615/1,740 → 1,585/1,740]

[TARGET: INCUBUS THRALL CORPSE]

BOOM.

The corpse detonated square in Alice’s open guard. Bone, rot, black energy, and corrupted blood burst across the throne steps in one violent flash.

[ALICE — HP: 100,310/102,000 → 97,360/102,000]

For a second, nobody could see her clearly through the smoke. Marcus reset his stance. Finn’s axe came back up. Saoirse angled for the flank. James breathed hard through the pain in his side and watched the number still hanging in the air above where she’d been standing.

Then the smoke split apart.

Alice was still standing.

One side of her face was burned raw. Strands of her hair had blackened to ash. The smile was gone entirely.

Then it came back, slower this time, and colder.

She came for James directly.

No grace to it this time. A straight wingburst, fast and ugly, aimed only at him.

Marcus moved to cut her off and she slipped past his blade before it finished its arc. Finn swung and her wing clipped the axe wide. Camillia stepped into the line and Alice went straight through the Dark Knight’s guard with raw force, knocking her aside.

She hit James in the chest.

[JAMES GANNER — HP: 536/1,260 → 188/1,260]

He went backward across the throne steps, sword torn out of his hand and skidding away across the marble. The Python surged toward him, cracked scales dragging across the floor, and Alice landed between him and every summon he had before any of them could close the distance. Maeve started toward him and nearly went down herself as her circlet’s field guttered thin.

[WARNING: HP CRITICAL]

Death Chain tried to pull off the fresh kill and the corpse blast, reaching for the nearest severed thread on its own —

and it failed.

The strain of everything he’d already spent hit him behind the eyes all at once, his vision doubling, and the black chain flickered once toward the thread and collapsed before it finished forming.

[DEATH CHAIN RESPONSE DETECTED]

[MENTAL STRAIN CRITICAL]

[CHAIN FORMATION FAILED]

Alice walked toward him through the wreckage of the smoke.

Marcus, Finn, Saoirse, Camillia, the Python, the wolf, Declan, and Maeve all tried to reach him at once, and the living and transformed thralls crashed into them from every side, forcing all eight to fight through bodies before a single one of them could close the last few meters.

James’s hand found the scythe instead of the sword.

The sword was too far away across the marble. The scythe was closer, heavier, and cold in a way that had nothing to do with the room around it.

He didn’t reach for it because it looked strong.

He reached for it because Alice was still walking toward him, his HP sat in the low hundreds, his sword lay ten feet out of reach, and every normal thing he had left was too slow for what was coming next.

The window opened in front of him, patient and waiting.

[UNLOCK FULL POTENTIAL AVAILABLE]

[TIME LIMIT: 30:00]