A Necromancer's Guide to Clearing a Game Like Tower

Chapter 178: Chapter 178: Broken Authority

James’s HP sat in the low hundreds, his ribs burning with every breath, and his sword lay ten feet away across marble he had no way to reach.

[WARNING: HP CRITICAL]

[JAMES GANNER — HP: 188/1,260]

Alice was already between him and every summon he had. Marcus, Finn, Saoirse, Camillia, the Python, the wolf, Declan, and Maeve were all trying to close the distance, and living thralls and Incubus Thralls kept crashing into the formation from both sides, buying her time she didn’t need.

His hand closed around the scythe instead.

It was the only weapon within reach. It was also the only thing he owned that felt like it could actually cut whatever Alice was made of.

[UNLOCK FULL POTENTIAL ACTIVATED]

[TIME LIMIT: 30:00]

[AZRAEL’S BROKEN SCYTHE RESPONDING]

[DEATH ATTRIBUTE AMPLIFIED]

[AUTHORITY FRAGMENT PARTIALLY UNSEALED]

Alice reached for him before the activation finished settling.

James didn’t overpower her. He barely rolled clear, the scythe dragging low through a red-gold thread running to the nearest living thrall.

The blade cut it clean.

[LUST AUTHORITY THREAD SEVERED]

[THRALL CONTROL BROKEN]

The thrall collapsed, gasping, hands shaking against the marble, no longer reaching for anyone.

Alice stopped for one breath.

Then she smiled again, thinner this time.

Marcus hit first, not to kill — living thralls still moved too close for that — but to force her wing open. She blocked with it, and his blade ground against black feathers hard enough to throw sparks.

SHRRK.

Finn came from the lower angle, aiming for exposed ribs instead of her head. Alice turned her hip and caught the axe on her tail before it landed clean.

Saoirse used the second the tail committed.

She cut across its base, not deep enough to sever it, but enough to make the next movement hitch.

Maeve saw the hitch and forced the circlet into another pulse.

[MAEVE CALLAHAN — RADIANT FIELD: PURIFY PULSE]

[APOSTLE’S RADIANT CIRCLET RESPONDING]

[LUST AUTHORITY THREADS EXPOSED]

[MAEVE CALLAHAN — MANA STRAIN RISING]

James saw the threads flare around Alice’s wing, her wrist, the living thralls near the throne. He pushed up on the scythe and cut one, then another, and each cut dragged cold up his arm and worsened the pain sitting behind his eyes.

[LUST AUTHORITY THREAD SEVERED]

[LUST AUTHORITY THREAD SEVERED]

[ALICE — HP: 97,360/102,000 → 94,300/102,000]

Alice answered by changing the room instead of screaming.

The throne steps stretched wider. The red silk along the walls darkened into black feathers, curling off the fabric. The living thralls knelt, then rose again with red-gold threads pulling straight from their mouths and wrists. Incubus Thralls spread in behind them, using the living as a wall in front of the wall.

[INNER COURT AUTHORITY INTENSIFYING]

[LIVING THRALL CONTROL RESTORED: PARTIAL]

[INCUBUS THRALL COUNT INCREASED]

James couldn’t just chase her. Maeve was the one exposing the threads, and Maeve had to stay standing.

[GRAVE COMMAND ACTIVATED]

[COMMAND: GUARD]

The Python coiled across the marble in front of Maeve and Declan, cracked scales grinding stone but still moving. Camillia stepped to Maeve’s right and cut down the first Incubus Thrall that broke through. The wolf stayed low and dragged a living thrall away by the arm without crushing the throat. Skeletons filled the gaps and came apart almost as fast as they filled them.

Alice tried for Maeve directly.

She crossed the room in a wingburst, and Marcus and Saoirse cut across her path from opposite sides at once. Marcus forced her wing guard high. Saoirse’s blade caught the thread exposed at her wrist — not enough to sever it alone, but enough to make it flicker.

James swung the scythe through the flicker.

[LUST AUTHORITY THREAD DAMAGED]

[LUST AUTHORITY THREAD SEVERED]

[ALICE — HP: 94,300/102,000 → 90,620/102,000]

Alice countered at once. A wingback strike caught Saoirse and sent her skidding across the floor. Finn stepped into the gap before Alice could follow through and smashed his axe into her already-cut tail.

The hit landed harder because Saoirse had already opened it.

Alice’s smile vanished for one second.

Her tail lashed across Finn’s shoulder in return, tearing him sideways.

Maeve reached for him to heal it, and Alice’s voice slid through the room before the light could land.

A living thrall turned on Maeve with a stolen dagger. Declan blocked the first stab. The second came in low, under his shield, and James caught it a beat late — sent the wolf, and the wolf hit the thrall’s side and pinned him by the sleeve, snarling from a throat that shouldn’t have had breath left in it to snarl with.

[PURIFY FIELD STRAIN RISING]

[HOSTILE COMMAND INTERRUPTED]

Alice noticed James protecting the support line and changed her approach again.

She stopped sending living thralls at them and sent the transformed ones instead. One crashed into the Python. Another met Camillia’s blade. A third went straight for James, still half-kneeling with the scythe.

He couldn’t swing wide — too many living bodies too close — so he used the shaft like a staff, caught the claw on it, turned the Thrall’s own weight against it, and cut the exposed thread on its back with the curve of the blade.

[INCUBUS THRALL — HP: 8,400/8,400 → 6,980/8,400]

[LUST THREAD EXPOSED]

James finished it and used the corpse before it hit the floor.

He hooked the scythe blade under the body, dragged it up with his ribs screaming the whole way, and used the weapon’s own curve to fling it toward Alice while Marcus forced her guard open from the other side.

[INCUBUS THRALL SLAIN]

[CORPSE EXPLOSION ACTIVATED]

[MANA: 1,585/1,740 → 1,555/1,740]

BOOM.

The corpse detonated near her wing guard. She was ready for it this time and blocked with the wing itself — which was exactly what James needed. The block forced the wing open at the joint, Maeve’s pulse caught the exposed threads underneath it, and James cut through two before Alice could close the guard again.

[LUST AUTHORITY THREAD SEVERED]

[LUST AUTHORITY THREAD SEVERED]

[DESIRE FIELD OUTPUT REDUCED]

[ALICE — HP: 90,620/102,000 → 84,020/102,000]

Something changed in Alice’s face. Not panic. Calculation.

She had stopped treating this like a fight against whoever hit loudest. She understood the chain now — Maeve exposed, Marcus and Saoirse and Finn forced the guard, James cut, and the undead held the seams together.

So she went after the seams.

She drove one foot down onto the Python’s pinned coil and tore upward with claw and wing at once. The old scales cracked along a line that hadn’t been there a second ago.

[ABYSSAL VENOM PYTHON — HP: 7,680/9,500 → 4,240/9,500]

[CONTRACT STRAIN DETECTED]

James nearly dropped the scythe from the pain that came through the bond. It hit behind his ribs like the wound had opened in his own body instead.

Camillia stepped into Alice’s follow-up strike and blocked it.

Alice looked at her, something between amused and disgusted, and tried the authority again — lower this time, sharper, aimed less at Camillia’s body than at whatever remained of her old story.

[AUTHORITY ATTEMPTED]

[TARGET: DARK KNIGHT — CAMILLIA]

[AUTHORITY FAILED]

[CURRENT CONTRACT: JAMES GANNER]

Camillia held for exactly one second.

Then Alice punched her through a broken pillar.

James felt the contract stagger through him — not break, but bend hard enough to feel like it might.

Marcus used the strike against Camillia as his own opening.

He drove forward in a heavy combination, not for the kill, only to lock her in place. Finn hit low at the same moment. Saoirse cut the wrist thread Maeve had just exposed.

James forced himself through the pain still ringing from the Python and cut with the scythe.

[LUST AUTHORITY THREAD SEVERED]

[DESIRE FIELD OUTPUT REDUCED]

[ALICE — HP: 84,020/102,000 → 76,320/102,000]

She bled properly now — red-black running from the wing joint, the wrist, the cut across her tail. The living thralls nearest the throne sagged like people waking out of a nightmare they hadn’t chosen. Alice snapped what threads she had left and dragged some of them back upright by force.

Maeve saw it and understood what it meant. Alice was burning through the people faster now, just to keep her grip on the room.

Maeve pushed the circlet past anything she’d tried yet.

The light thinned but sharpened, exposing more threads across the whole throne room at once, and her knees buckled with the cost of it. Declan caught her by the shoulder without lowering his shield an inch.

[APOSTLE’S RADIANT CIRCLET — OVEROUTPUT]

[LUST AUTHORITY THREADS EXPOSED]

[MAEVE CALLAHAN — MANA CRITICALLY LOW]

Alice went straight for her.

No more testing, no more play. She crossed the formation in a straight line. Marcus blocked and got driven back a full stride. Finn took the tail-strike meant to clear him out of the way. Saoirse’s blade opened her wing again but couldn’t stop the charge outright.

James threw the Python’s remaining strength at her legs anyway.

[ABYSSAL VENOM PYTHON — BINDING COIL]

[CONTRACT STRAIN RISING]

Alice dragged the wounded Python forward with her own momentum, but the coil cost her two seconds she didn’t plan on spending.

That was enough.

James reached for a fresh Incubus corpse and pulled.

[DEATH CHAIN ACTIVATED]

[CHAIN RANGE: 10M]

[DAMAGE TRANSFER: 35%]

[MENTAL STRAIN WARNING]

Not to hurt her. To hold one authority thread still long enough for the scythe to find it.

His vision doubled. Blood ran warm from his nose. The scythe felt heavier in his hands than it had a second ago.

He cut anyway.

[LUST AUTHORITY THREAD SEVERED]

[AUTHORITY NETWORK DESTABILIZED]

[ALICE — HP: 76,320/102,000 → 68,320/102,000]

For the first time, Alice was forced back.

Not far. One step, her bare foot sliding across the marble.

But everyone saw it. Marcus saw it. Finn saw it. Maeve saw it through the failing light of her own circlet. James watched her bare foot slide across the marble and said nothing, because there was nothing left in him to spend on saying it.

Then Alice stopped using the thralls as shields.

That should have felt like relief. It didn’t.

The living men dropped where they stood, breathing but empty, arms loose against the marble. The Incubus Thralls went still all at once. Every red-gold thread pulled back off the floor and out of the room, drawing in toward Alice’s wings, her wrist, her throat, the thorned crown of feathers at her brow.

The throne room went quiet.

The quiet was worse than any of the noise before it.

Alice lifted her head. Not wild. Not panicked.

Done.

[AUTHORITY NETWORK RECALLED]

[DESIRE FIELD COMPRESSED]

[ALICE — FALLEN ANGEL OF LUST]

[SECOND PHASE INITIATED]

[AUTHORITY OF THE FIRST DISCIPLE RELEASED]

The pressure hit like something with actual weight behind it.

Maeve’s circlet flared and a hairline crack ran across the white stone under her feet. Marcus went down to one knee for a single breath before forcing himself back up. Finn drove his axe head into the marble just to stay standing. Saoirse caught herself hard against a pillar. James planted the scythe blade into the floor and still slid back half a step, the pull of it dragging at everything in the room at once.

[APOSTLE’S RADIANT CIRCLET — WARNING]

[OVERLOAD RISK DETECTED]

[ALICE — HP: 68,320/102,000]

Her wings had gone fully black now, the last of the color burned out of the feathers. Every thread that had run through the room sat pulled back into her own body instead. There was no one left to hide behind. No shield made of drained men left to fight through.

She looked past Marcus. Past Finn. Past Saoirse. Past Maeve, still shaking on her feet with the circlet cracking under her hands.

Straight at James.

Because he was the one who kept cutting what should not have been cut.

”Then,” she said, ”I will stop playing with toys.”