“Hey, what's wrong?! I thought you guys outnumbered me~!.” said Radu with a cocky expression as he stared at the bats into their souls.

  The poor bats were shivering with anticipation, not able to dodge any attacks from Radu anymore. To their surprise, backup had arrived. The remaining minotaurs, imps and bats came rushing to the city, seemingly to target Radu. His eyes widened progressively more and more as he witnessed the swarm approach.

  “What… Where is everyone?! Why am I alone here?!” said Radu to himself.

  Suddenly, Radu hears a sigh behind him. He quickly turns around and launches a dirt chunk into that direction, but his projectile was demolished mid-air, making a smokescreen of dust.

  “It always comes down to me, does it?” said Cat with a disappointed tone. His body was covered by a blue energy barrier which quickly vanished away after a few seconds. He had no suit, no body armor, seemingly empty-handed, with his paws behind his back, levitating.

  “Hey, it's you, kitty! I'm glad to see you again!” said Radu happily.

  “Run.” Cat replied.

  Radu’s expression suddenly turned confused.

  “But… can you handle them all alone-”

  “Just go. The team needs you. I saw them rush towards the western pillar. Who knows what could be going there.”

  Radu quickly nodded, then with a serious expression he dug himself underground and went towards the pillar.

  Cat looked at the ground for a bit before sighing softly once more.

  “Let's see if these babies got any rust on them…” he said before spreading his arms wide, dozens of weapons coming out of his body all at once. Knives, swords, rifles, you name it.

  …

  Radu tried his best not to think about Cat. He forced himself to dig a bit faster, in hopes of reaching the pillar quicker. stefan3B noticed familiar tremors beneath the soil. He looked behind him and it was indeed Radu, his eyes widening upon having the realization.

  “Let's try this new technique…” Radu said in his mind before leaping out of the dirt, past stefan3B and Darius. Each time he would touch the ground with the tip of his toes, the ground would burst, launching him forward, granting him much better traveling speed, managing to catch up with the likes of Ares, both of them arriving at the bottom of the pillar at the same time. Ares gently floated down while Radu slided down the dirt to lose momentum, perfectly standing next to Ares.

  “Is everything alright in the city?” Ares asked.

  “Yeah. I had a little guest help me out so I could be here instead.” Radu replied.

  Ares was surprised by his seriousness on a surface level, without any signs of giving him any respect, his eyes widening slightly before going back to normal.

  Moments after, stefan3B and Darius arrive at the pillar as well.

  “What is this?!” Darius said anxiously.

  Screeches could be heard from within the pillar. It had an entrance, a massive hole in it, as if a door was supposed to be there. The boys made up courage for themselves and decided to step in. The interior was grotesque, looking like an amalgamation of organs pressed into each other. The floor was fleshy, almost alive. The base floor had nothing but a massive empty space, except for stairs that seemingly led to the upper floor.

  “So this is like a dungeon…” stefan3B said calmly.

  Ares raised an eyebrow slightly.

  “Is it? Hm, like the cubes we had to fight in one month ago? I wouldn't mind another trial, y'know~?” Ares said confidently.

  stefan3B, seemingly about to burst out, walked up to him and suddenly grabbed him by the hair.

  “Listen up. If you do any stupid shit like you did until now with your arrogance for power, I will be the one to put out the candle.”

  Ares looked at him, dead in the eyes, not flinching from the grab, his expression turning from happy into annoyed.

  “Let. Go.”

  stefan3B quickly let go of his hair then stepped back quietly.

  “From how tall this tower seemed from outside, we'll have to go up a few stairs.” said Radu before going first up the stairs, followed by Ares then stefan3B then Darius.

  On the next floor of the tower, there were 2 imps resting down on the floor lazily. One of them was cleaning its nose with its pinky finger, while the other one noticed the royal guards and quickly shook the other one's shoulder as it spoke in incoherent sounds. Ares, with a bored expression, flicked two fireballs from his fingers, killing the two of them at once.

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  “Wow… that was… something…” said Ares in a bored tone.

  Just like the base floor, there were stairs as well on the other side of the room. The boys went on and climbed up further onto the tower to the next floor. There, 3 minotaurs and 5 bats were present. They quickly turned around to see the royal guards. The minotaurs quickly took a strong grip onto their axes and charged forward. Darius quickly created a net of lightning and threw it down, making them stumble and fall down. Ares propelled himself into the air and managed to kick 2 bats down. As for the other 3 bats, stefan3B punched them one by one as they tried charging into him. Ares then summoned his spear and decapitated the minotaurs one by one. Suddenly, all the monsters vanished into thin air. The boys looked at each other for a few seconds, confused.

  “I don't think they're supposed to… you know… vanish…” Ares said with a worried tone.

  stefan3B shakes his head before replying.

  “It doesn't matter, let's keep going.”

  The other 3 boys nodded to each other before moving towards the next staircase. As they were making steps, their bodies started to feel heavier. They even began sweating, but they didn't feel like it was weird enough to be worth mentioning. As they were in the middle of going up the stairs, Radu’s vision suddenly began to blur. A great headache has struck him out of nowhere. He put his palm over his forehead, clenching his teeth and groaning. The other boys looked at him with confusion and worry.

  “Radu?!” stefan3B shouted.

  “It's so sudden… why…” Radu replied in a low tone.

  “Go out, dirtbag! It's not worth continuing if you're crippled like this.” Ares replied.

  “Whatever this tower is made out of… it's affecting us. I don't have that much energy with me because there is no ground around, so that might explain it.” Radu continued.

  “Now that you mention it, my body does feel heavier…” Darius said, fidgeting with his fingers nervously.

  Ares looked away, snickering under his breath. He really didn't know what to do in this situation. He knew that he was the strongest member of the party, but seeing how his teammates are affected by the tower makes him wonder if he's going to be like that soon enough.

  “Then go outside. Wreck this tower down if you can. We can easily escape from it anyways.” Ares replied boldly.

  Radu nodded and headed downstairs slowly, step by step.

  “You two, come on!” Ares continued before moving up the stairs again.

  As they were walking up the stairs, Darius suddenly felt sick too and stumbled, falling on his elbows on the stairs. He extended his arm towards stefan3B.

  “Hey, guys!” Darius shouted, but they didn't turn around, as if they suddenly turned deaf.

  The two brothers reached the next floor. To their surprise, it was actually empty. They started walking towards the next staircase, confused. As they were walking, Ares turned his head behind him, seeing that all 3 of his allies were behind him, including Radu. He suddenly stops.

  “Hey, boulder head, didn't I tell you to go back?” Ares said, confused.

  What appeared to be Radu suddenly smiled widely at him before lunging in his direction, aiming with its hand into his throat. Instinctively, Ares pushed its hand and struck back with a punch into its face, turning out to be another imp disguised as Radu like an optical illusion. Ares started panting heavily, not knowing what's going on at all.

  “Did you guys see that?!” Ares said, shocked and slightly scared. If there was anything that scared him the most in this world, that would be optical illusions.

  stefan3B was feeling drowsy, slowly blinking in confusion as he watched Ares spout random nonsense while gesticulating into random directions.

  “Hey, Darius, look at this buffoon, hehe…” stefan3B said quickly, trying to nudge Darius' shoulder with his elbow, even if Darius wasn't there in the first place.

  Meanwhile, Darius was still struggling to stand up, as if his body suddenly weighed two thousand tons.

  “Not again, come on, stupid body, get up!” Darius said in his mind as he felt his body heat up from pressure.

  Using his powers, Darius tried shocking himself by sending an electric current through his entire vessel. Doing so awakened him from the trance for a short while which allowed him to aim towards the ceiling of the next floor, launching a lightning bolt towards it before falling down to the stairs. Due to him going limp, he slipped off the stairs and fell down to the floor on his back with a loud thud. The projectile bounced off of the wall, hitting stefan3B and waking him up. Upon being given the clarity, stefan3B saw three imps taking turns to beat up Ares, whose body would refuse to get down even unconsciously. stefan3B quickly lunged over to the first imp and knocked him out with a punch behind its head. The other two imps got scared that stefan3B had awoken, but before they'd run away he grabbed their heads and smashed them together. The imps quickly vanished from his grasp, but the effect of the tower still lingered around, not getting Ares out of his illusion. Suddenly, a man with a great baggy blue robe appeared behind stefan3B. He had a weirdly demon shaped head, with 2 horns popping out of it. He was sitting down lazily on a very luxurious chair that looked very comfortable.

  “Ah, so that's all it takes? Just a little shock from your little lightning elementalist friend to kick you out of my special move~?” The demon said with an intrigued tone.

  stefan3B turned around, more awake than ever.

  “And who are you?!”

  The demon giggled gently before yawning.

  “If you like sleeping, you know me very well~. Belphegor, representative of the sin of sloth of course~.” He said with a slight smile on his face and half lidded eyes that radiated laziness.

  …

  Outside the flesh tower, the lightning elementalist boy arrived there nonetheless. He didn't care that the Royal Guards declined him. He knew that what he was doing was right. As he reached the flesh tower, he saw Radu come out of it, holding onto his stomach. Radu supported himself against the entrance of the tower with one hand before vomiting right outside of the tower. The boy quickly rushed to try and help Radu stabilize himself on his feet.

  “Are you okay?!” The boy asked, worried.

  “N-no…” Radu said with a weakened tone before looking back.

  “They're still there… I wonder, will they come back? I should've tried to convince them…” Radu continued with the same defeated tone.

  The boy's expression turned progressively more serious as he heard Radu’s words.

  “No worries. I'm gonna handle it myself.”

  Radu's eyes widened before grabbing the boy’s shirt by his left shoulder.

  “Tell me your name… I will not forget you.” Radu said, with hope in his eyes.

  The boy looked down at him with pity.

  “Silvian. My name is Silvian. You should rest now. The rest is up to me.” Silvian said as he helped Radu sit down against the tower in order to rest.

  Silvian stood up and looked into the tower, determined to face whatever difficulties came forward.

  “Let's do this.”