Reluctantly accepting, once again she wound up hugging Valor to sleep leaving only Leon still awake in the clearing.
Letting out one last flux pulse, he let out a small sigh of relief as the scan read negative once more.
Pausing just long enough to take one last glance at Noire’s peaceful sleeping face, Leon directed his puppet to deal with any and all threats with extreme force.
Activating a simple cloaking spell, he stepped off into the night, ready to scout out the tower for any sign of activity.
As the shadows covered him, he experienced the customary sense of dissonance as his body faded from view.
While suddenly not being able to see where he was walking would have been a detriment to his cause, he had done this enough times to right himself rapidly.
Through the trees he went, using only sound to guide himself, taking great care to stay low to the ground. Not being foolish enough to believe his camouflage to be impenetrable, where his spell might fail, the shadows may protect him yet.
After close to half an hour of trekking, he finally emerged on the other side of the trees. Taking a moment to scan his surroundings, he saw and heard no one.
Inhaling a deep breath, he walked out into the moonlight, still cloaked by his spell.
No alarms yet. Good.
Making a quick dash across open ground, Leon found himself standing before the entrance to the Vitae tower itself.
Unable to be anything but amazed at the sight before him, Leon marvelled at the sight that befell him despite the unease still eating at him.
By the lord. The ancients really know how to build a tower.
And they don’t do things by half do they?
Calling the Vitae Tower a tower would have done it a great injustice.
Just the entrance alone was gargantuan, easily able to allow an Empire main battle tank passage with no problems whatsoever.
The tower itself didn’t actually take up that much land space, it was only about the size of a large mansion. But what it lacked in width, it made up for in height.
The thing seemed to have been built with the intention of defying the heavens themselves.
From where Leon stood, the Vitae Tower seemed to reach into the clouds easily.
This tower… if I recall what Libra told me about the Zeonite ruins in Albion, this building has approximately twenty floors. Of which only the lower ten are accessible. Floors elven to twenty are completely sealed off and no one has been able to breach the seal.
Leon took a moment to wonder just how majestic the tower would have looked in its heyday.
While it was still a sight to behold, the structure clearly showed the signs of age.
What would once have been a brilliant red had now faded to a dull maroon, almost brown in colour where the sun hadn’t completely bleached it.
The paint itself was peeling in many places and where the paint had fallen off a multitude of spider web like cracks were exposed.
Moss and vines grew all along the wall, giving the entire tower a mysterious air to it.
Even as he admired the work of the ancient Zeonite civilisation, Leon never once lost his sense of awareness.
Kneeling down to inspect something that caught his eye, his face became a blank mask as soon as he took a closer look.
And it seems the Jaegers are here… or at least a large group of people passed through here.
Strange… I see tracks going in, but where are the tracks that lead out.
I wasn’t aware that this place has another exit.
Rising to his feet and taking another glance around the place, everything was still deserted. The only signs of life being the large number of footprints leading in.
Making up his mind, Leon drew two folding combat knives from his jacket. Reapplying the cloaking spell and reinforcing it by a few additional layers, Leon cautiously made his way into the darkened interior.
Once inside the tower, he noticed that the interior wasn’t as dark as he believed it to be. There was a lack of windows and hence no moonlight to navigate by but the room itself was lit.
Multiple lines ran along the walls, sometimes forming geometric shapes, sometimes forming words in the ancient Zeonite language. And then there were the runes etched into the walls at intervals.
All were softly glowing, where the colours seemed to shift every few seconds.
On the ceiling there was a fresco painted around a single snowflake pattern.
From the pattern itself, soft blue light was emitted, painting everything in cool tones and accentuating the shadows.
This ensured that the interior was actually surprisingly well lit.
He didn’t have time to take a good look around the place and admire the work of the ancients though.
His instincts were screaming at him to run away from this place and it took all of his willpower not to give in and make a break for it.
“I should probably have waited for Noire to wake up before doing this if only so I can have Geahart here as well. Sheesh, the lady is not going to be happy about this in the morning.” Leon muttered under his breath as he crept through the shadows.
Hmmph, no way in hell am I allowing her to walk into what at this point is almost clearly an ambush.
Skirting the walls, he stealthily made his way into the interior of the tower. With every step he took, the sense of unease that had been with him since earlier that evening grew stronger and stronger yet. Every step in taking a larger effort than the last.
That's the stairs to the next level, where are all the guards? This is wrong, all wrong.
Pausing at the steps to the next level, Leon emitted a flux pulse, trying to get a sensing of what lay in wait on the second level.
Nothing.
Cautiously making his way up the stairs, he stopped at the entrance to the second floor.
A solid wall of darkness impeded him.
It was a mechanism of the place itself according to what he heard from Libra.
The veil of shadows didn’t harm or kill, it merely served to prevent one from looking in on both sides.
Without a clear picture of what awaited him on the other end, he fired off a second flux pulse, hoping to be able to get a clear idea of what lay on the other side.
“Still nothing? How is this… screw it, I’m going loud.” Leon muttered to himself as his scan came back negative yet again.
Convinced that he was about to engage an entire hostile Jaeger army already aware of his presence, he decided to eschew stealth and go in spells blazing.
Fiddling with the Ceph crystals on his glove, he began charging his strongest area lightning spell.
A spell simple in concept and execution, it was an entire volley of lightning bolts used to devastate everything in the area before him.
While it was nowhere near the lightning lance he had deployed against the beast in the Umbra forest in terms of pure power, the ability to strike nigh every target before him made up for the lack of destructive force.
Fingers tightening around his blades, he crossed them before him, ready to strike out at anyone foolish enough to leap at him.
Taking a deep breath to steady his nerves, Leon counted to four in his head, exhaled and leapt through the wall of darkness.
Tucking his feet in to provide as small a target as possible, Leon did an overhead roll as he touched the ground.
Knives flashing out in a blur of silver to ward off any Jaeger from closing into melee distance in those brief moments where he was defenceless.
Leon came to a stop and brought both hands up ready to light up all who stood before him with thousands of volts of electricity.
Face frozen in a snarl, the young puppeteer was ready to show the world why ambushing him was a bad idea.
That face was rapidly replaced by one of confusion.
“Eh?”
Empty.
The room was completely empty. There were no Jaegers about to hamstring him, no monsters ready to make a meal out of hi
m, no nothing.
In any other scenario, Leon would have felt extremely foolish at his actions.
But right now, he was more confused, and to be honest afraid.
Okay… maybe the Jaegers have already left, or the monsters got them.
But where is the evidence? I see disturbed dust but that’s it.
No corpses of Jaegers or monsters.
This place is supposed to be monster infested, and the Jaegers did enter the tower.
Shit even in the event of total annihilation of both the tower monsters and the Jaegers, their bodies should be here. Hell there aren’t even any blood stains.
What the heck is going on here? Where is everyone?
Leon had begun to twirl his knives, his old nervous habit coming back under stress.
Nothing about the situation was making sense.
To him, facing down an entire Jaeger army with one arm broken and the other tied behind his back would be less of an issue.
At least then he had a good idea of what he was dealing with.
He hated the unknown.
Face a lot paler now, his grip on his weapons tightened further as he proceeded deeper into the tower.
Straining his ears for any sound that didn't belong, only silence filled his ears.
Carefully making his way up to the third level, the teen was ready to bolt at the first sign of danger.
Whatever cleared out the Jaegers and the monsters of the tower was something he didn’t want to face without support from Geahart and Noire.
A part of him felt guilty about wishing for the noble to be in this with him, but her skill with magic barriers was something he would have welcomed now.
A barrier, however weak it might be, might very well be the difference between living to fight another day and a painful demise.
Making his way to the eighth floor, the young puppeteer still encountered no resistance.
No Jaegers, no monsters and no sign of any battle.
Climbing the stairs to the ninth level, he took a peek in and saw the same sight that greeted him in the lower levels.
A wide open room with stone chairs and tables scattered around the place with the stairs to the next floor at the opposite end of the room. Runes, glyphs and lines ran along the wall, glowing softly.
The ceiling was occupied by a fresco that doubled as a light source and not much else.
And once again, the room was completely devoid of life.
At this Leon decided to call it quits.
The instincts that he had been doing his best to ignore had exploded in a frenzy of fear. As it was, he could not take another step forward, his feet were glued to the ground by his fear.
Just the thought of going up one more level filled him with so much fear that it actually hurt.
His pulse had skyrocketed and he could hear the blood rushing through his ears.
Every fibre of his being was screaming at him to vacate the tower at once. Whatever lay beyond the ninth floor was not something he wanted to encounter.
A wrongness in the world. That was the best way he could describe it.
Krrrrkk, can’t… push… forward… anymore….
I’ll just return to camp now.
I just hope I can deal with whatever’s going on here and get out without endangering Noire.
Leon retreated down the tower with all possible haste, short of just making a sprint for it.
Making his way out of the ancient ruin, Leon spared the tower one last backwards glance before vanishing into the night. The uneasiness that plagued him diminishing with every step away from the tower.
SCREEE?
The sudden call immediately put Leon back on full alert, his guard only dropping after he noticed that it was just Valor.
Evidently sometime during his sojourn, Valor had escaped Noire’s embrace and was now perched on a branch staring down at him questioningly.
“Oh it’s just you.” Leon breathed out as he put away his knives and allowed the half dissipated cloak spell to fade away completely.
“I was just out for a walk, I’ll explain in the morning.”
SCREEEEE
Giving a low cry, Valor seemed to accept that answer before flying off into the treetops. Leon sighed at that and returned to the camp proper.
Giving Noire’s sleeping form a cursory glance, he shook away any negative thoughts he had about the tower before turning in himself.
One last sync with Geahart’s systems revealed nothing out of the ordinary and that allowed him to rest somewhat easier.
That night Leon’s dreams were a mess, a horrifying mishmash of fire and blood. He had no idea where and when he was, all he knew was that he was fighting and losing.
An unfamiliar city painted scarlet with blood and firelight with buildings so tall they seemed to touch the sky stood around him. Much of it reduced to rubble in the chaos.
Screams of the dying pierced the air amidst the cacophony of battle. Flames burned everywhere and blood covered everything.
Colossal inhuman shadows moved in the background, bringing a fresh wave of screams and all-consuming fire with every step they took.
The sky burned a glorious crimson with a titanic shadow hanging over everything.
Great lances of light arced from the ground, trying to reach that shadow to no avails. The beams vanishing as though they were never there.
The ground shook and Leon knew instinctively that one of the shadows had landed behind him, ready to finish him off.
Spinning on the balls of his feet, Leon made to face his would be killer with every bit of courage he had in his body.
Despite his lack of weapons he would not give them the satisfaction of knowing that they had managed to break his resolve in his last moments.
The firelight put everything in sharp relief. Just as he was about to behold what terror awaited him, his vision was obscured with a wave of fire.
Feeling the heat on his skin as he burned, Leon let out a soundless scream.
Through it all, the shadow towered over him, standing over the downed boy and observing his demise. Despite the pain, Leon managed to make out a single glowing red orb blazing in the shadow.
Then when the pain was too much for Leon to bear any further, the world faded to white. All the pain disappeared as though it was never there to begin with.
Stuck floating in the void, he lost all sense of time and place, he didn’t know how long he had been floating or where he was in with respect to anything else.
For all Leon knew he could have been in the void for centuries, or it might only have been a few seconds.
As he drifted, Leon thought he managed to make out a beach in front of him.
The ever present whiteness was seriously impeding his vision and try as he might, he wasn’t able to focus on the image before him.
But, where there once was silence, the sound of crashing waves could be heard, albeit faint.
Eyes still blinded, he wasn’t able to see much of anything.
However, he instinctively knew that he was standing on a cliff overlooking a beach and the ocean.
A figure stood before him.
Despite the light, the figure was completely shrouded in shadow.
Squinting, he managed to deduce at the very least that the figure was a male and that his back was facing Leon. A single sword was strapped to his back.
The shadow seemed to be speaking but his speech was garbled in places and too soft to be heard in others. In the end he was only able to make out a few words.
Can…. Hear…. Name…. Find…. Key…. Must stop….
The vision disappeared as the words trailed off into nothingness.
Pain once more suffused Leon’s body and he screamed and screamed and screamed….
Eyes snapping open, the first thing that Leon noticed was Noire’s worried face hanging over his.
Her long ebony tresses were draped over him and her hands were clutching his arm.
Breathing ragged, Leon sl
owly sat up and gave himself a pat down cold sweat running down his face as he did.
Seeing that her traveling companion was now up, Noire let out the breath she had been holding and sat back, allowing Leon to regain his bearings.
She was still extremely worried about him and whatever malady had struck him.
She had been sleeping peacefully on her bed roll when she was awoken by the sound of screaming and was joined by Valor shortly after.
Both of them bore witness to Leon trashing about on the ground.
His screams pierced the early morning air and wiped away any residual fatigue she may have had.
Both had rushed over to wake him from the nightmare that plagued him… and both failed.
No matter how hard Noire and Valor tried shaking him, he wouldn’t wake from his sleep. The boy’s body was also running a high fever and none of Noire’s spells managed to work on him.
The magic she normally used to bring down fevers by forcibly stripping away the excess body heat did nothing.
Even when she resolved to use a weak lightning spell to shock him awake, Leon failed to respond.
It was as though her magic was simply washing off of him, but… that was impossible wasn’t it?
Unable to do anything to alleviate Leon’s suffering, Noire was reduced to constantly trying to shake him awake with Valor watching on while fidgeting uneasily.
Her mind was a mess as she was once again helpless, just like before when her friends sacrificed themselves to buy her time to escape.
Geahart had yet to come down from the trees and she could count on no assistance from him.
Eventually Leon’s screams ceased and for a brief moment she was struck by the fear that he might have passed in his sleep.
Seeing his eyes snap open gave her a shock and relief flooded her once it settled in that Leon was awake.
“Leon… are you… okay?”
The words rang hollow in her own ears.
What am I saying? Of course he’s not okay, not after… that….
“Haah… haah… haah… yes milady… I’m fine now. Did I… did I wake you?”
“That is of no import, just… are you sure you’re okay? You were burning up and I couldn’t wake you from your nightmare.”
Opening Moves (The Lion Knight Book 1) Page 11