66 – Zygaena Flower

The test for Viole's team had started. The Ranker test administrator brought them to the outskirts of the Inner Tower in the ocean spot where the Zygaena Shinheuh was expected to appear, and then instructed them to find the Zygaena's flower inside the giant Zygaena's body.

It had been a month since the 20th Floor test, so the Crest Spirit had further developed and stabilized, which meant that I could now use it to communicate with Yihwa at any time, and get a detailed read on her surroundings just like a normal familiar.

Of course, I wasn't going to look over her shoulder constantly, but this was my new "job" with FUG for the next little while.

Yihwa rushed after Viole who had run ahead.

When they arrived, there was a tense standoff between with Horyang and Prince against a man in the shadows in the distance surrounded by dead Zygaena parasitic Shinheuh. Their other teammates had entered from a different spot and were presumably looking around for the Zygaena's flower now.

Supposedly, this test was being given to them because their rival team had given up so they couldn't administer the normal test. But actually…

"Viole, I think we should give up on this exam," said Horyang. "It seems that the test supervisor was setting you up because you're a Slayer nominee. You must have felt it too, he's beyond our ability to deal with. As long as he has the flower, there's no way we can win. Let's give up."

"I can't give up. Please get out of harm's way. I will take the exam," said Viole.

"What? Stop, Viole! We can try again next time!" Horyang shouted.

"Are you out of your mind, Viole?" Yihwa asked.

"You won't give up, huh? Even though you know you'll die?" The shadowy man asked.

"There are things that I fear more than death," Viole said, raising his hand and empowering it with Shinsoo.

"What's wrong with him?!" Prince asked.

"Damn it…it's because of his friends. Every time he fails an exam, one of his friends will die," said Yihwa. "You guys were away when the FUG people came over and explained it."

"Are you kidding? Why didn't anybody tell us sooner?" Prince asked with disbelief.

The shadowy man stood up and came into the light, revealing silver hair underneath a baseball cap, going shirtless with his jacket wrapped around his waist.

He raised his hand and Viole's hair was brushed aside by the wind.

"Your hair is unkempt, but your eyes aren't bad. Alright, I'll play with you, little boy," said the man.

"What should we do?" Yihwa asked, turning to the floating upside down flame spirit which was now the size of a fist and had a humanoid shadow in it.

"That man is Urek Mazino, Irregular, rank number four in the Tower. We don't stand a chance against him," I said through the spirit, its voice deep but billowy and soft.

"Hah! Somebody did their homework," said Mazino.

"R-rank f-four, Irregular?" Prince asked, face now turning white. "Why is someone like that here?"

"So, boy, if you really want to try this little 'exam' still, then let's play a game," said Mazino. "It won't be fun to just fight. See, the flower you're looking for is up there, and we'll fall on it when the Zygaena flips its body in a few minutes. If you get that flower before I get you, I'll give you the flower. But if I catch you then I'll take your life. Got it?"

Viole nodded.

"This is insane!" Yihwa cried.

Horyang started moving away and dragged Prince with him "Ms. Yihwa, we should leave them. This battle is beyond us."

"I…"

"We should retreat, Yihwa, you can't hope to do anything here," I said.

She clenched her fist. "Damn it, no! I'm sorry…I can't stand this. How can I ever catch up with you guys if I just run away when it's too hard?! I'm going to fight too! So please fight with me!"

"Fine then, I'll help you," I said.

Horyang looked between her and the spirit, but said nothing further, then turned and left.

"Ms. Yihwa, are you sure? We'll probably die," said Viole.

"I decided to be your teammate instead of just leaving this team…I'm not about to leave now!"

Viole looked at her intensely. "…thank you."

"Y-you don't have to thank me so seriously like that…this is just what any proper teammate should do!" Yihwa said.

"You babies are cute, having such a sentimental moment over there. Why don't we talk a bit while we wait for the fight to start?" Mazino asked. "You, FUG member, I know a bit about you guys. Your goal's to take over Zahard's throne, right? I don't know what you've got against him, but his position must seem awfully tempting for those of you who've always been in the Tower. That's why you try so hard to get that position. But I'm not interested in that. What's the fun of being king of the Tower? That's boring! I will leave the Tower."

He raised one hand in a grand gesture. The Zygaena began to rumble as he spoke, signaling that the Zygaena was about to flip. "There's a huge world out there…an endless sky…countless stars that illuminate the night. A place a million times greater and freer than the Tower! Doesn't the thought that such a place exists, makes what you guys want seem so trivial?"

"I don't know. I don't need…stars, a crown, or the sky. But if someone is trying to hurt those precious to me, I'll fight," Viole said simply, before shooting off with a trail of Shinsoo.

"I'll cover you, Viole!" Yihwa shouted and burst into flame and shooting after him.

"You got guts…I'll count to ten before I leave. It's only polite to let you all gather," said Mazino, watching them go, having noticed the rest of the team gathering on the other side of the Zygaena after Horyang told Prince to send the message.

At the count of ten, the Zygaena flipped fully.

Viole and Yihwa fell faster, Horyang and Prince burst out from a hole near the other side flying with Horyang's Devil wing, while Wangnan and Akraptor came out of a different hole floating with Akraptor's umbrella.

"Let's start the game babes!" Mazino shouted before a great light lit up the field of Shinheuh corpses where they were at before, which now became the ceiling.

He fell like a meteor towards the Regulars.

"Triple Field!" Prince attempted to freeze him in his Lighthouse Cube technique.

Horyang was on Mazino in a moment with an Ignited punch.

"You should bring an Opera to stop me more than a millisecond," Mazino said before kicking Horyang away, after the Lighthouse Cubes had zero effect on him.

Before Wangnan and Akraptor had a chance to launch their own attacks, Yihwa had finished building up her flame.

"Eat this you shirtless pervert!" Yihwa shouted before a pillar of red energy shot out from her hands and turned into a sea of flames towards Mazino. She turned towards the other direction. "Viole, go get the flower, I'll hold him back!"

"Crazy flame thrower, are you trying to kill us all?!" Wangnan shouted as the flames covered everything in sight.

However, something made a whistling cry and the flames seemed to curve away from her teammates.

Yihwa was concentrating hard trying not to hit them and I assisted the best I could through the spirit which was connected to her flame.

"Nice move girl, but it's not enough!" Mazino burst out of the flames without a scratch towards Yihwa.

Viole saw this while moving towards the flower and turned his head back.

"Ignore me, just get the flower Viole!" Yihwa shouted while flinging more flames at Mazino.

After a brief hesitation, Viole turned again and rushed for the flower.

Mazino laughed while blowing through the flames. "Not running away? If you can look like that staring death in the face, then I'll show you the legendary power! Supreme King's Scorching Fist of Death!"

Mazino's fist glowed with a powerful golden light and then moved towards Yihwa again.

Viole turned again and shouted while rushing back to intercept, "No! Miss Yihwa!"

I retreated the Crest Spirit back into her body to focus on defense and called the Beastiont-pet out to suicide into the attack.

Viole returned abandoning the flower, and then Mazino's fist collided with the pet, destroying it instantly, but buying a split second in which Viole's wave attack intercepted, and Viole grabbed onto Yihwa and turned around to shield her with his body.

"Viole…!"

A massive explosion ensued.

O O O

[Interlude]

When the dust settled, both Yihwa and Viole were lying unconscious on the ground, the latter in a bloody heap as he took the brunt of the damage.

The rest of the team was shaking as Urek Mazino grabbed the scared stiff Zygaena baby that Miseng had been chasing out of a hole near the bottom.

"Huh? There was a second one? Well, I guess it's a good thing. Hey babes, take that other one. Now that this little guy has been born I don't need that flower anymore. So I'll just give it to you," said Mazino.

"W-Why…?!"

"Tell those two when they wake up…this is the reward for their courage. To protect their teammate while facing the strongest man," said Mazino while walking away.

O O O

[Kaleidus]

I watched as the team returned to the Regular's residential area on their ship and settled on the landing pad.

With my anti-scrying magic stealth bubble and a Shinsoo camouflage screen, I stood at the edge of a low rooftop beside Hwa Ryun, both of us wearing brown cloaks and oval mirror masks.

"Now's your chance. He's distracted and entered your field without noticing it," Hwa Ryun said.

The test supervisor quickly told the Regulars that they'd passed and separated without any further instructions.

As he moved away from them and had his back turned, I moved.

"Shoot to kill, Derf," I said, before throwing him into the air while speeding towards the test supervisor myself.

"Agh! What?!"

The Regulars looked back to see that the test administrator had been stabbed through the chest diagonally face down into the ground by an extremely long black blade glowing with a yellow aura with branching segments that pinned each of his limbs as well. The handle of the blade floated in the air without anybody wielding it.

The Zygaena's flower the test supervisor was holding had dropped and was immediately seized with Shinsoo manipulation into my waiting hand.

"W-who…would…?!" He tried to create some Shinsoo technique in his hand but nothing happened. "Why can't I…?"

I landed beside him and stepped on the back of his head, forcing him against the ground.

The full power of the water spirits bore down on this area, having seized control of all the raw Shinsoo around here.

He hadn't noticed that it was all already under my control and walked right into the ambush that Hwa Ryun directed.

Ha Jinsung was also hiding nearby behind a pole, but he didn't make any moves, just watching me take down the Ranker alone. He was backup in case something went wrong, else I never would have risked this madness attacking a Ranker even with Hwa Ryun's guidance.

The Regulars had turned back around to watch what was unfolding with shock.

"Test supervisor Noma. You have broken the rules of the Tower," I said in a distorted voice. "You tried to kill Regulars by sending them to an area where Rankers had been dying, hoping that they too would die as collateral damage. How do you plead?"

"I'm a test supervisor, I can design the test however I want! Who are you?!"

"Is that all you have to say?" I asked.

Derflinger grew barbs and dug into him from every segment that was currently piercing him. With his Level Ten Sword Aura, he was capable of hurting Rankers who didn't have a really strong physical constitution or internal Shinsoo techniques, when they weren't capable of using Shinsoo to defend themselves with barriers, like right now.

Without any Shinsoo, he couldn't even make a single Baang.

Actually, he could probably still use Shinsoo if he wasn't too panicked to figure it out.

This wasn't even the only type of Shinsoo suppression ability that existed in the Tower.

The truth was that although the water spirits could dominate all of the raw Shinsoo in the air within a given space, we couldn't control his personal Shinsoo, anything that he'd already prepared or originated from inside his body. For example, the FUG trademark Floral Butterfly Piercing Technique, or Quant's fire kick from way back, or even just a Baang he'd already made..

He could also just generate more Shinsoo out of nowhere, thanks to his Ranker contract with the Administrators, and then disrupt my control field with some simple techniques, adding any sort of non-physical flow to it.

There were some abilities that could suck all the Shinsoo from a Wave Controller and stop them from forming Baangs or even internal Shinsoo Reinforcement, but our control only applied to the raw Shinsoo in the air.

Which is why I didn't personally have great confidence in this operation, but Hwa Ryun assured me the circumstances were such that it had a high chance of success.

And then…

"Arrgh! Stop, stop! I was just carrying out orders! There was an FUG Slayer candidate in that test!"

He was too unnerved by everything that had happened, the death of his comrades at Urek Mazino's hands, and now his sudden apparent inability to use any Shinsoo around him, that he couldn't react effectively.

And by subduing him like this, using pain as a threat, he would be afraid to even try anything else, not knowing how much more powerful than him I actually was, or wasn't.

At least, that was what Hwa Ryun had predicted would happen, and it seemed to be playing out nicely.

I idly noticed behind me Horyang whispering. "So it was true." He was carrying an unconscious Yihwa slung over his back, while Wangnan and Akraptor carried Viole on a stretcher.

"Orders? From who?" I asked.

"It was a request from the Zahard Empire, and even the Yeon family's own Floor Ruler agreed! We already lost so many Rankers, but the Army would send us reinforcements, and then we could deal with both problems at the same time!"

"There was a daughter of the Yeon family main house in that test as well, are you saying she was an acceptable sacrifice?"

"Why would a true honored daughter of the Yeon be on a team with an FUG? We all thought it was a fake! By the time she showed up, it was already too late to change the plan! The Zahard Army Rankers were already here!"

"Where are they now?"

"Dead, Urek Mazino obliterated them! There's not even a body left!"

"Pathetic. Fortunately, your plot failed. If Yeon Yihwa had died, I would kill you without a second thought. But for now, you are still needed alive, to report back on the Regulars passing the test. As for this Zygaena's flower, I'll be taking it off your incompetent hands."

"But what about the FUG? How can a daughter of the Yeon stay on a team with him?!"

"That's none of your business. She's a Regular climbing the Tower, she can go with whomever she wants without interference from Rankers during a test! These are the rules. Whichever fool in the Zahard Empire ordered this, and that foolish Ruler should remember…that even they are not above the absolute rules of the Tower, set by the true Administrators! Those who dare to defy them will pay the consequences!"

"I understand, s-sir!"

I stepped away from him and Derf's handle came to my other hand before fully retracting.

I began to prepare another spell.

"Don't ever forget…your eternal youth, your power, your right to use Shinsoo itself…everything you have earned was permitted by the authority of the Administrators, and it can be taken away just as easily!" I spoke in a more powerful, magically charged voice that echoed all around us.

And there was the purpose of this operation–to send a warning so that Zahard's forces would be more cautious of attempting to exploit loopholes to interfere with Viole's tests as a Regular, in a way that didn't implicate FUG involvement. A third party, perhaps even with the backing of the Administrators themselves.

It was a give and take relationship with FUG after all, so as long as the risk wasn't excessive, I did not mind doing things like this for them occasionally, especially for my allies within the organization.

Ha Jin Sung had been enraged after hearing about the incident with Urek Mazino from me, and proposed the general idea. And Hwa Ryun convinced me that it was viable rather than a way for the man to get out of having to teach me by getting rid of me. I took the Zygaena flower as a bonus.

Hopefully, this display would further convince Jinsung of my value. Accepting me as a student was one thing, but how much he wanted to actually teach me was up to him, after all.

Then I disappeared, reappearing in the Ring of Deterrence.

The Builder did not bother greeting me, perhaps realizing that I was only here as a temporary hideaway place, or he was busy. Who knows what he did when I wasn't around.

I'd broken out the first part of the planeshifting spell that opened the path to the Root and the Ring of Deterrence, so that I could use it as a faster escape method instead of the ten seconds needed to prepare the random shift spell.

Now I could get here in just two seconds, including the preparation time. If I prepared a charged spell in advance, the trigger time would take less than a second.

Nobody except the Guardians and Hwa Ryun knew where I disappeared to, so it was the perfect way to escape without a trace. Most would assume I teleported, while others might think I moved too fast to be tracked at all.

The drawback with this method of escape was that I couldn't actually return to the material world the same way. Only a plane native could return via the same path that was opened, turning away from the Root and back to the World where they belonged. For me, the plane would instead block the path back and hope I stayed out.

So I'd need to spend a unit of grain to take control of another unformed creation bubble to merge myself back in, with the Builder's assistance to get me back to my last location, or appearing in one of my physical Waypoints with a magic circle.

Or, I could wait until one of my summoners called for me using their own magic circle and ritual.

Time was strange in the Ring of Deterrence, and it was hard to track except the progress of my grain collection spell.

I wandered around a bit but there was nothing interesting to see. It was impossible to escape the top of the Tower physically, which merely grew as far as I moved.

From a few conversations with the Builder every time I'd traveled between planes, I had learned that this "top" of the Tower wasn't the true top. There was, in fact, a physical top of the Tower as well, in the Outside world of this plane. But this was the "hidden" top of the Tower, that people could only discover through some secret knowledge. The path to the physical top or this hidden top or an unspecified "somewhere else" would open from the gate of the last Floor of the Tower, depending on how one accessed it and what they wanted.

It was almost like the Holy Grail of Fate. The physical Grail was a wish-granting device, but those who knew how could also use it to open a path to the Root instead.. A coincidentally similar motif.

There was no way to go to the Outside world from here either—although the Ring of Deterrence was normally supposed to be the same for the whole plane, the Builder had somehow altered the structure of it so that this place was separated from the rest of it and locked to the Tower. To get to that Outside world, one would need to go there via one of the Tower's physical exits, implying that there was more than one.

Getting bored, I went back to sit down at the Tower's edge, just thinking about things.

Over the years, I had traveled back and forth from Worm several times, doing some tests with the grain gathering and time effect, as well as making sure to be there for the Behemoth fight. There was a period of time when I'd decided to not collect any grain at all—to test my theory about the time passing being proportional to the amount of time I spent actively collecting grain here. I spent a whole year like that so I could extend my time in the Tower, yet still make it back for Behemoth in case I was wrong.

I had been proven right though, even at the cost of losing some of the grain because the plane reabsorbed it when there were was too much excess that I hadn't collected. Well I say reabsorbed, but most likely the Builder just took it before it actually got reabsorbed.

After Behemoth though, I was no longer really concerned about being back there for the next Endbringer fight. I didn't even really want to be there actually, because I was afraid that a new Endbringer might appear with the power to travel across dimensions and really screw me over since the Simurgh hadn't finished us off. Because Khonsu got teleportation after humanity got Scion on their side, right? So why wouldn't it just also get dimension/portal powers too now that they had CRUCIBLE on humanity's side?

There was no way to know if the Endbringers had left Cauldron alone with their dimensional powers simply because Eidolon was a part of Cauldron, or if it was because Cauldron was just ineffective at using their portals. Either way, we couldn't expect the same treatment for CRUCIBLE. We had managed to create more chaos in the world with the Behemoth battle due to the destruction of the Indian subcontinent, but it was hard to discern if at some point the Endbringers would decide that CRUCIBLE was no longer a net positive for their plans and needed to be wiped out.

The benefit of grabbing more Endbringer flesh was just not really worth it, because more of it didn't really even help me that much. If Derflinger got too much mass, he wouldn't even be able to control it properly. More mass didn't actually increase his mana capacity either above about 100k MP. Any more was simply beyond his ability to retain or control and unstable. So now he could store up two max level Slash Beams, with slightly superior efficiency and power for the same levels above 6 (he still had trouble with those levels, making the output actually somewhat variable and inefficient considering the amount of mana being channeled). But he couldn't do anything stronger, regardless.

To advance further, we needed improvements in quality rather than more quantity.

But by my estimate, the next Endbringer attack probably still hadn't hit yet. It'd been 6 years since the Floor of Tests, and probably something like nine weeks since the Behemoth battle at the end of July 2011.

And after spending some grain for my trips, losing some due to non-collection, I'd still stockpiled 33 units, so I was good for a while, unless I ran into situations where I needed to use multiple units at once, like the Builder warned me off.

"We've come a long way, haven't we Derf?"

"We sure have, Partner. It would be nice if we had more action in between all the waiting though," said Derf.

"I almost can't believe how strong we became. It's kinda funny, looking back…I was worried we might not be able to keep up with everyone else growing in the Tower. But we outgrew everyone else instead."

"You mean those water spirits outgrew everyone else and we leeched off of them," said Derf. "If it weren't for them, we wouldn't be nearly as good as we are with Shinsoo, and we couldn't do half the things we can today. This Compression thing is just awesome."

"Too bad it won't be like that on other planes. They'll probably give us the cold shoulder a lot more once there's no Shinsoo around."

"Eh, we'll figure out other ways to fight. Besides, we can still use some of that stuff on our own with just a small bit of Shinsoo. I only wish there was more action in between the waiting here."

"Be careful what you wish for, it might just happen," I said.

Finally, I heard the voice of a summoner. But it was neither Androssi or Yihwa.

"Adventurer from the stars. The Crimson Witch of Fate summons you. Let my voice Guide you and open the door. Come to me to continue this unfinished story."

I smiled and answered the call. Although…something seemed different about this spell. That incantation didn't feel like what a proper invitation should be, but it was still working.

I reappeared inside the magic circle that Hwa Ryun had drawn in a dimly lit room, then held the flower forward.

"By your summons, I have come," I said. "Bearing a gift for you, my dear witch."

She took the flower.

"Thank you. But it wasn't a quest so there's no reward," she said.

"Your smile is reward enough," I said.

She smiled. "Okay then. But you still needed my help to get it. Weren't you supposed to do it on your own?"

"I couldn't have done it without you. I thought a lot about it, but I didn't have any good ideas. It was far too risky to do it any other way."

"So just let me Guide you," she said.

"You already know the truth about me. Will you make a contract with me now?"

She shook her head. "Sorry, I can't. I'm a Guide. Guides don't fight fate, nor can we."

The same words she said to me all those years ago were repeated.

"I don't understand it. Is it some kind of rule that you're bound by? But you were able to summon me," I said.

"It's not the same Spell. I didn't invite a being from beyond the threshold, that the world denies, for my own wish. I summoned the Adventurer who already began a story in this world. If you were not chosen by the Tower, or if you didn't already have a contractor nearby that wants you to return, then it wouldn't have worked."

"I see. So that's why you insisted I should get other contractors," I said.

She nodded.

"If you give me a gift, then I can accept it. If you listen for my voice, I can open the door. If you let me Guide you, I can tell you the paths I see. But I can't command you to change my fate. Only you can do that…only if you want to."

"Do you want me to?"

"I can't answer that. But this isn't a quest, so there's no reward."

I smirked. "Except for a smile?"

"I can always give you a smile, but whether it's real or not depends on you," she said, smiling again, before turning to leave. "Play your games with the others all you want but don't expect me to give what you hoard only for yourself."

I tilted my head thinking through the meaning of her words as she walked up the stairs.

"I think she's seen through you, Partner," Derf whispered loudly so that both of us could hear, but Hwa Ryun didn't look back.

"I expected nothing less from her. Well, I don't know if it's possible for me to give her that, so it's fair. But as long as she's on my side, that's fine with me," I said, before following up the stairs.

O O O