Floor 1 was the throat of a dying beast.
The portal deposited them into a network of narrow, winding tunnels carved from pitch-black stone. The rock was heavily veined with raw, glowing red minerals that pulsed with a slow, rhythmic, synchronized light—a massive, ancient heartbeat echoing softly through the earth. The air was bone-dry and tasted overwhelmingly of iron. Beyond the party’s localized light sources, the darkness was absolute, pressing against Nathan’s eyes with physical weight.
[Hunter’s Insight] activated, cutting through the gloom. Red threat markers immediately bloomed across his vision. "Contacts. A swarm of them. They’re inside the walls, phasing through the mineral veins. Blood Wisps. Do not let them touch bare skin."
The Wisps bled out of the glowing walls like droplets of animated, suspended gore. They were small—no larger than a clenched fist—but they swarmed in the dozens, their forms constantly shifting between liquid droplets and crimson vapor. As one drifted low and brushed against the stone floor, Nathan watched the rock instantly turn pale and brittle, its ambient mana violently leeched away.
"Mirko! Full barrier! Seal the perimeter!"
[Impenetrable Fortress] exploded outward, the emerald dome sealing the party inside a protective bubble. With the growth of her levels, the skill could now encompass a wider range more than just herself. The Blood Wisps hammered against the shield in a relentless wave of crimson mist. Wherever they touched the barrier, pale, fading scars appeared on the magic as they aggressively tried to siphon Mirko’s mana. "Hmph! They are starving! But starvation does not equate to strength!"
From the center of the formation, Elise raised Aurora’s Heart. [Mana Bolts] shrieked through the tiny gaps in Mirko’s barrier—BOOM-BOOM-BOOM—the detonations ripping through the dense swarm. The Legendary staff’s amplification made every bolt catastrophic; the kinetic explosions didn’t just scatter the Wisps, they violently vaporized them into dissipating mist.
Dillon’s [Thunder Edge] roared to life. "Cloudy! Scour the left tunnel!"
The Cloud Serpent lunged into the dark. Her static discharge chained through a dense cluster of Wisps—CRACKLE-BOOM—the sheer voltage instantly boiling the blood magic and frying dozens at once. Dillon utilized the blinding flash to trigger his Storm Striders, blurring down the right tunnel. [Quick Draw] flashed in the dark, neatly severing a flanking swarm before they could coalesce.
Garrett and Red held the rear vanguard. A cluster of Wisps tried to slip behind them; Garrett swung Volcan in a tight arc. KRAK-BOOM. The thermal pulse erupted, the blistering heat instantly vaporizing the liquid horrors before they could reform. The few that slipped past shattered harmlessly against Red’s hardened, crimson fleece.
Nathan remained perfectly still in the center. Thwip. Thwip. He fired only absolute necessities, his [Mana Arrows] precisely detonating the dense cores of any Wisps that threatened to breach the perimeter. The Capacitor hummed quietly against his wrist. He was holding back, letting the party carry the offensive burden. Every drop of mana mattered.
In the periphery, Kuro was a ghost story. [Silent Step] rendered her entirely invisible to the Wisps’ blind, sensory pulses. Slipping through the dark via [Shadow Meld], she materialized directly inside the thickest clusters. Shink-Shink. [Assassinate] strikes targeted the densest concentrations of blood magic, collapsing entire swarms with single, surgical blows. The Wisps had no defense against the dark.
The final swarm evaporated under a synchronized volley of Elise’s bolts and Dillon’s lightning. The tunnels fell dead silent, save for the slow, rhythmic pulsing of the walls.
[Floor 1 Cleared!]
Nathan glanced at his wrist. The Capacitor sat at a comfortable eighty-five percent. The Leyline Ring was steadily humming. He had fired less than a dozen arrows. The strategy was holding.
"One down," Nathan said, his voice steady. "Four to go. Keep the pace."
Floor 2 was a labyrinth of crystallized blood.
The cramped tunnels violently expanded into a sprawling maze where the walls, ceiling, and floor were entirely coated in jagged, translucent red crystal. The crystal pulsed with the same slow, maddening heartbeat as the first floor, but here, the environment was actively hostile. The faceted walls reflected the party’s light sources into a thousand fractured, disorienting images, creating phantom movements in every peripheral shadow. The air was sickeningly thick with the smell of copper, and the floor was slick with a dark condensation that clung to their boots like fresh blood.
The Crimson Stalkers used the maze to hunt.
They were towering, gaunt humanoids composed entirely of congealed, shifting blood. They possessed no solid form, constantly cycling between viscous liquid and hardened crystal. They didn’t roar or charge; they ambushed seamlessly from within the crystal walls, striking silently from blind spots and melting back into the environment before retaliation could land. Their elongated claws didn’t just cut—they inflicted wounds that violently resisted clotting, weaponizing the victim’s own blood against them.
Without [Hunter’s Insight], the floor would have been a massacre. The Stalkers were visually imperceptible against the red crystal, but Nathan’s enhanced perception caught the subtle, unnatural fluctuations in the mana veins—the slight stutter in the heartbeat rhythm just before a wall opened up.
"Left wall! Three Stalkers! Mirko, intercept! Elise, freeze the surface!"
Mirko pivoted, [Impenetrable Fortress] flaring just as the first Stalker lunged from the crystal. The creature’s liquid claws shrieked against the emerald barrier, leaving hissing trails of boiling blood magic. Mirko countered, driving her heavy blade through its torso—but the Stalker simply liquefied, allowing the steel to pass harmlessly through before instantly reforming. "Hmph! They lack physical density! Kinetic strikes are inefficient!"
Elise didn’t miss a beat. Aurora’s Heart blazed, and [Glacial Lance] materialized. She didn’t aim at the creatures; she aimed at the environment.
She fired. The lance shattered against the crystal wall where the Stalkers were emerging. CRRRRACK. Absolute zero violently expanded across the red surface. The Stalkers, caught mid-transition between the wall and the open air, were instantly flash-frozen into solid statues. They couldn’t liquefy if their cellular structure was frozen.
"The cold locks them into a solid state!" Elise yelled. "Freeze the walls to deny them cover!"
Taking the cue, the Frost Golem lumbered forward and slammed both massive fists into the crystal floor. A shockwave of permafrost exploded outward—CRRRRACK—coating the maze in a thick, suffocating layer of white frost. Across the chamber, a half-dozen Stalkers attempting to ambush were suddenly trapped, half-emerged and frozen solid in the ice.
"Break them!" Nathan ordered.
Dillon became a blur of ozone. [Thunder Edge] roared, his katana carving through three frozen Stalkers in a single, devastating arc. KRAK-BOOM. The lightning violently shattered the frozen blood into a million harmless shards. Garrett followed suit, Volcan’s thermal pulses completely vaporizing the immobilized targets before the ice could even begin to thaw.
Kuro stalked through the frosted maze, her dark eyes scanning the ice. The extreme cold had forced the Stalkers’ dense, liquid cores to solidify and expose themselves. Shink. Shink. Her daggers found the frozen hearts with terrifying precision.
Nathan provided cover fire—Thwip-Thwip-Thwip—his [Mana Arrows] acting as sniper fire to detonate any frozen core Dillon or Garrett couldn’t reach. The Capacitor dipped to seventy percent. He was still holding the line.
The final Stalker shattered under a brutal [Aegis Strike] from Mirko, the shockwave scattering its frozen remains across the slick floor.
[Floor 2 Cleared!]
Nathan lowered Moonlight. His breathing was even. His mana reserves were deep. The party was operating like a well-oiled machine. The Crimson Depths were oppressive, but they had survived the blinding dark, the freezing peaks, and the corrupted ash. Blood magic was just another puzzle to solve.
"Two down," Nathan said, checking the perimeter one last time. "Three to go. Move up."
Floor 3 opened into a cavernous expanse that had clearly served as the primary extraction hub of the old blood-mine.
The ceiling was entirely lost to the dark. Massive, rusted iron support beams crisscrossed overhead like the exposed ribs of a rotting leviathan. The floor was heavily scarred with decades-old cart tracks, abandoned mining picks, and the crushed remains of an iron ore cart. The walls were choked with thick, pulsing red crystal veins, and the slow, rhythmic heartbeat of the Tower was suffocatingly loud here, thumping against Nathan’s chest like a physical blow.
But it was the center of the chamber that made them stop.
Rising from a shallow, perfectly circular pool of viscous, rippling liquid blood was a structure that absolutely did not belong in a mining hub.
It was an altar. It wasn’t formed from the Tower’s crystal; it was carved from ancient, weathered grey stone. It was meticulously etched with jagged, deeply unsettling runes that made the hair on Nathan’s arms stand up. The surface of the altar was stained, and arranged upon it were deliberate, ritualistic items—blackened candles, shattered glass vials, and a rusted iron dagger.
The Court hadn’t just left a message this time. They had left a workspace.
Nathan held up a hand, halting the party. [Hunter’s Insight] swept the altar, searching for traps, tripwires, or hidden ambushes. There were none. The ritual was cold. The work here was already finished.
"It’s a blood-letting altar," Elise said softly, her voice tight with a cold, analytical anger as she studied the markings from a safe distance. "The Nemesis Court was utilizing this Tower. The runes carved into the stone are highly modified versions of the mutation sigils the TCA recovered from the Whispering Dark."
"They were using the Tower as a battery," Nathan realized, the pieces clicking into place. "They aren’t mutating their summons with their own mana. The cost would be too high. They’ve been hijacking High Class Towers, tapping into the leylines, and siphoning the ambient magic to force the evolutions."
"What about the Crimson Lord?" Dillon asked, his hand resting on the hilt of his katana as he stared at the dark ceiling. "Did they try to mutate the boss?"
Nathan stared at the dead altar. The runes were inert, their power entirely spent. "Either they succeeded and made it stronger, or the ritual failed and they abandoned it. But they were here. They used this place to prepare for the Cleansing."
Garrett’s knuckles turned white around Volcan’s leather grip. "Which means they’ve been one step ahead of us this entire time. Treating uncleared Towers like personal armories."
"Not anymore." Nathan turned his back on the altar, his eyes locking onto the portal to Floor 4. It pulsed at the far end of the chamber, its light a deep, bruised purple rather than red. "We break this Tower. We kill the Crimson Lord. Whatever battery they were charging here gets permanently unplugged tonight."
The party fell into formation. The heartbeat in the walls seemed to quicken as they approached the portal.
The Crimson Depths were waiting.