After four days of flight, Klaus finally reached the Ebony Tower.
A towering monument of perfect symmetry rose before him, its pagoda-like structure piercing the void above like a spear meant for the heavens. It was a mirror of the Ivory Tower in design, but where the Ivory Tower shimmered with ethereal brilliance, this one drank in all light. The tower's obsidian-black surface was neither wood nor stone — it was something else entirely, a substance that swallowed radiance and reflected nothing back. Looking at it for too long made Klaus's eyes itch.
The tower stood at the heart of a desolate island, suspended in the Sky Below's emptiness. This place, this cursed shard of the land, had always been unsettling… but now it was wrong in a different way. Subtly, deeply wrong. It wasn't just the unnatural silence or the scentless air. It was the statues.
Klaus landed with a quiet thud, his boots pressing into ancient stone. The island had once appeared barren, abandoned, a ruin lost to time. But now, it was littered with strange monuments — statues of pale figures, scattered haphazardly across the landscape. Some knelt in poses of grief. Others stood tall with empty expressions, their wings spread as if frozen in descent. A few had their hands clasped in prayer, their heads bowed as if mourning something ancient and sacred. And some simply stood — faces turned skyward, blank and soulless.
They were too lifelike.
Klaus narrowed his eyes. Despite the stillness of their forms, he felt watched. Not by some vague presence or predatory instinct — but by them. The statues.
Their faces, though unmoving, seemed to blur when seen from the corner of his eye. And when he turned his head, there was always a moment — a fraction of a heartbeat — when he thought one had shifted.
He turned away, forcing his gaze back to the tower. His spirit companions remained deep in his soul sea: Hemera lay curled and unconscious, drained of strength. Miseria was sleeping, for reasons Klaus couldn't understand — spirits did not need sleep. And Lich floated cross-legged in silence, scribbling endless thoughts into a pale, ever-expanding book. A mere Awakened ranked memory but useful for scholar.
Alone in presence but not in mind, Klaus moved toward the tower. But the further he walked, the stronger the wrongness became. It pressed against his chest like unseen hands, coiling around his spine and whispering in a tongue he could almost hear but could not understand. Every footstep felt heavier. Every breath tasted like dust and ash.
He stopped.
A feeling — the kind he couldn't shake — clawed at him.
He turned to look back.
And his heart stopped.
One of the statues had moved.
It stood right behind him.
Its face, once still, was now twisted — mouth stretched wide in a grotesque smile, its hands raised not in prayer but in welcome. No sound escaped its mouth, yet Klaus could feel the scream that never came. He could see the tremor of its fingers. He didn't remember it being there. It shouldn't have been there.
"AGHHH!"
His scream tore from his throat as reflex kicked in — his fist lashed out, shattering the air. The atmosphere cracked like glass, a shockwave erupting from the impact. The blast tore through the statue, scattering shards across the island. One fragment, no larger than a tooth, clinked against his boot.
Klaus stood frozen for several seconds, chest heaving. Cold sweat drenched his back. He hadn't seen it move. But it had.
"Well... That... Was little scary."
His hands trembled slightly. Not from fear — or not just fear — but from exhaustion. His reserves, both mental and spiritual, had been drained. For weeks, he had subjected his soul and body to brutal experiments. Reshaping his own spirit had not been a clean process — it had been agonizing, harrowing, and at times, nearly lethal. The Tear had pressed upon him with unrelenting force. And now, four days of travel with no rest had whittled him down to a shadow of his usual self.
He didn't linger.
Without another glance at the fragmented statue, Klaus blinked through space and teleported directly into the first floor of the tower. He avoided the second floor entirely — a place he remembered all too vividly. no doubt, that damned rot was still there.
The inside of the tower was too clean.
Everything within was perfectly preserved — chairs, tables, a massive bed at the center — all pristine and untouched, as though preserved by time itself. Not a speck of dust, not a single sign of decay. That, more than anything, disturbed him.
The silence in this place wasn't just absence of sound. It was hollow. Deep. Like being inside a skull that had long since been emptied of thought. He swore he could hear something breathing, just at the edge of perception, like a heartbeat pulsing through the walls.
He staggered toward the bed, each step heavier than the last. His knees buckled slightly as he collapsed onto the mattress. His eyes shut almost immediately, as if they had longed for this for too long.
But just before sleep claimed him, a single thought slithered through the fog of his mind:
What if the statues weren't always statues? What if some of them were still watching him?
But exhaustion won.
And Klaus slipped into slumber — unaware that, just outside the tower, among the broken statues, a new one had appeared. Shattered and reformed, it now stood at the foot of the pagoda.
Its face was smiling.
And its eyes... had not been there before.
While Klaus slept, deep in the hollow silence of the tower, the air shimmered with faint spiritual light.
Two presences emerged from his soul sea.
Miseria floated into existence with a sigh, arms crossed and brows knit together in a sour frown. She hovered a few feet off the ground, legs lazily crossed, chin resting on her palm. The image would've been comical if not for the oppressive gloom clinging to the tower's interior — a wraith sulking like a bored teenager in the middle of a haunted cathedral.
Lich followed shortly after, his skeletal form flickering into view with silent grace. He remained standing for a moment, motionless, then slowly tilted his skull to one side. The posture, despite lacking flesh or muscle, radiated displeasure. Uncertainty.
Disgust.
His bony fingers curled once, like claws clenching reflexively.
"Well," he rasped, his voice like ancient parchment being torn, "we escaped the Tear… only to arrive at something far worse."
Miseria snorted, inspecting her blackened nails with a smirk. "Tell me about it." She yawned — exaggerated and clearly fake. "So, what rank is this creepy bastard? Class?"
Lich didn't respond immediately. His senses expanded like a ripple in a still pond, ghosting through the tower walls and across the cursed island. But even the vast perception of his spirit form met resistance — a thick fog, like oil on water. He clicked his jaw in irritation and muttered a curse in a dead tongue.
Miseria's smile dimmed as she watched him, her body going still. "What is it?"
Lich didn't answer right away. He moved to a chair — elegantly carved and untouched by dust — and sat with eerie poise. The bones of his fingers cracked as he laced them together in thought.
"It's a Fallen Terror," he said finally.
The room grew colder.
Miseria stopped pretending to be entertained and turned to him fully, all levity gone. Her dark eyes gleamed with wariness. "Fallen Terror? Here? Are you sure? How strong? What are its abilities? Why hasn't it come inside the tower?"
Lich met her gaze, the blue flames in his hollow sockets flickering like candlelight in a storm. "Do I look like the All-Knowing? I'm a scholar, not a damned god. I need time to investigate."
She frowned. "Then why isn't it inside? It clearly sensed Klaus. It could've attacked."
Lich spread his arms slightly, his dry voice laced with sarcasm. "Perhaps it was being polite. Or more likely… it's playing with us."
Clicking her tongue in frustration, Miseria turned away, her form dissolving into shadow for a moment before reappearing near one of the tower's crystalline windows. Her eyes narrowed. The island beyond still stood frozen, statues in place like a congregation of silent watchers.
No movement.
But too much presence.
"I'm going to sweep the tower. Just in case."
"Be careful," Lich said absently, already deep in his analysis. "This entity… it's not acting alone. Or rather, it is alone, but it wants to appear otherwise."
She glanced at him. "What do you mean?"
"It's clever. Subtle. Dangerous in ways Klaus hasn't accounted for. Did you notice?" Lich gestured vaguely toward the outside. "He didn't sense them. Not even with the Divine Eyes of the Void."
Miseria's lips parted in a soft curse. "But… that shouldn't be possible. Even with his exhaustion and almost blind state, he should've noticed something."
"Exactly," Lich said, tapping one finger to his skull. "It is clever enough to distribute its soul essence evenly across every statue. Klaus, even exhausted, should have noticed at least a trace. His Divine Eyes of Void could pierce illusions. But in his current state, running on fumes and frayed nerves... it managed to fool his eyes."
Miseria blinked. Her voice was sharp. "So Klaus's perception read them as one and the same?"
"Identical strength. Identical aura. Identical rhythm. With no fluctuations or imbalances… Bloody hell..."
She muttered another curse, then sighed.
"damn it. That's a specter move. Definitely not a beast. Too manipulative. As expected of Terror."
Miseria's form shimmered again, dissipating into dark mist before reassembling beside Klaus's sleeping form. Her gaze lingered on him — his face pale, his breathing deep but strained, brows furrowed in uneasiness.
Lich stood still, but his mind — ever restless — churned with troubled thoughts.
The specter that haunted the statues… it wasn't necessarily stronger than him. Not in raw rank, not in the breadth of knowledge nor arcane prowess. But it was still dangerous. Insidiously so. It didn't need overwhelming strength — just one mistake. One slip.
And Lich… he had no way to kill it.
Perhaps he could contain it. Seal it. Bait it into a trap…
His gaze shifted toward the still, sleeping figure of Klaus.
Of course.
The specter didn't want to destroy Klaus. Not completely. It was after something far worse — it wanted him. If it succeeded in corrupting Klaus's mind, if it turned his consciousness against itself, then it would gain control over his body…
Lich's mind worked tirelessly, searching for any viable solution. The pieces were scattered, incomplete, but one truth stood out, sharp as a blade.
There could only be one kind of battle here.
Mind against mind.
His hollow gaze turned to Miseria, who had returned a few minutes prior from her scouting. She leaned against a wall now, arms crossed, expression unreadable.
Lich exhaled, or perhaps mimicked the gesture. A habit left from when he'd still had lungs.
He moved to speak — a plan, perhaps, the beginnings of one — but stopped himself.
His skeletal hands touched his chest, where glowing runes pulsed faintly across the bone. Sound. Language. Runes written into his very marrow to give him voice despite his hollow form. But now, the silence was safer.
Because…
The specter was listening.
It hadn't entered the tower — not yet. But who was to say it wasn't pressed against the walls like a whisper in the dark? Watching. Waiting.
This was the Nether's tower after all. And on the second floor slumbered a corruption so vile, even the Weaver, a deity, had nearly perished trying to remove it.
That's why the specter hadn't dared come closer. That's why it hesitated.
It was corrupted, yes. But intelligent. It knew its limits. It remembered pain.
A Terror, after all, does not act without thought. It chooses its prey.
And its prey was Klaus.
Lich's thoughts grew heavier.
Klaus's soul sea was unassailable. Any intruder would be devoured — not banished, not wounded, but erased. Klaus's spirit was even more powerful than his soul sea. It was unbreakable.
But his mind… that was another story.
Klaus's mind, though powerful, was not invincible. Not unscarred. He had suffered. Endlessly. Carried memories soaked in nightmare and grief that would've broken lesser men. Trauma was a door, and the specter was trying to walk through it.
The difference in class and rank only deepened the danger.
Klaus was an Awakened Devil. But the enemy?
A Fallen Terror.
There was a chasm between them. A gap not easily bridged, especially now — when Klaus was weakened.
Lich clenched his fingers into a silent fist.
He looked toward the upper floors of the tower. They could try to escape — ascend to the final floor, where the portal to the Ivory Tower awaited. But that path… was suicide.
The Ivory Tower was under the dominion of Sevras, the Sun Lord. That damned dragon would never let Klaus pass.
And even worse — the Ivory Tower wasn't just guarded.
It was a prison.
A prison for the Demon of Desire: Hope.
A deity. A Divine being.
If they entered her domain… who was to say she wouldn't destroy Klaus on the spot?
Too many ifs. Too many death traps disguised as choices.
Because unlike his companions, Klaus wasn't cradled by fate. He wasn't blessed.
No — fate hated him.
And not just fate. The Authorities of many dead gods — remnants of their once-divine spark — hated what Klaus represented. He was a Voidwalker, yes, but he carried Desire as well. A paradox. A threat. A wound in the old order.
Klaus walked without miracles. Without divine coincidence. No fortunate twists ever turned in his favor. His path was jagged stone and blood-soaked earth. That's why he was cautious. That's why he was paranoid.
Because he had to be.
Lich exhaled again, more weary than before. He knew now, beyond doubt — the specter was listening.
Which meant every word spoken here, every breath, could feed the thing outside.
So, without a sound, he gestured to Miseria.
Then, he vanished — slipping back into Klaus's soul sea where no spy could follow.
Miseria blinked in surprise. Her eyes narrowed.
"What the…?"
But then, she understood. Her form unraveled into shadows, diving inward after him.
The tower loomed in silence, anchored in the heart of the dark island, untouched by wind or time.
But the moment Miseria and Lich slipped into Klaus's soul sea — vanishing like shadows swallowed by deeper darkness — something shifted.
Without a sound, every statue on the island turned.
Not gradually.
Not naturally.
They snapped.
Dozens — no, hundreds — of motionless effigies, each carved in the image of something almost human, turned their heads in perfect unison. Their hollow gazes locked onto the tower with a stillness more violent than motion.
Then, as if obeying a silent command, they raised their arms.
Stone fingers stretched forward — reverent, pleading… with the hint of twisted filthy desires.
And then they knelt.
Not in worship. Not in fear.
But in certainty.
The air didn't stir. Yet the island suddenly felt watched, not by eyes, but by something that had never forgotten what it once was — or what it had lost.
The tower stood tall at their center, unaware of the tribute encircling it.
But somewhere, just beyond the edge of perception, something smiled.
And waited.