Azimuth: The Elden Throne

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/About 40 minutes later…/ .

/Tremble… Dust…/

[DING]

[The Third Floor Dweller has been defeated and an Ancient Evil has been purged!]

[The Ritual grows stabler, the remaining restrictions grow stronger]

[The Fourth Floor's Restrictions grows stronger]

[The Fifth Floor's Restrictions grows stronger]

/Cling… Clang…/

"Huff…"

'It's time.'

Back in the Fifth Floor, Dale stood calmly in place, his eyes closed as he focused on his inner body.

He had been waiting for this moment, his last chance to break free.

For the last forty minutes, he gathered power and improved his methods, waiting for this inevitable time.

However, because of this, the momentum of his enemies grew stronger, as with each enemy they took down, the weaker the next one became.

And with him taking a passive stance, there was little resistance on their path, causing them to break through the Catacombs much faster than previously predicted.

/SHINE…/

Following that, the remaining three Pillars all shone with faint light as the runes lit up in a wavy pattern.

This was the sign that the energy from the Ritual had arrived and that they had now been strengthened.

They were so strong in fact that Dale could feel residual heat coming from each Pillar from all the way where he stood.

Just from that, he knew that there was no way he would be able to resist the backlash, and it was also the reason he had been gathering his own energy silently.

In fact, if he wished to break free, then it would be best to wait for when they broke through the Fourth Floor right?

Well, Dale didn't think like that.

In a sense, waiting could give him more time to gather power, resulting in a bigger chance of escape without injuries.

But in retrospect… If the strength of each Pillar was directly connected to the Ritual, by waiting for the Fourth Floor beast to be taken down, he would be essentially losing any of the advantages he would gain due to the Pillar's strengthening.

He didn't know if the Ritual's power was being divided between the two of them, but if it was, then forget about waiting, if he did wait, anything he could gain in the next few minutes to half an hour would be easily thwarted by the remaining power concentrated on the Forth Floor's restrictions.

His best option was to break free now and strengthen the Fourth Floor's beast, giving himself more time to recompose and recover while giving his competitors a harder time and potentially weakening them.

Because in the end, this was what this was, a competition.

One side attacked, the other side… Defended. This wasn't a strange form of content within Babylon, there were many Tower Defense Missions like this.

If this could be taken as one anyway…

"Huff…"

He breathed deeply, preparing his body, tensioning his muscles… Preparing his mind for the incoming pain.

He moved the chains around him, putting them in position so they wouldn't get in his way.

It had now been an hour since he had been thrown here, and this had been by far the longest his Skill had activated.

Without him even knowing, his mental exhaustion had reached critical levels due to the mix of the Skill's overactivation time and the moments of Metal Erosion from the restrictions.

If he wished to recover or most likely, just stop worsening his situation, then he needed to free himself, and it had to be now.

Dale didn't know the conditions behind this Skill, but one thing's for sure, it refused to deactivate, and that was saving his life right now.

/Clang…/

Dale crouched a little, holding the thick chain on his right leg with his two arms.

And he waited… Or it seemed like it at least.

But inside his heart, throughout his veins, within his Skull, power started to move.

Slowly… Moderatedely… From bone to flesh, muscles to skin.

Fast… Like a flash!

/BURST!/

Suddenly, Dale pulled, raising his arms as he twisted his body!

His arms grew red and his veins blue, causing faint whisps of purplish energy to gather around his skin whenever both combined.

His eyes shone with blue light as he pressed his teeth hard, his hair was blown upwards as the air was pushed back from the Mana moving around his skin.

His forehead rippled with faint energy...

/Crack…/

His leg firmly stood on the ground, and for the first time, a crack formed in it under his violent force.

/PULL!/

/C-CRACK!/

Within the blink of an eye, he pulled the Pillar's foundations, breaking it completely as if it were made out of chalk.

A single person may have seen this as one swift movement.

But what felt like one smooth action contained many steps of carefully planned actions and behaviors.

/Grab!/

But as planned, he didn't stop there.

Dale crouched, grabbing the chains on his other leg, and pulling it with more strength than before.

This time, he wasn't controlling his energy, knowing full well that he either succeeded or not.

And failure in this situation meant… Eternal darkness.

/C-CRACK!/

/BURST!/

Under his tyrannical force, another Pillar bit the dust, exploding into bits due to the pressure of its insides.

"HUPP!"

Dale took another deep breath, but this time, instead of grabbing the final chain, he grabbed the chains around his arms, pulling them back before swinging at the last pillar from above!

/SNAP!/

Like a whip, Dale swung the chains at the Pillar, cracking it from top to bottom.

/ZAPPP!/

"URRRGH… AHHHH!"

But the Ritual wouldn't stand still, it had a mission to accomplish and it would fulfill it.

If it could not contain him… It would cripple him.

/Tremble…/

There was only one thing Dale needed to do… Pull the chains.

And now that the structure of the final Pillar had been compromised, that would be a piece of cake…

Yet, he couldn't.

The pain, the bolts of lightning were causing his entire body to spasm, he couldn't muster the strength to do anything.

Worse, all of his gathered energy was quickly being dispersed!

His original plan was to use the chains to try and either damage the Pillar enough it wouldn't work, or cause it to be delayed a little… But it didn't work.

He wasn't fast enough to accomplish all tasks at once.

This meant that it was now time for plan B!!

/Spark…/

From Dale's chest, a spark of light ignited in the darkness amidst the red thunderbolts.

The thing is, after being touched by this strange magic countless times, albeit he still did not understand its nature, Dale had somewhat figured out its properties.

Why did it disperse his own Mana? How fast? Why? Why did it hurt?

He asked himself and tested these things countless times.

At least… Enough he could do something like this…

He couldn't control it, much less copy it, but with the threat of death on one side and victory on the other… What point was there in holding back now?

The Ritual was there to disperse all and any attempts of him trying to free himself while punishing him at the same time through an unknown method.

However, this berserking energy wasn't entirely that, it had guidelines and an effective range… It was being controlled, there were principles and methods in this place, hidden in plain sight by the Runes and Chains around him.

That's why, this time, Dale pulled forth his entire inner Vitality, his Prime Origin, the source of his life forward!

Even as the lightning came in contact with the spark, it was unable to extinguish it, at most causing it to wobble a little.

But doing something like this was equal to suicide, and likely the reason Tina had never mentioned that something like this was even possible...

Yet under the most dire of situations, with nothing to do but look at his inner self, Dale figured it out.

His Eternal fire, may it burn his restrictions away!

... Before his own life came to an end.

/GRAB!/

As the spark grew in area, he regained control of his muscles, allowing him to grab the chains around his waist.

Albeit the pain was only increasing, Dale's eyes knew nothing but the objective in front of him.

Determination, Obsession, Madness, maybe all combined and a bit more…

/STEP!/

He took a powerful step, causing the room to shake.

/PULL!/

And pulled without holding back.

/C-CRACK!/

Already damaged there wasn't much it could do, in no time at all if not immediately, the Pillar broke into pieces, and the red lightning dispersed into the air.

What remained within his body and chains was quickly broken apart into sparks of light.

/Thud…/

And for the first time in a very long time, this room found peace, even if momentarily.

Sitting down on the ground, breathing rapidly, Dale closed his eyes, but now to sleep.

He needed to settle his injuries, and no matter how tired he was, he would never rest when it wasn't its deemed time.

Time doesn't wait for the Wicked.

[DING]

The promised fight was coming.

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Notes

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