Return of the Tower Conqueror

Trials of Champions (II)

Ethan and Emma stared at the descending stairs that led into the burst gates. Behind them, silver-roofed houses stretched in a radius, the center carved out into a plaza, with the former's windows and doors tightly locked. As luck would have it, the two had stumbled upon a trial that could be done in a pair and were already given a description on what to do: stand their ground for an hour at minimum until the reinforcements arrive and kill at the very least 200 of invaders.

The two stood side by side, though, admittedly, with very different expressions; Ethan's was pensive, deep frown forming crevices across his forehead, his eyes filled with fear. On the other hand, Emma's was relaxed and undaunted, even a bit sluggish it seemed. There was a bar above at the very entrance of the massive platform, counting down from 30 minutes until the invasion would begin.

"What... what should we do?" Ethan asked, his teeth clattering slightly.

"Complete the trial?" Emma replied, glancing at him.

"Yeah, but doesn't it seem insanely hard?! Two hundred people... at minimum... that means there's probably gonna be a thousand invading! There's no way we can stop that with just the two of us!"

"Why not?"

"Why... why not?! What do you mean why not?!"

"Oh, right, you're new," Emma chuckled. "This is pretty much par for the course if you wanna be a part of our group."

"Yup," she nodded. "Relentless onslaught of seemingly impossible trials and challenges and fights and boss battles. After each experience you'll think 'well, damn, it can't get any harder than that' and then, boom, like a teenager, it somehow gets even harder. And it just never, ever, ever stops."

"... never?"

"Never," she confirmed. "Why do you think we went practically AWOL for six years?"

"It wasn't because you wanted to give the rest of us a chance?" Ethan joked bitterly.

"Ha ha ha, no, not quite," Emma laughed, patting his back gently. "Honestly, I told him to stop bringing people in for this very reason. We always keep a forward momentum, going through the walls at the breakneck pace. And the truth is... most people aren't fitted for that. Heck, even I'm not fitted for it. And I can't quite imagine you being ready for it either. So, consider this your demo experience with us. If you can keep up for the entirety of the Ninth Floor, then you can join us if you'd like. If you can't, I'll personally kick you out."

"Damn, a trial within trials," Ethan said.

"Something like that, ye'," Emma nodded. "It's for your own good-- trust me. Right now, you think this trial is absolutely terrifying. Yet, I guarantee it 100% when we reconvene with the others and they begin telling their stories, you'll feel like ants are crawling up your ass and eating your guts. Anyway, run me down your skillset so I can plan out what we should do."

"Uhm, s-sure," Ethan stuttered, ignoring the entire first part of her statement. "I'm almost entirely dependent on attacking unseen; direct combat is the death of me. I'm fairly confident, though, in my damage output, especially if I get a perfect drop. Most of my damage is single-target, which is why I'm probably gonna be useless for this trial."

"Do you have means of escaping?"

"Yes, I have a few skills that let me escape."

"A'right," Emma nodded. "You'll be in charge of picking off the stronger enemies and mini-bosses. When I point at something, your job is to get there, either kill it or deal as much damage as possible, and then disappear. Leave the small-fry to me."

"... aren't... aren't you a tank?" Ethan quizzed, confused.

"Yea."

"Even with defensives, do you have enough damage to actually plow through them?"

"Oh, right-- I'm a tank but I'm also not a tank."

"..."

"My Awakened Class," Emma elaborated. "Is called 'Bloodscourge Paladin'. I pretty much derive all of my tankiness for the fact that I deal a lot of damage."

"Oh. So, you're the most broken thing in the world. Gotcha."

"Ha ha, not quite," Emma laughed gingerly. "The trade-off is that I don't have any defensive cooldowns. This makes me piss-poor at the boss tanking. Or when there are a few high-health targets since, well, my single-target DPS is as bad as your AoE. On the other hand, I'm fairly confident if even thousands swarm, I'll be able to hold them back indefinitely."

"I've never heard of a 'Bloodscourge Paladin'," Ethan commented. "Nor a 'Spellweaving Elementalist' that Cain told me he was. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I didn't hear of any of your classes."

"It shouldn't be that shocking," Emma shrugged. "Though most Awakened Classes are universal, there are also derived ones-- ones essentially tailored to complement our battle styles. Senna, for instance, is the funniest-- you know her nickname?"

"Princess of Blades?"

"Yup, pfft, ha ha ha, God, I can still remember her storming back into the apartment hollering and cursing out whoever came up with the nickname, ha ha ha--"

"The point?"

"Right-- the reason she got so up-in-arms is that the nickname is fairly close to her actual Awakened Class," Emma added. "War King or, well, in her case, War Queen. As far as we know, no other Weapon Saint was ever offered that class. And that's entirely due to how she fights. Most Weapon Saints sit in the back and fight like spellcasters-- just the physical variant of them."

"She doesn't?"

"Nope. She has no set fighting style, to be honest-- she adapts. For instance, if it's just the two of us, she fights like an Assassin. Dipping in and out, cutting and flanking and supporting me. If she's alone, she fights like a Blademaster. And if she's ever with Cain, she fights in the exact perfect way to complement him. As such, her Class is entirely made up of skills to enable this-- you can say she isn't really a master of anything, but she more than makes up for it through her sheer talent."

"..."

"Same thing with the rest of us," Emma glanced at him, grinning. "In my not so humble opinion, there isn't a more talented group anywhere in the world. And it has quite literally nothing to do with the fact that we were the quickest to clear the first two floors or whatever. It's in how we cleared them."

"... every boss except the first two is well-known and documented," Ethan said suddenly. "Rather, the parties that cleared them happily dip onto the camera and explain, in detail, exactly how the battles went. All of them... except the ones you defeated. I think that's one of the reasons the world forgot about you: we just kinda assumed the first two bosses were simply extremely easy once we saw others clearing supposedly even harder bosses."

"Well, I dunno about much," Emma said. "But I can guarantee with every fiber of my being that none of those bosses even remotely approached the difficulty of the first two."

"H-huh?!" Ethan exclaimed in shock, part of him almost grunting in disgust at the bragging tone.

"I'll just say this," she grinned at his reaction. "The side-boss that Cain fought alone on the Second Floor was level one-hundred-and-something. Not to mention that his class was twice-Awakened. Aah, don't worry-- I know all these things seem and sound impossible to you, but just wait. Inevitably, you'll wanna ago back to the days of ignorance."

"Do you think he's still the strongest?" Ethan suddenly asked.

"Who? Cain?"

"Yeah."

"... that's a dumb question," Emma said. "I'm weaker than him but confident in facing everyone else. We can give it a go if you'd like before the trial begins."

"Yeah, I figu--wait, what?"

"C'mon, give me a stab," she chuckled. "I kinda wanna see what you're made of as well."

"No, I'm not gonna--"

"Here I come!" Ethan screeched internally as he saw a massive warhammer doused in boiling blood suddenly appear out of thin air, descending toward his head.

He hastily used Shadowmance, disappearing some fifty feet backward and successfully evading the strike that wound up landing directly onto the ground. Splintered stone erupted into a shower as the dust arose quickly, blocking his view. Suddenly, he felt a chill in his soul as he used his second defensive, Void Form, evading yet another strike, this time a swipe of the hammer. Like the sheer force of the strike wasn't bad enough, the accompanying wind was so strong it blew the raised dust aside, revealing Emma standing just a few feet away from him, grinning, her hammer once again in a descending motion.

Before his heart could even settle, he was forced to use his third -- and last -- defensive skill, immediately hollering "Stop, stop! I'm out of defensives!" as he landed some forty feet back, almost exactly at his initial position, he saw her halt the hammer a few inches from the ground, tossing it back into the inventory. She raised her arms and quickly fixed her hair while Ethan stared at the figure, transfixed.

There was terror in his heart akin to nothing he ever felt before; while watching Cain subdue everyone was fascinating, his means were, in comparison, ordinary. Emma, on the other hand, was like an unstoppable boulder falling down a steep mountain. There was no way of stopping it, so one simply had to dip aside.

Ethan had never felt this overwhelmed and he quickly realized it wasn't even due to stats and items. It wasn't the warhammer that was truly scary, it was her ability to pinpoint the perfect timing to strike. She, a Paladin, universally accepted as the weakest attacking class and a class Assassins used to gouge their skills, had trounced him so hard he would have undoubtedly died if this was an actual fight. What's worse, she didn't even know what skills he had and fought him blind. And what's perhaps the worst is that she didn't actually use a single skill. All of her attacks were just normal, average attacks sharpened to near-perfection.

"I'm adding an extra condition," she said suddenly, walking over. "You need to be able to dodge five of my consecutive strikes without using a skill by the time we clear the Ninth Floor. If you can't, you're out."

"... how... how are you so good?" Ethan asked, swallowing a gulp. "I mean... you... you were out for six years."

"It's not that complex," Emma said, stopping in front of him, a deep look in her eyes. "While the rest of the world was twiddling and twaddling about, do you know what we were doing?"

"..."

"Fighting the impossible. Almost every battle I ever fought in the Tower could have resulted in my death if I made one mistake too many. Keep doing that for over a year, repeatedly, with the ever-increasing difficulty and bosses that quite literally look like they accidentally dropped some twenty floors and got stuck here... and, well, this is the result. There was this one boss," she added. "That almost broke me-- broke us. Over a dozen people died and we didn't even manage to inflict a single bit of damage on him."

"... saywhatnow--"

"-- he was an anomaly, something that we, ordinarily, shouldn't have been able to even know about. But... we did. And we likely will. I'm telling you all this to make you understand: you will feel inadequate. Your confidence will shake and, possibly, even break, watching us. Your talent is secondary, Ethan. I guarantee you Cain hadn't invited you simply because of your talent. As long as your psyche endures it, you'll make up for whatever shortcomings you have. Save for Senna, none of the rest of us were all that talented ourselves when we began. In fact, do you know what Cain's starting stats were?"

"..."

"All, as I remember, were in single digits."

"Fuckin' impossible!" Ethan gaped, unwilling to believe that as tall of a figure as Cain was had single digits as the starting stats.

"Don't break mentally and improve steadily," she said. "And the whole world will be yours, I promise. Get ready. Here they come."

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