Chapter 110: [Current Location: Tartarus Spire - Floor 24]
Jack kept his gaze on the serpentine woman, electricity still faintly humming across his skin like a barely restrained aura.
"What would the Patriarch want with me?" he asked flatly.
Melania’s smile didn’t falter. Not even a flicker of uncertainty crossed her features.
"Only the Patriarch knows that."
Her answer was as evasive as it was useless.
But some opportunities demanded risk.
After all, power rarely knocked twice.
[New Quest Available]
[Forgotten Castle: Enter Malakai’s Castle]
[Warning: Quest difficulty unknown]
Jack ignored the system ping and forced a casual shrug. The notification could wait.
"I was just hunting," he said, careful not to mention leveling or the strategic value of death tokens his system offered him. "Looking for a challenge."
Melania’s emerald eyes gleamed with something that might have been amusement.
Or hunger.
"If it’s a challenge you want, there’s a place on the Twenty-Fourth floor where you could hunt Nightmare-class creatures. But you’d need the Patriarch’s permission."
Nightmare Class.
The designation alone made Jack’s pulse quicken.
How many tokens could creatures like that yield?
Would he find allies worth recruiting on such a dangerous floor?
He hesitated, weighing possibilities against unknown dangers. The smart play was always gathering more information.
"If I go, can I come back here?" he asked, glancing around the coliseum. "This place... it’s useful for training."
"Of course." Her tail flicked in an elegant curve. "The Spire will always remember a Soul Warden. You’ll be able to return whenever you wish."
The assurance settled something in Jack’s chest.
Retreat was always an option.
Smart warriors kept their escape routes mapped.
"Fine," Jack said, the decision crystallizing. "Let’s meet your Patriarch."
Melania’s grin widened until it showed those slightly-too-sharp teeth. With sinuous grace, she traced a circle in the air with one pale finger. Shadowed light flared into existence, forming a swirling violet portal that seemed to bend space around its edges.
"Stay close," she said, stepping through without hesitation.
Jack followed.
The transition felt like stepping through liquid starlight.
---
The instant his boot hit the stone on the other side, the System erupted with alerts.
[Alert: Environment Scan Complete]
[Current Location: Tartarus Spire - Floor 24]
[Atmospheric Pressure: Elevated]
[Ambient Mana Density: Extreme]
[Warning: Extremely Dangerous Zone Detected]
[Enemy Count: 300,000 | Majority Dread-class]
[Estimated Nightmare-class entities: 47,000]
[Disaster-class entities: Unknown number]
Jack’s breath caught. ’Three hundred thousand hostiles. That’s... manageable with the right approach, given enough time.’
The next ping froze the air in his lungs.
[Additional Threat: Sovereign-class entity present within 50 kilometers]
[Power Level: Immeasurable]
[Recommendation: Extreme caution advised]
’Sovereign-class,’ Jack thought, the designation sending ice through his veins. ’That’s... new territory entirely.’
Jack’s pulse steadied as the numbers sank in.
Three hundred thousand creatures that could kill him, and something beyond what Spiralus was roaming on this floor.
The air here was different. Heavier.
Each breath felt thick with power that made his skin prickle and his nerves sing warnings.
The pressure wasn’t just atmospheric. It was the weight of concentrated malevolence that had been allowed to grow unchecked for centuries.
Floor Twenty-Four stretched before him like a fever dream painted in shades of twilight.
The landscape was stark and unforgiving. Rolling hills of ash-gray grass swept toward distant mountains that clawed at a sky the color of old blood.
Twisted trees dotted the terrain like arthritic fingers, their branches bare despite no apparent season governing this place.
The ground beneath his feet was hard-packed earth mixed with what looked suspiciously like bone fragments ground to powder by countless years of violence.
When the wind picked up, it carried the metallic tang of spilled blood and something deeper. The smell of things that had died badly and been left to rot.
In the middle distance, perhaps ten kilometers away, a castle rose from the desolate landscape like a monument to forgotten nightmares.
It was massive.
Easily ten stories tall, its black stone walls were as dark as the night sky. Towers spiraled skyward at irregular intervals, each one crowned with spires that looked more like weapons than architecture.
The entire structure squatted on a raised hill, surrounded by what appeared to be a moat filled with something that definitely wasn’t water. It glowed with sickly green phosphorescence and seemed to move of its own accord.
A drawbridge stretched across the supernatural moat, though from this distance Jack couldn’t tell if it was raised or lowered. Banners hung limp from the battlements, their colors too faded or too dark to make out clearly.
The castle looked like it had been built by someone who wanted to ensure that visitors understood exactly how unwelcome they were.
"Impressive, isn’t it?" Melania’s voice carried a note of pride as she gestured toward the imposing structure. "The Patriarch has ruled from there for over eight hundred years. Every stone was placed with purpose, every tower designed to remind visitors of their place in the hierarchy."
Jack studied the fortress, noting sight lines, potential approaches, and the complete absence of obvious weaknesses.
"How many live there?" he asked.
"Live?" Melania’s laugh was like silver bells filled with poison. "The Patriarch doesn’t keep ’living’ retainers, exactly. But there are perhaps three hundred servants of various classifications. Most are bound spirits, some are elevated demons, and a few are... former challengers who chose service over destruction."
The way she said ’former challengers’ made Jack’s jaw tighten.
He was walking into the lair of something that collected failed heroes like trophies.
But the alternative was remaining weak.
And weakness never lasted long in places like this.
"The journey will take approximately two hours on foot," Melania continued, beginning to slither across the gray grass with fluid grace. "I should warn you. This floor has its own rules. The Nightmare-class entities here hunt in packs, and they’ve learned to coordinate their attacks over the centuries. Don’t assume your previous victories guarantee anything here."
Jack fell into step beside her. Corvin was a familiar weight on his shoulder. The great raven’s feathers were raised, violet eyes scanning the horizon with predatory alertness.
Even Corvin sensed the danger saturating in this place.
As they walked, Jack noticed details that made his unease grow. The ash-gray grass crunched underfoot with a sound like breaking bones. Occasionally, larger fragments would surface.
A skull here, a ribcage there, all bleached white by exposure to whatever passed for weather on this floor.
This wasn’t just a dangerous place.
It was a graveyard that happened to host the living.
"Tell me about the Patriarch," Jack said, keeping his voice level despite the growing weight of supernatural attention pressing against his consciousness.
Melania’s tail swished thoughtfully as she considered her answer.
"Ancient. Powerful. Patient." Each word dropped like a stone into still water. "He’s seen empires rise and fall from this castle. The current hierarchy of the Spire’s political structure exists largely because he allows it to."
She paused, green eyes glinting.
Jack could hear the fear in her voice.
"He doesn’t grant audiences lightly. The fact that he’s requested your presence means you’ve done something to earn his attention. Whether that’s fortunate or catastrophic remains to be seen."
In the distance, something howled.
A sound like metal tearing combined with the screams of the damned.
The noise echoed off the mountains and seemed to go on forever before finally fading into the oppressive silence.
Jack’s hand moved instinctively toward his spear.
"Nightmare-class pack," Melania observed casually. "Probably hunting something in the eastern valleys. They rarely venture this close to the castle approach."
"Rarely?"
"The Patriarch discourages unauthorized visitors to his domain. The local predators have learned to respect his territory boundaries."
Jack filed that information away. If the Nightmare-class entities avoided this area, it meant the Patriarch’s power was substantial enough to make apex predators think twice.
That was either very good news or very bad news.
Probably both.
As they continued across the desolate landscape, the castle grew larger and more imposing.
Details became visible. Murder holes in the walls, oil cauldrons positioned above the gate, and what looked like siege weapons mounted on several towers.
Whoever the Patriarch was, he’d built his home for war.
"Almost there," Melania said as they crested a low hill that brought them within a kilometer of the castle walls. "I should mention, when we meet the Patriarch, let him speak first. He considers interruption to be... discourteous."
Jack nodded, though inwardly he was calculating just who this patriarch was.
Whatever waited in that black castle, he intended to be ready for it.