Chapter 400 – Day 827 – Entering The Tower

The Divine Empress stared at me. Looking far less imposing in a gray gown than in her usual attire. I could tell that she knew if she took one more step forward I would shut the door no matter what. Her next move was to act.

We waited there, staring at each other in silence as the pressure began to build up. Who would be the first to act? If I acted first then she could tell herself there was no chance to get inside. But if she acted first, then she would have to commit.

Standing there waiting was incredibly stressful. I couldn’t think of anything more stressful in my entire life. Even arriving in the Systemic Lands, fighting the Ritualist, meeting the Divine Empress for the first time, and getting launched into the sky was nowhere near the level of this confrontation right now.

Sweat formed on back and forehead as we both continued to stare at each other. It was incredibly tempting to just end this, right now, but I couldn’t give up this chance to kill her so easily. I would not get a chance like this again any time soon.

She probably felt the same way. Once the doors shut, she would lose me. And I was going to the Astrologer as well. Then we could double team her. If we got the Protector, we could do a three on one and possibly finish her off without having to chase her down.

That was another reason why she couldn’t afford to let me go. If her two mortal enemies teamed up, then she would be in a rough spot. It was easy when you were the strongest and you only had one enemy to deal with. But when there were multiple players in the game, things got messy really quickly.

Then there was pride. She didn’t want to back down, and I didn’t want to admit my fear of her by shutting the door too soon. She had gone up to the limit I was comfortable with. If I shut it now or any time before, then it was fear.

I couldn’t let my fear control me no matter what. If I allowed myself to make a choice based only on fear, then I would lose out on the chance to kill her.

A minute became five minutes as we silently stared at each other. My energy had fully regenerated by now, but neither of us dared to speak. We just waited on the other person. How long could this go on for? Hours? Days? Deeks?

Was she going to try and wait until I was too tired to act quickly? That could be a possibility. Maybe she wanted me to try something to give her a slight advantage, to tempt her to attack? It was hard to say. If I was in her position, there would be no good answer.

If she took the loss, then she would be on the backfoot. Her evil empire was wrecked, so it wouldn’t be easy to increase her strength quickly without rebuilding it and her administrative talent was less than zero. She was a net negative on any administration.

Destroying what Clarissa had set up, would take time and energy with her wasting a lot of it killing pointless people. Allowing me to link up with the Astrologer would be a long term loss. The fact I was getting surgery when she arrived had only confirmed that I would run to the Astrologer in her mind.

The silence continued to stretch out. There was nothing more either of us could say that wasn’t pointless. I had thought through the situation and so had she. I needed to change things up. “Why are you so evil?” I asked breaking the silence.

“Evil? I believe vengeance is the correct word for everything I have done. You claim to be better with your hybrids?” I winced slightly at that. “Also having people eat hybrids? How are you any better?” she asked me.

Ouch, she had easily reflected my verbal attack back onto me. This was going nowhere and I wasn’t going to wait forever. I moved my hand back. The Divine Empress shot forwards as the door began to swing shut. They opened up to the outside, so she was getting wedged in.

Air Burst. I shot forward at the same time. “Aqua Sphere.” I was glad I had practiced saying the skill name as quickly as possible to make it activate. Force Wave. The Divine Empress came to a stop and punched out. I could tell from the beacon of energy she was with my Sense stat even with my skills in the way. There was also the massive amount of energy she had unleashed directly at me.

Air Burst.I moved to the side. The annihilation blast burst apart. I tried to pull back my left hand, but it was too late. Her attack had been incredibly fast. My left hand turned to dust, cleanly cut off.

“Ahhh!” I yelled in pain as blood began to squirt out of my stump. Dammit! The edges of the room lit up with soft blue lights, making the interior very gloomy, but it allowed me to see. Well that was nice. I raced over to the pack with the lamp oil.

I quickly poured off the cap on the flask with my teeth and then poured it out on the floor. I then threw the flask aside and got out the lighter. I lit the pool of oil and shoved my bleeding stump into the flames.

“Ahhh!” I screamed some more in pain. Dammit. The Divine Empress had managed to cripple me. I checked my surroundings but there was no immediate concern. I lay there on the floor of the entrance room to the tower, my burnt stump throbbing.

“Well played Hei Long. Well played,” I said softly. She had come up with a much better move in our stand off than I had. It was just too quick. I had thought my annihilation blast would counter her skill. She probably put all her energy into that one attack to make sure it hit no matter what.

My left hand had been extended to help balance me. I hadn’t thought too much before about my hand placement during a fight. Normally I was focused on my skills and other things. I hadn’t used my left hand to defend, it was just too far froward as I dodged to the side and I couldn’t retract it in time.

It was a stupid mistake and it had cost me dearly. I lifted my burnt stump in front of my face. Well, it wasn’t bleeding anymore, but it hurt. Also, that was probably a void type attack, which meant it could be easily fixed by a restoration once I got out of here.

The bad news was that Aqua Sphererequired two hands. That meant for the rest of the tower, I would have no more annihilation blasts I could count on. It might have been better to lose a foot, since that was my main trump card.

I wasn’t helpless without it, but it had given me a lot of comfort during the chase and the fight with the Divine Empress. If it could damage her and put her on the backfoot, I wasn’t that worried about a level 5 monster. Now, I was down a hand.

Looking to the side, my supply pack was still intact at least. I also had lantern oil and a lantern, but that didn’t seem too necessary with the blue edge lighting. I didn’t want to get up and move. I know I needed to, but right now, I was just tired and mentally done.

While the restorations during the chase had helped me keep going, mentally they didn’t do anything. Then that standoff had only exhausted my brain power more. The flames from the puddle of oil began to die down, making the entry room have a gloomy feel to it.

A slight turn of my head, saw the tunnel go a ways to a dead end and a single right turn available near that dead end. There were no monsters coming for me, I didn’t sense anything unusual, and I didn’t hear anything.

The entry areas were probably safe areas if I had to guess. Well, maybe not safe, but I would call them staging areas. There wouldn’t be an attack here right away. I slowly got up and pulled my packs and myself into a far corner of the room, making sure I saw up, so I could keep an eye on all three tunnels.

This was it. I was committed now. My last restoration a quarter of a day ago. I had to climb all 49 floors in 19 days to reach the Astrologer. No idea what a tower was like. I had enough food and water to last that long, so as long as I didn’t lose my pack I would be fine.

But I was now down a hand and wasn’t able to use my most powerful close-range attack. I just had Acid Shotand Force Wave. I really didn’t count the second one as an attack.

I almost fell asleep right away, but I was on edge in case she went through another door and hunted me down. Well, no one escaped a tower, so hopefully, the doors would remain shut while I stayed on the first floor.

The worst part was, that I wouldn’t be able to keep track of the days anymore inside the tower or time. I didn’t wear a watch normally, since I could just look at the light source and know the time of day. I also didn’t have time to get a watch or some sort of time keeping device during the chase.

That meant my only units of measurement would be the pain in my gut and the number of floors I had climbed. I could easily see that messing with a person’s head. I settled into the corner of the entry room and tried to sleep, but the pain from the burnt stub on my left arm was making it hard.

I needed my wits about me if I wanted to survive the tower climb. Traps, monsters, time limit, and possibly a Divine Empress on my heels meant it would be the hardest thing I had done so far. I had always gone into situations with as much preparation as I could. Now I was in the deep end with no buoy or life raft in sight.

If I did manage to survive the climb, I was going to take a long vacation. I had no idea where. But at least 90 days, probably more. Even if the Divine Empress wasn’t dead, I was heavily in favor of the vacation idea. I had gotten too caught up in the empire nonsense and didn’t focus on the personal survival nonsense.

So, what if she was the strongest? I could just hide out in a level 4 zone and she would have never found me. If only that were possible. As for the Astrologer, I wasn’t sure if I was putting him in the friend or foe column yet.

His proxy had saved my life and kept Purgatory out of the clutches of the Divine Empress, but that was canceled out by putting a bomb in me and trending towards the negative. But he could help me kill off the Divine Empress, which was annoying.

Hopefully he would be helpful, and we could have a conversation. He better be able to get this bomb out of me as well. I wasn’t going to agree to anything until he took it out first, no matter what. Otherwise I would kill both of us and call it a day.

I drifted off to sleep.