"Hawt-damn!"
Something flew over the man's head, and he was almost short on the draw intercepting it. Unholstering his sidearm, the cylinder of his revolver spun and shimmering a blinding light, and he fired a blast of energy that was strong enough to destroy the tenebrous ball of destruction that was preparing to detonate over him.
And then, something else rose from the ground underneath him and tried to wrap around his legs. The earth itself moved to ensnare him, trying to prevent his escape.
The earth wasn't strong enough to hold Deadman Walkyr, sadly. With the strength of his legs, enhanced by the engravings of his region's runic tattoos, the gunslinger broke free of the restraints effortlessly, and aimed his weapon down at the ground beneath him. Clicking his tongue, he considered firing, and then opted against it.
He'd be wasting his time trying to kill the woman that embedded herself into the ground earlier. She was more of a minor nuisance to him now than the fellow launching bombs through somebody else's portals.
"I've gotta give it to 'em! This is some damn good coordination!" It'd been an hour since a bunch of different people lost their minds, and all War had said before abandoning the gunslinger to fend for himself was not to kill anyone if he could.
That rule was broken within the first ten minutes, and fortunately, the attackers switched up their strategy soon after. Attacking him head on wasn't working, it was just diminishing their numbers. Anyone who stepped into his line of sight was in the middle of a killing field, where they would have a hole blown through their bodies. So, they decided to attack him from a distance.
The Climbers were using different tactics, and sometimes stopped attacking him altogether. He didn't know what was going on, but they didn't seem to be their normal selves. There was not a fool alive on this floor of the tower who'd come for his head, and fewer fools alive who could actually succeed at taking it. These fools, in particular, were adamant on stalling him it seemed.
Once they realized stalling him with direct fighters was an inefficient option, they sent more annoying foes.
One was a woman who dove into the ground and became one with the earth. It didn't take long for the gunslinger to realize that the woman was functionally immortal so long as she remained in the ground. Unless he could destroy the entire region where she was controlling, there was no way to stop her from uprooting the ground he stood on.
By the time he'd figured out that he could power through anything direct she sent at him, Walkyr was already faced with a new danger. Two newcomers were working in unison to open portals and sent highly volatile balls of black energy through them. If Walkyr did not destroy the ominous spheres, then they would detonate and destroy everything within a certain radius.
His body was tough to withstand the explosions, but that didn't mean he wanted to endure the pain.
Walkyr had the brilliant idea of shooting through the portals and seeing if he could take out the one responsible for throwing them, but that idea fell flat. The portals were one-way, therefore the recipient of whatever they threw out had no means of retaliating.
Naturally, there were a dozen other foes that were complicating things. However, as Walkyr consistently maintained his rate of motion, less and less enemies kept up with him.
Teleportation was an irritating ability of its own, probably more vexatious than any of theirs put together. Only, they were beginning to get used to the patterns in which he teleported. Walkyr was a skilled combatant, but he only received his Reward once he'd entered Aciago Tower. Unlike his innate experience with brawling and using his sidearm to blast holes from afar, he still was not adept at using his teleportation in battle.
Blasting through mindless sacks of meat was one thing, but the humans he was being forced to fight seemed almost as coordinated as the knights he battled.
'Ugh. Damn thing's loud!'
The worst of it was not the immortal woman of the earth, or the portal creator, or the caster of destructive orbs. All of those paled in comparison to the constant disturbance Walkyr breaking into the back of his mind by the second. A voice was trying to whisper to him, and he rejected the entry time-and-time again.
When War was nearby, it was especially easy to ignore it. Yet, as he kept fighting, his mental defenses were starting to crumble. Whatever was controlling the Climbers was trying to control him, and although it wasn't making any noticeable progress, it was slowly chipping away.
Snapping his finger, Walkyr appeared on top of a highrise, where several confused people looked at him with stunned expressions.
"What the…? Hey! Get the hell off of my…" The furious Climber trailed off when he saw three destructive beams sprint out of Walkyr's sidearm. The gunslinger was paying them no mind, but noted that they did not seem to be mindlessly attacking people like the others he'd met. It was a frustrating inconsistency.
Out of the thousands of people in Middle Town, it was difficult to get a grasp of how many might be getting controlled.
Walkyr turned around to ask the group if they had any clue what was going on, but clicked his tongue.
Right in front of him, a rift in space was already half-way open, and he knew that there was little time to get out of the way. "Move!" That was the only warning he could give to the group, and he knew that it would not amount to anything, given the unforeseeable circumstance.
Walkyr pushed himself away and descended down the highrise, just in time for a sphere to come through the rift and pulsate.
One pulse, and then a magnificent explosion swallowed the highrise whole.
The Climbers inside were engulfed with it, and scorched to cinder by the wrath of the destructive energy.
'How in tha' hell are they trackin' me…?' It was a question the gunslinger had asked several times now. As he moved across rooftops and through buildings to make it harder for the attacks to reach him, they somehow never failed. Unless they were a veteran of previous Climbs, everyone on the First Floor should only have one Reward. They are all relatively simple, with a bit of room for versatility.
The woman who was controlling the earth could not reach him when he was on elevated surfaces or grounds that she hadn't domineered yet.
Naturally, neither the person creating the portals or the one sending bombs through them could possibly have such great sensory skills that they tracked him, even when he was not moving. If they could see him, Deadman Walkyr would've found them already.
'Either they're real damn good at guessin', or…' He didn't want the possibility to be true, but his newfound idea was starting to see more brilliant by the second. 'Hell, ain't no point in not tryin', is there!?' The gunslinger hadn't even noticed he was smiling when he looked far out into the distance—towards the towering wall that would've cast a shadow over the city, and snapped his finger.
Immediately after, he gathered his senses and stood on top of the wall.
'Well, sonnuva bitch! I'm a bonafide genius, if I ain't never seen one!'
Walkyr's theory was a simple one: he was in the radius of someone else's ability. More specifically, he surmised he was fighting in the range of the puppeteer's ability. If the puppeteer could make its thralls coordinate with each other to battle efficiently, and could also chip at his mental defenses despite not being present, then it must've had some kind of influence over a certain area. Within that area, it could most likely detect everything.
Well, that was his first theory, which turned out to be true. The second though could be true at the same time, and that is what made him uncomfortable.
In the worst case scenario, his mind was compromised, and the puppeteer was seeing through his eyes to always know where he was, and what he was thinking, and how he'd react. This was the least likely hypothesis, thankfully. If his mind was compromised, when there'd have been no way he could get away from the portals. They'd start intercepting him in seconds.
Somewhere to his left, a stern voice called his name, "Deadman."
Walkyr cursed under his breath and slowly looked to his left. He prayed that the person wasn't a thrall. As a matter of fact, he was almost certain that this person wasn't one. War Reaver would've expended everything in his arsenal in order to make sure this austere woman remained unscathed and comfortable.
"Freya. You look just a fine as 'ya did the otha' three times I'd had tha' pleasure ah' meetin' 'ya. Ta' what do I owe the honor?"
The woman was tall and stalwart. Her face was unreadable, because she never smiled or frowned, at least not apparently. Her tone was always serious, and so others, including Walkyr, found it difficult to converse with her. However, her Reward was irreplaceable, and was going to play a crucial role in the climb out of the First Floor.
She studied him for a moment, and then looked over the wall. After twelve seconds, she looked back and asked: "You are fighting the thralls?"
'The news spreads quick 'round here, then? Good, that's amazing, actually.'
"Yes ma'am, I am! As a matter 'o fact, I would reckon to say I'm currently bein' targeted, cause I haven't heard nobody else complain 'bout a voice in the back of their heads." It was true. War was the first to notice something was wrong when they arrived, but did not speak up about it, since they had a goal to achieve.
Freya, unamused, folded her arms over her chest and chided, "According to Sir Reaver, every thrall can be subjugated if the mastermind is eliminated. I hope you're refraining from using any deadly force." The woman no doubt anticipated that he'd have already killed a fair share of Climbers, it was just wishful thinking.
Waving his hand dismissively, Walkyr took in the scenery of the greatest bastion of humanity in the tower: Middle Town. Alice's dollhouse, more like.
"Don't worry so much. I ain't kill… much. This is gettin' out of hand fast, though. Where tha' hell has the Knight gone? His protection's failin'. I almost lost my damn mind ta' that thing." He thought he was prepared to handle any intrusion in his mind, but it seems he underestimated how harrowing the creature was.
As the days went by, there was an unmistakable realization that something was inside the walls of Middle Town, the safest place on the First Floor. Thus, that title no longer fits it at all. Whatever had snuck inside was a human, or perhaps was puppeteering humans.
War used one of his Rewards nonstop to help suppress any attempts to control those he'd traveled with, and became a beacon that counteracted the mental plague. It was transmitted through… well, nobody knew what. There was so little information, they initially assumed it was a parasite that was jumping from host to host.
The Holy Knight wanted to wait before announcing his concerns. He had just arrived after leading a hundred Climbers through Hell, and was soon going to enlist a thousand people to risk their lives on a gambit to escape their prison. Announcing that whatever creature was lingering in the shadows had been found out might've forced its hand and made it something drastic. That's why only a handful of people were alerted, including the officials who ran Middle Town.
In the end, it was far more sinister than anticipated. By the time they realized the full scope of how compromised everything was, it was too late to properly warn people. The council who controlled Middle Town were largely puppeteered, and so the thralls were fought and killed in silence.
Around the same time, that boy with the backpack—Worthy—showed signs of being possessed himself. For once, Walkyr was actually afraid that the Holy Knight's great power had been overwhelmed. It was one thing to match his power, which was amplified by hundreds of Rewards he earned from clearing towers before coming here. If something overpowered him… that would be a grim thought.
It turned out the brat was controlled because he had been brainless.
Somehow, he shattered his mind and experienced the past. That experience revealed many interesting things about the mysterious towers, including the fact that humans, or at least things resembling humans, could create Gateways of their own, somehow.
He also revealed that the First Floor itself was confined in the corpse, or rather, injured body of a deity. That wasn't a tough pill to swallow, since Walkyr was prepared to go into the belly of a titanic beast to climb initially anyway.
What was a tough pill to swallow, however, was that whichever nimrod thought of the idea of reaching the edge of the world… had been completely right. At the edge of the world, across the Lake of Blood, the First Gateway was waiting for them. Even if it wasn't, they had to go and make sure, because they were out of time.
War could detect danger, and an awareness of danger was slowly turning into an immediate, unavoidable approach of death.
Shaking her head, Freya pointed a thumb out over the wall. She was pointing to the northern wall, where the entrance of the Prime Settlement was located. "Sir Reaver is out there. I do not know what it is he is doing, but he sent commands to every guard and able-bodied man who was willing to help. His orders were clear. Hold the wall."
Walkyr clicked his tongue. So, it's gotten that bad. 'Then, he really left us to fend for ourselves.'
If War had commanded them to defend the wall, that meant that there were hardly any people that could manage the increasing number of thralls below. Those who were not enthralled would be targeted just like he was, and anybody that survived would have to make their way to the wall anyhow, as the streets became more dangerous.
The puppeteer wasn't afraid to make sacrifices either. Anyone that was too much of a threat to let live would be attacked full force, with no stops. A building full of potential vessels for the abomination was destroyed in a fruitless attempt to incapacitate him.
It was desperate, and that was clear.
Walkyr reflected on the faces he'd seen, and the Rewards. He liked to catalogue anybody he thought was interesting. There was someone with an ability similar to his. No, hers was unmistakably more powerful. He'd been to Middle Town many times, he had only talked to her once… Asterie.
'Wait. Where is she even?'
Asterie was a powerhouse, no doubt. There were a lot of strong Climbers in Middle Town, but her Reward was by far the most worrying. Control over space was a godly ability. If she really tried she could've taken Walkyr's place as a courier and gotten the Army of Hope to Middle Town in half the time. The reason she hadn't was because she was just that selfish. If something was not to her liking or interest, then she would not engage in it. Nobody had the authority to make her, either.
With the eyes of a hawk, Walkyr scanned the grounds of the city from the great wall and found nothing. So, instead, he took a glimpse to the sky.
'There she is.' From where he was standing, it looked like Asterie was hovering a safe distance above the city. Walkyr first assumed that she'd figured out that the puppeteer's ability worked within a certain radius. The girl was never very bright from what he'd gathered, but just like Freya, he was doing a bit of wishful thinking of his own.
Then, he was alarmed. Asterie stretched her arm down toward the city, and Walkyr noticed a ripple descend from her hand.
It traveled fast, but he was quick enough to judge where it would land. When his eyes landed on where space would be disrupted… his eyes widened. 'Aw, shit!' He rose to his feet, but he was not nearly fast enough to stop what was about to happen. Hell, he couldn't do anything about it now either.
On the receiving end of a spatial delivery, Hiel's harpy was flying, carrying the familiar figure of Taivat.
Everything else happened fast, and for once, Walkyr had no choice but to watch.
A dome filled the area, preventing anything from leaving or exiting. If Walkyr tried to teleport down, he would be caught in the middle of unstable space, and he didn't even want to know what'd happen then. Buildings were torn asunder, and Asterie disappeared from her place in the sky and engaged with the harpy.
It was a one-sided massacre. The woman had full sovereignty over space—and a superhuman boost in her physical abilities—so the harpy stood no chance after having one of its wings torn off from her sneak attack. Asterie, eventually, impaled the harpy onto the sharp edge of a building she severed, and ended its life.
After, she turned her attention to Taivat, and the man was already running.
Somehow, his Reward allowed him to interfere with the spatial barrier. He broke a hole through it and escaped outside of it, but Asterie was quick to give chase. At some point, even Walkyr lost track as Taivat took unpredictable twists and turns to get away from his pursuer.
'Loverboy's harpy is done for. But, where's loverboy?' Hiel had two beasts. A harpy and a hound, and there was no sign of the latter.
Eventually, Walkyr saw them too. They were heading right in his direction, actually. Three of them were riding the back of the dreadful dog. Hiel, Worthy, and Oro… and Oro was missing an arm.
'The Knight's taken the Healer with 'em, so I hope those boys ain't expecting a healer.'
After they dropped rubble onto a quick bastard chasing them, the trio eventually stopped and looked back, realizing that the friend they left behind was no longer following them.
By then, Walkyr stopped watching and turned to face Freya. Her auburn hair somehow looked like it was reflecting sunlight, even though there was no sun inside of the deity's belly. "I'm 'gon need 'yer help in a second. Some real important folks are comin', an' I'm about to go have my first real fight in a couple 'uh years."
Walkyr negotiated quite a bit, and reached a settlement with Freya. Though the trio was not on the wall, they were nearing it. So, he was going to have her bring them up. Meanwhile, he'd ensure that nobody, namely the enthralled Asterie, would bring harm to her.
"Right 'bout now, I wish I could hear the Blues. With the trouble I'm gon' get into, I'll need a whole lotta' soul."