Chapter 361: One Man Army
"One monster?"
"Yes."
The burly man laughed once, then realized The Leonard was serious. His smile disappeared. "You’re telling me the final wave can be one guy?"
"In theory."
The mage tightened both hands around her staff. "And that is supposed to be worse than an army?"
The Leonard looked toward the battlefield. "That version has only ever been mentioned once."
Kael felt something cold settle in his stomach. "By who?"
"The Fist King."
Kael stopped moving.
The others did not notice the significance. To them, the name belonged to one of the legendary climbers whose stories circulated throughout the Towers. To Kael, it belonged to the massive bastard who had spent a year throwing him from cliffs.
The Leonard continued. "It happened a long time ago. No proper recording remains, and most of the information comes from people who heard it from others who supposedly heard the Fist King speak about this floor."
"What did he say?" Kael asked.
"That if the one-enemy wave appears, you might as well give up the floor."
The burly man stared at him. "That’s it? His advice was to run?"
"Not run. Fail." The Leonard nodded toward the crystal. "Let the enemy destroy it, accept the penalty and attempt the floor again."
The mage frowned. "The Fist King told people to surrender?"
"According to the story."
Kael said nothing because that did not sound like his master.
The Fist King had responded to Kael nearly dying by making the following day’s training harder. He had considered cliffs, waterfalls, starvation, broken bones and being beaten unconscious to be valuable educational experiences.
If that man had looked at something and decided fighting it was not worth attempting, Kael suddenly cared much more about the rumor.
"What was the enemy?"
"No one knows."
"You just said he fought it."
"I said the rumor originated from him. The details were never made public."
"Did he win?" The burly man said.
The Leonard gave Kael a strange look. "He climbed beyond this floor, didn’t he?"
That answered very little. The Fist King could have failed once and succeeded during another attempt, or the rumor could have been wrong entirely.
The spear wielder crossed her arms. "So the final wave could be an army, a group of elites or one monster that supposedly made the Fist King tell people to give up."
"Yes."
"And you weren’t going to mention the last one?"
"Because it won’t happen," The Leonard snapped. "Do you understand how many climbers have cleared this floor since then? Thousands upon thousands across entire generations, and not one verified account of that wave appearing again."
The mage looked toward the empty horizon. "Do you know what else probably doesn’t happen often?"
Everyone followed her gaze.
"Three waves retreating simultaneously."
The Leonard had no response.
Kael opened the defensive menu. "We prepare for all three."
"How?" the burly man asked.
"With The Leonard’s idea."
The Leonard blinked. "My idea?"
"Enjoy the moment. It might not happen again."
"Fuck you."
Kael began selecting positions throughout the inner city. "We reinforce the main streets. Spend most of your currency, but keep a smaller reserve for emergency repairs. There’s no reason to preserve a third anymore. If this is the final wave, we gain nothing by ending the scenario with a fortune in contribution we never used."
The first inner ballista appeared upon the roof of a stone building overlooking the southern road. A reinforced platform rose beneath it as the max-level weapon assembled, its multiple arms turning toward the gates. Another appeared upon the opposite rooftop, followed by a third farther down the street.
The other climbers began spending as well, and contribution disappeared rapidly. The western road became a fortified corridor as ballista platforms covered the rooftops and cannons appeared behind barricades at major intersections. The mage placed lightning structures around the central plaza, positioning them where their arcs could reach several streets at once. The burly man concentrated heavy weapons along the final approach to the crystal.
Even The Leonard changed his original layout. He replaced several turrets around the keep with stronger versions positioned farther outward, creating overlapping kill zones rather than simply hoarding every weapon around the crystal.
Kael spent aggressively. His contribution fell from more than one hundred thousand to eighty, then sixty and finally forty thousand before he slowed. He stopped only when the inner city resembled an invading army’s worst nightmare.
The main roads had become channels of artillery. Anything breaching the gates would be forced through repeated layers of crossfire before reaching the central keep. Kael preserved only enough contribution for repairs, repositioning and whatever new variety of bullshit the Tower decided to reveal.
The five climbers gathered upon the northern wall again once the preparations were complete. Soldiers had finished most of the emergency repairs, and the gates stood reinforced beneath rows of artillery. More weapons filled the streets behind them, transforming every approach into another defensive line.
Empty potion bottles lay beside the climbers. The burly man had bandaged his wounds, while the spear wielder had replaced the damaged rope around her waist. The mage sat with her staff across her knees and recovered every trace of mana she could. The Leonard sharpened the edge of his axe as Kael checked his internal energy.
His reserve was not full, but it was recovering.
It would be enough to fight.
The system finally responded.
[The Final Wave will begin shortly.]
Nobody spoke.
The burly man stood and lifted his sword. The mage tightened both hands around her staff while the spear wielder rolled her shoulders. The Leonard raised his axe, and Kael looked toward the horizon.
Nothing appeared.
The landscape remained ruined. Black smoke rose from the enormous trenches created by the railguns, and fires continued burning around the corpses left by the earlier waves. Craters covered the plains, while melted sections of earth reflected the weak light overhead.
There were no goblins, orcs or trolls. Nothing moved between the distant hills.
The railguns continued charging as lightning crawled across the towers. Ballista crews waited behind loaded bolts, and archers held their strings drawn.
A minute passed, followed by another.
The burly man glanced toward Kael. "Maybe they’re coming from another side."
Kael did not answer. He kept watching the horizon until something moved in the distance.
It was small enough that he initially mistook it for smoke shifting above the remains of a fire. Then it moved again, not sideways with the wind, but forward.
One figure.
Kael’s stomach tightened. "Shit."
The spear wielder turned toward him. "What?"
He pointed toward the distant movement. "There."
Everyone focused upon the same place.
A humanoid silhouette emerged through the smoke and walked alone across the battlefield. No army followed it, and no hidden formation appeared behind the hills. There was only one figure advancing toward the fortress at a slow, steady pace.
The Leonard stopped sharpening his axe. "No fucking way."
Kael looked toward him and found that the golden-haired climber had gone pale.
That was not encouraging.
The distant figure continued forward, gradually revealing its enormous size. It was not as large as a troll, but it stood far taller than any ordinary human. Its proportions resembled those of a knight stretched beyond natural limits, with broad shoulders covered in heavy plate armor and a tattered dark cloak dragging behind it.
A tower shield occupied its left hand. The shield was large enough to cover nearly its entire body and had been constructed from layers of dark metal scarred by countless impacts.
Its right hand held a sword, though calling the weapon a sword felt insufficient. It was neither a longsword nor a greatsword, but a slab of sharpened metal almost as tall as Kael and broad enough that an ordinary human would have struggled to lift it with both hands.
The knight carried it one-handed.
The burly man swallowed. "That thing’s huge..."
Kael did not answer.
The figure continued through the graveyard left by the previous waves without urgency, anger or any need to announce itself. A burning goblin corpse lay in its path, and the knight stepped directly upon it. Bones collapsed beneath the armored boot, but the creature never looked down.
As it approached, Kael began distinguishing more details. Its armor was ancient, and dark metal covered almost every part of its body, but gaps remained around the neck and the damaged portions of its helmet.
There was no healthy flesh beneath the armor.
Dry grey skin clung tightly to bone, while the face visible through the broken helmet resembled a corpse that had been left untouched for decades. Two blue lights burned where its eyes should have been.
Kael’s breath caught.
Something about the creature felt familiar. It was not the armor, its appearance or the weapons it carried, but the sensation surrounding it.
Cold. Still. Wrong in a way the monsters within the Tower of Trials had never quite felt.
The knight crossed into the range of Inspect, and Kael activated the ability.
Information appeared before him.
He read the first line, then stopped.
For several seconds, every sound within the fortress faded. The soldiers, charging railguns and crackling lightning all disappeared beneath the name displayed before him.
[Lesser Death Knight]