Asura village

Seth kept his calm, carefully observing the men surrounding him. The six arms were there, proving their relationship with Krum, but their eyes failed to instill the same feeling of strength Krum did.

“Who are you, human?”

“How did you get here?”

Two men spoke to him, their faces showing apparent confusion at his presence there.

From his previous experience climbing the Tower, Seth knew the beasts, humans, and other beings inside were unaware of the circumstances that brought them to the Tower. They had no souls and were simple wills given form and memories, kept alive by the Tower’s power.

That also made them unable to see the stairs connecting to the previous and next floors, so their skepticism at his presence there was very well warranted.

“I have no clue as well. I was fighting some strange beasts, and I eventually ended up here. Can you please lower your weapons? I mean you no harm.” Replied Seth, choosing not to antagonize them yet, at least until he found out more about the challenge of the second floor.

The men looked at one another a few times and decided to keep their weapons raised as one of them said: “We can’t trust the words of an outsider. Our chief will decide your fate. Follow us.”

Seth nodded and stood up, remaining surrounded by all sorts of deadly weapons as he followed the men in walking towards a small village not far from where he ended up.

More six-handed men surrounded the village, carrying weapons in each arm and watching their surroundings with severe faces.

Seth and the men didn’t speak the entire way, passing the improvised stone wall surrounding the village and all the small buildings, heading for a slightly larger one built right at the center.

All the men beside one remained outside, and Seth was taken to stand before the chief of the village, a six-handed man, clearly taller than the other men, even as he sat down on his improvised stone throne. His six exposed arms were filled with old scars, but despite his imposing appearance and physique, his eyes had a strange trace of kindness mixed with sorrow.

As Seth scanned the chief’s body, the chief did the same to him.

“Kneel.” Ordered the man that accompanied Seth from the back, driving his spear to poke at Seth’s back.

Seth frowned and thought for a moment before ignoring the spear in his back and speaking directly to the chief.

“You must be their leader. Can you order your men to remove that spear from my back? It’s quite uncomfortable having a conversation this way.”

“You - “The man behind Seth turned furious, but his chief intervened before he could act and said: “That’s alright, Fiorr. A warrior must never kneel before another, not even in the face of certain death. Also, this human here is not an enemy but a friend. Stand down.”

“Yes, chief.” Replied the man named Fiorr, not daring to voice a single word back.

“You’re dismissed. Let me and the human have a few words alone.”

“Yes, chief.” repeated Fiorr, turning around and making his way out of the building.

Seth and the chief continued silently staring into the other’s eyes until Fiorr was out of the house.

“Excuse my men, friend. The years spent here had made us all prone to treating friend and foe alike. I am indeed the leader of this village, formerly known as Asura Warrior Neoss. Would you mind telling me your name?”

Seth was surprised, not expecting the village chief to be so polite, and nodded as he replied: “My name is Seth, formerly known as the God of Destruction.”

“Asura Warrior? Pardon my question, but the term is entirely unfamiliar, so could you tell me what it means?

“Asura was the name bestowed upon my people a long, long time ago. A name I’m afraid we are no longer fit to carry…” said the man with a long sigh.

Seth could see the deep regret and sorrow the man’s eyes conveyed and heaved a sigh of his own. For some reason, he felt strangely at ease speaking to the fierce-looking asura man.

“I apologize for digging up old wounds. I was excited to meet someone carrying an actual soul inside this place.”

“Haha. We all had souls once, but time has slowly eroded the weaker souls of my men. The immortality bestowed on us proved too much of a curse for most of them to take. I am lucky to have kept my mind intact for so long, but my soul is also slowly waning… In the end, I’m afraid I’ll join them in mindlessly protecting this place from an enemy that doesn’t even care about us any longer...”

“How long were you here? Inside the tower.” Asked Seth.

“I do not know… I also don’t know what this Tower is… Few are the things that I still remember to this day…”

“Little human, mind if I rest my hand upon your soul for but a moment?” asked the man, lifting his massive body from his chair.

Seth looked at the hand approaching his head but didn’t recoil back, allowing it to touch his forehead. Neoss kept silent for a long time before heaving another long sigh and moving to sit back down.

“You are touched by one of Her darker wills, still carrying its strength with you but none of its will.”

Seth did not understand the man’s words and asked: “Would you mind explaining more? I have no idea what that means.”

“Of course, you wouldn’t. You’ve been born inside this prison, but even if I tried, I couldn’t. The truth can not be voiced between this prison’s walls.” to make a point, Neoss started speaking some random gibberish that Seth could make no sense of.

“A higher power is always working on ensuring that even if we remember Her, none of us will speak of Her ever again.”

“I don’t know what your goal is, former human, to walk into the prison of my people, but I can see the urgency and drive still burning in your soul. You’re free to do what you want in this place. None of my men will do anything to bar your path anymore.”

Seth watched the man’s eyes close slowly and moved to turn around and walk out. He wanted to know more, but he understood the Tower was censoring Neoss, so there was no point in asking more.

Neoss was also correct; he was not free to fool around trying to find answers to questions that didn’t matter at the moment. His life was still in the hands of Kronos, and if he wanted to have a chance to get it back, he had to pass the Tower’s trials.

Just as he turned around, the man sitting on the stone throne spoke again, a soft murmur as if speaking to himself and not Seth.

“The broken wills tell a story. Sisters and brothers, children of a stronger will, born of Her body and soul. Burnt in the fires of their own ambitions, pushed forward by a dreadful will, their voices call out to their mother still, in regret of the choices that brought them to their doom.”

Seth’s footsteps paused for a moment before continuing without saying a single word back.

When Seth left the chief’s house, none of the men moved a single arm to stop him, and he could easily leave the village.

He had no idea what Krum had done to the trials and for what reason, but the second floor was a strange experience, completely different from what he remembered.

After making sure he was quite a distance away from the asura village, Seth looked towards the second floor’s ceiling and asked: “Krum, are these your people?”

Silence. Even after waiting for a few minutes, there was no reply for either the Tower of Krum. Heaving another sigh, Seth started traversing the greenish plains surrounding the village in search of the staircase leading to the third floor.

He kept searching for days, avoiding all sorts of beasts he encountered on the way, not really in the mood to get himself injured once more. The second floor was larger than the first, but Seth still searched everywhere.

Despite his search, he could not find the staircase, not even after a whole week of searching. With no way to proceed forward, he started making his way back toward the Asura village, hoping to gain a clue from the chief.

Due to the chief having a complete soul, the staircase should have been visible to him, even if he was not allowed entry by the Tower.

When Seth arrived back at the village, he immediately spotted something strange. The usual asura guards surrounding the village were absent today, and the entire place looked like ruins.

The buildings that just a week ago stood tall and firm were now broken and shattered beyond recognition. There was also no trace of any living soul around the village.

After making his way to what was left of the chief’s house, Seth found but a single chair inside, the one thing that still looked identical to his memories from a week ago.

“Does time pass differently for me and everything else in here?” Seth asked himself, making his way toward the chief’s throne and gently touching it with his hand.

The moment his hand came into contact with the throne, his surroundings changed, and he appeared standing on what looked like the staircase to a completely different floor.

His confusion only increased as Krum’s voice shortly resounded from all around.

“Welcome to the second floor, human. A nice trick of using the rotten breath to clear yourself a path upwards, but tricks like that won’t work in this place. Haha. I made sure to make the second floor a real challenge for you.”

“Krum?” asked Seth in confusion, “Where were you when I called you before?”

“What are you talking about, human? Did the rot mess with your soul? Haha.”

Seth ignored the obnoxious laughter and looked around in puzzlement. If Krum didn’t remember and this was the second floor, what was the place he visited just before?

As he was starting to question if maybe the rot did indeed mess with his memories, a soft warmth expanded from his very soul, making Seth’s eyes widen in surprise.

His surprise quickly turned into excitement, and he smiled as he asked.

“Krum, I have to ask. Since most of the Asura were such nice people, how did you end up being such a bastard?”

“Where have you heard that name?” Krum’s voice resounded immediately, a wave of deep anger contained inside it, but Seth ignored it as he walked out of the staircase.

“Don’t ignore me, human. Where did you hear that name?”

With Krum giving him the confirmation he needed, Seth was now ready to challenge the Tower’s second floor and continue on his way upwards.