Alonso hovered for a breath between ruin and impact.
Explosions rippled across the clearing. Sparks scattered. Bark fragments and red sap drifted in suspended arcs around him, the battlefield caught in a fractured stillness as the skeletal Bride’s skull split cleanly in two and the halves struck the torn earth below.
Still, he remained fully alert.
He had paid a price the last time he lowered his guard after severing a creature’s head.
He watched and—
CLANG!
A sharp metallic tendril shrieked across his flank without warning, its arc carving a screaming line through the air.
His crossed blades snapped into place on reflex alone, steel colliding with hardened wood in a deafening crash that rang across the field.
The impact detonated through his arms and shoulders, launching him backward in a violent skid that tore a trench through fractured soil and shattered stone.
Several branches had shifted at once.
Their tips curved, lengthened, and hardened beneath a dark sheen, edges refining into crescent scythe forms that gleamed with lethal sharpness. The air around them warped and trembled, distorted by the creature’s dark Will saturating their frames.
Below them, the Bride’s headless torso convulsed violently, fissures racing across its surface.
Then it shattered into fragments.
Bone splintered. Shredded fabric dissolved into black motes. The physical shell collapsed in on itself as something deeper began to rise in its place.
Alonso had no time to follow the transformation.
More of the scythe-like branches struck.
They descended in layered arcs, crossing trajectories with relentless precision. Their speed carved pressure waves through the clearing, soil ripping apart beneath their passage. Each swing carried a high, keening scream that vibrated through marrow and stone alike.
Alonso’s perception narrowed to razor focus.
Vectors unfolded across his perception. Angles, timing, micro-adjustments. Fractions of milliseconds stretched thin enough to act.
He pivoted beneath the first.
Deflected the second in a burst of sparks.
A Will strike severed the third mid-flight, splitting it cleanly without visible contact. The sundered halves spun away trailing ribbons of red sap.
Another blade scraped along his ribs, slicing through coat and skin in a shallow line that burned white-hot. Blood welled and vanished beneath the next motion.
He rolled through churned earth as two more scythes collided where his torso had been. Soil erupted. Sap sprayed in violent arcs. The tendrils curved unnaturally mid-swing, defying inertia, bending toward him under direct command of the Bride’s Will.
They hunted with intent.
His boots dug into broken ground as he regained footing. Cuts multiplied along his arms and shoulders. The assault pressed relentlessly, driving him back across fractured stone and shattered roots.
Then warmth surged behind him.
A tower shield slammed into place in front of him with the sound of a mountain striking metal.
BOOM!
Imani absorbed the descending cluster head-on.
The impact shattered the earth beneath his boots and sent cracks racing outward like lightning veins through the hill.
Blood spilled from his mouth under the recoil, yet Guardian Star blazed brighter, dragging the monstrous limbs downward and distorting their arcs.
An explosion followed.
Chiara’s blast engulfed the flank in searing heat.
Flame and concussive force tore through the scythes, stripping fragments of hardened sap into molten shards. Several cracked. Several held. The metallic coating glowed under pressure yet reformed as dark Will reinforced them.
Stormlight erupted at the left edge.
Leonie’s blade carved upward in fast arcs, feathers and crows scattering in luminous spirals. Two branches split and spun away. She pivoted into the recoil, redirecting a third toward the ground.
Ayu burst through the gap.
Her rhythm flared in visible pulses, each step cracking the earth. She vaulted between descending arcs and drove a kick into one curved blade, sending it crashing into another in a violent cross-impact.
From below, Pablo’s summon’s metallic tendrils surged upward and coiled around the deflected branches, anchoring them into the earth.
The bindings strained, snapped, then reformed under pressure. Each interruption fractured the attack pattern just long enough for another to move.
At the rear, two more curved toward Chiara’s exposed position. Silver cards flared in tight formation as Lukas shifted perception itself, guiding her aside in a fluid motion while the blades carved through empty air.
Another scythe veered toward Pablo’s spine.
A faint distortion sliced across its path.
The branch split cleanly in two before reaching him.
Alonso rose from a low stance, chest expanding once as sweat traced a line down his neck. His gaze fixed forward.
The skeletal shell of the creature once bound to the trunk had vanished entirely. In its place now stood a ghost.
Maerwyn, the Gallows Bride, revealed her true form.
Her spectral figure floated before the oak, whole and pale, wedding dress pristine and flowing as though untouched by battle. Her bare feet hovered inches above the torn ground. Her expression held calm detachment, hollow eyes reflecting only cold appraisal.
Behind her, the oak began to change.
Its Will drew inward, condensing into dense, pulsing channels beneath the bark. Hundreds of writhing tendrils withered and withdrew until only fourteen remained. They rose behind her in a symmetrical arc, each now shaped fully like an executioner’s scythe, their metallic edges distorting the air in dark halos.
Then she stepped backward.
Her form drifted into the trunk.
Wood and spirit fused.
The bark rippled and reshaped, bending into a faint feminine silhouette embedded within the massive trunk.
The curve of shoulders formed in twisted grain. The suggestion of a waist appeared in the narrowing of wood. A pale, spectral face shimmered just beneath the surface, as though the tree itself now wore her likeness.
Two huge branches extended from the trunk, slender and curved. They elongated and formed giant wooden arms that mirrored her own, their fingers tapering into fine, threadlike strands of condensed Will.
The clearing held its breath… then the arms extended.
A sea of blood beneath the battlefield stirred.
Dark red sap pooled and rose in thick, heaving waves, tearing free from shattered earth and cracked roots as though the ground were bleeding upward.
It spiralled into towering columns that twisted violently, churning with trapped shapes inside.
The branch-arms flexed.
From their fingertips, cords of darkened Will manifested, tightening into rope-like strands that lashed downward and pierced each rising mass at the neck.
One form convulsed and hardened.
Then another.
Ten in total.
The blood compressed, thickened, and solidified into armoured silhouettes that dropped heavily onto the torn ground with wet, bone-thudding impacts.
Seven bore the silhouette of the Oath-Torn Knight, yet each differed in armament.
One bore sword and shield veined in crimson. Another steadied a long spear. A third dragged a massive warhammer. Others carried dual blades, a towering greatsword, a spiked flail, and a heavy halberd that scraped against the earth.
The final three rose from the last of the pooling blood.
Wild Spawns.
One bore the skull of a massive ox, horns curving downward like execution hooks. Another wore the elongated skull of a wolf, jaw frozen in a silent snarl. The third carried the hollow visage of a boar, tusks cracked and jagged, bone ridges crawling up its crown like splintered thorns.
Each figure stood rigid for a breath before the cords at their throats tightened.
The strands stretched upward into the branch-arms fused with the oak, binding them in absolute control, like blood-forged puppets beneath the Bride’s Will.
Alonso watched from the front, eyes narrowed as the full shape of this new, perhaps final form of the creature settled before him.
Maerwyn had become one with the Hanging Oak.
Ten blood-forged warriors stood between him and the trunk, ropes drawn tight at their necks.
Fourteen executioner branches arced from the crown, their scythe-like tips hardened and infused with Will, bending the air around them.
Two huge wooden arms extended from the trunk, fingers splayed wide as they governed every movement below.
From where he stood, the oak rose as both throne and gallows, its bark warped into the faint outline of a bridal figure embedded within it, wood and woman fused into a single towering presence that dominated the clearing.
Alonso exhaled slowly and steadied his footing on the fractured ground.
Across the formation, he caught the tension in the others. Grim expressions. Focused eyes. Even Imani’s jaw had tightened beneath the helmet.
They all understood what stood before them. Three Wild Spawns alone would force them to go all out, and even then, demand sacrifice. Add seven Knights to that, layered beneath fourteen executioner scythe-like branches carving through the air, while the Bride’s domain pressed against lungs and thoughts alike, and the battlefield became a grinder built to erase them.
From a rational perspective, unless these blood manifestations were weaker than their originals… they stood no chance.
They had done well enough to reach this point, but this new form made it brutally clear why this boss had never been meant for those who had yet to reach the Fourth State.
Alonso felt the weight of it settle on his shoulders.
It pressed against his ribs. Against his lungs. Against the pulse in his throat.
This was the kind of pressure that ended lives from a single misstep, the kind that punished even flawless execution with death.
His combat experience told him. This was a wall.
The leap from the previous phase to this one stretched like a chasm.
He glanced down at himself.
Cuts ran shallow across his torso and arms, lines of red threading through sweat and sap. Nothing serious, yet each sting reminded him how narrow the margins had become.
He scanned the others.
Imani stood firm, yet his stance carried a deeper weight. Beneath the armour, bruises bloomed where impacts had landed. The grip on his hammer remained steady, though the tremor in his shoulders betrayed the force he had absorbed.
Ayu’s breathing came faster than usual. Her chest rose and fell in sharp rhythm, sweat darkening strands of hair that clung to her neck. Purple bruises mottled her limbs, thin cuts tracing along her arms and thigh. Still, her eyes burned.
Leonie’s armour bore the story of the last exchanges. Dents marred the plating at her flank. A fresh line of blood trailed from her cheek, bright against the stormlight that flickered faintly around her.
Pablo swayed for a heartbeat before straightening again. The constant summoning and destruction had drained him. His face had taken on a pallor that bordered on grey, and dried blood clung to the corner of his mouth. Even so, his construct shifted at the ready.
Chiara and Lukas remained comparatively well, minds sharp, focus steady. Yet their condition held little comfort. If the vanguard fractured, they would fall with it.
The clearing grew strangely still.
Maerwyn did not press her advantage.
The scythe-branches hovered in patient arcs. The blood-forged warriors held their stance. The massive wooden arms remained raised, threads pulled tight.
It felt like the calm before the storm.
A breath.
Whether granted by the Dungeon’s design or by the Bride’s own cruel restraint, it hung in the air like a final offer.
Withdraw and live.
Or step forward and accept the full weight of what stood before them.
But… was it truly a choice?
Alonso knew what it meant to step back.
It meant accepting defeat. Accepting that the challenge before them lay beyond their reach.
But had that ever been different?
How many times had he already cheated death? He had stopped counting.
That was the nature of The Tower.
Death did not wait at the end.
It climbed with you.
Always a few steps behind, never slowing, never turning back.
Every time you paused, it closed the gap.
Every time you retreated, it drew nearer.
Every time you slowed your pace, it gained ground.
One day there would be a moment where retreat would not exist, where the only path would be forward into something that would truly be impossible. Only then would your mind remember the regrets. The moments you stepped back. The moments you lost ground.
Alonso let out a quiet chuckle.
It reminded him of how his father once described chess.
If you lose, you blame no one but yourself.
Every move binds you to its consequence. One mistake ripples outward until the board collapses. And the stronger the players become, the narrower the margin between brilliance and ruin.
He lifted his gaze toward the Bride.
The Tower had made its move.
Now it waited for theirs.
Advance and risk annihilation.
Or withdraw and concede an advantage that might one day decide their fate.
Yet deeper than the challenge, deeper than The Tower itself, Alonso knew this decision reached into something more fundamental.
It was about who he was.
About what his Will truly meant.
Doubt brushed him first.
A quiet, rational whisper.
The numbers were against them.
The pressure was real.
His body was cut.
His team was battered.
This phase eclipsed the last so completely it felt unfair.
For a brief, flickering instant, he allowed himself to feel it fully.
The weight.
The risk.
The possibility of failure…
Then something else rose.
They had broken the second phase.
They were still standing.
They had forced Maerwyn to reveal its true form.
He was not alone.
Imani stood like a pillar.
Ayu burned.
Leonie commanded.
Chiara calculated.
Pablo endured.
Lukas smiled like he already knew the ending.
And his own Will…
It was stronger now than it had ever been.
Why turn back?
Alonso closed his eyes and drew a long breath into his lungs.
His Will Manifestation tightened around him.
Stars shimmered along the outline of his body.
Faint spirals of distant galaxies coiled over his shoulders and down his arms, flowing into his palms, into steel, into the unseen edges that hovered just beyond sight.
The rhythm of his heart slowed.
One beat.
Then another.
Each pulse spread outward like the silent collapse of a dying star, like fusion igniting in the dark between constellations, vast and contained at once.
Heat gathered behind his eyes, fierce yet controlled, like stellar fire compressed inside a single point that refused to break.
The air around him warped.
Dust lifted.
Sap trembled on the ground.
The distortion drew glances from the others.
Even with his eyes closed, he perceived them.
And everything felt different in the dark.
As it had during that blind battle against the seven-tailed horror, when sight had become irrelevant, only Will had remained.
He sensed Imani as a burning star, warm and immovable.
He felt Ayu as rhythm and flame, her song vibrating through the marrow of the field.
Leonie stood like a Valkyrie in stormlight, pride and command woven into her silhouette.
Pablo pulsed in tightening spirals, frayed yet unbroken.
Chiara shimmered in layered geometries, equations rewriting themselves in real time.
Lukas remained an enigma, cards and probabilities orbiting a centre that refused to be read.
It was all there.
He let it settle inside his chest.
The doubt thinned.
The hesitation dissolved.
What remained was simple.
He wanted this.
Maybe it was pride.
Maybe it was arrogance.
Maybe it was blind faith in who he was.
But wasn’t that the core of his Will?
If death climbed with him, then he would climb faster.
If The Tower raised the stakes, he would answer in kind.
His breath left him slowly.
When his eyes opened, they shone with steady light.
The stars along his frame dimmed from blazing distortion into refined lines, tighter, denser, more precise.
The flare subsided.
The power remained.
It settled beneath his skin like a star forced into a smaller and smaller space until it burned white at its core.
Certainty consumed the last shred of doubt.
They would win.
The numbers held no sway over that truth.
Safety carried no weight in the decision.
He simply… knew it.
He… will make it happen.
His Will expanded, vast and immeasurable, spreading outward like an unfolding cosmos pressing against Maerwyn’s darkness.
Then it drew inward again, honed to a blade’s edge.
The ground beneath his boots cracked softly.
“Alright then,” he said, his voice low yet carrying across the clearing. “Let’s do this.”