Chapter 180: Burning Ants

Why do you keep folding it over and over?

• William Oh, 12 years old

Even after the dough is mixed there’s still little pockets of resistance in there. Folding it over…and…over ensures that any little clumps get broken up and that your enemies…don’t…escape.

• Muse, 16 years old

Wait, what?

Will’s eyes blinked open.

That was a weird dream, Will thought, groaning as he sat up and rubbed the sand out of his eyes. Sometimes dreams were almost plausible and subtly lingered as memories that he was sure were real until he shone the light of critical thinking on them.

This might’ve become one if it hadn’t surprised him awake.

Anna, the one responsible for the dream, was already long-gone, bustling around the caravan, keeping the whole thing running.

Phantom Eye

128 Charges Remaining.

Thank the gods.

There was something to be thankful for: the Uru Drake Eye passive specifically mentioned the ‘naked’ eye. It seemed to mean Will’s natural, unaided vision.

Phantom eye was not natural. And thank the gods it didn’t get the same treatment as Will’s natural eyes. In the future maybe he would feel the other way, but for right now, this was a very good thing.

Although, I wonder if looking through a spyglass would bypass my ‘naked’ eye, and allow me to see. Lenses?

Something to think on.

No Climbers actually wore lenses, given how few of them had vision problems, and how cheap it was to pay the church of Andover to correct vision.

You might see some on a poor old scribe, but certainly not in The Tower.

I might be able to get a pair made in Akul…wait a second.

Will pinched the air in front of his eye and made a lens.

…Didn’t do anything.

Well, glad I saved myself the time.

Will was still going to try a spyglass at some point.

But for now: Getting dressed for his deathmatch.

Getting dressed with the help of his Phantom Snakes had long since become old hat, and Will shrugged himself into his clothes, perching his Phantom Eye on the bridge of his nose.

It was a little awkward, and it only lasted just over three minutes, so Will used it sparingly.

The sun told him he had about two hours until noon, or close to it.

Will took the time to enjoy a nice hot breakfast, lay in the sun and enjoy the bustling sounds of the seed of his Stronghold.

Once he was done taking a moment to appreciate being alive, Will picked himself up with his Phantom Snakes, and carried himself to the meeting place, a few hundred yards in front of Kincaid’s castle, marked by the beam of miasmatic light jutting straight up into the sky, disappearing into the sun directly overhead.

Phantom Eye

128 Charges remaining

Nowadays it only took just over an hour to get a Charge back for Will, which was handy for times like this when he needed…

Will paused, frowning.

Below him were all the people he invited to watch the show, but that wasn’t the odd part.

The odd part was that Kincaid’s castle looked like it had undergone a siege.

There were chunks missing out of it, deep cuts in the walls, scorch marks, and every inch of the wall, whole or damaged, had fae standing atop it, fully armed and armored, staring out at them with steely determination.

“…Did you get Kearney and Eolande?” Will asked, glancing at Bakton as he arrived.

“Oh, yeah. I got them. Had to stab Kearney a bit when they called my bluff, but luckily I can stab a man in the chest and miss every vital organ.” Bakton said, crossing his arms. “I also rampaged a bit, so they might be…a little on-guard. Kincaid called in some favors of his own and assembled an army overnight.”

“I can tell.” Will mused, surveying the partially destroyed castle swarming with Fae. That didn’t really present a problem. In fact, having this much population density all assembled above-ground would be helpful. “By the way, I gave the one who made the Relic Seed half your favors.” Will said.

“Seems fair,” Bakton said, nodding.

“…How many of those Fae do you think have bounties on them?” Will asked.

“…a decent amount of them, actually. One in a hundred, or so. Immortality gives the worst of ‘em plenty of time to commit heinous crimes and build up notoriety.”

Will did a quick headcount and some estimation.

Maybe some…30 bounties, huh? That’ll do.

Will didn’t just want to clear an unexpected route into the 10^th Floor, he also wanted to be overleveled when he did it. Bounties existed outside the Floor XP cap.

“You know, my second favor was going to ask you to put some bounties on these guys, but that’ll be plenty.”

Bakton glanced over at Will, his eyes widening. “You’re gonna kill them all at once somehow.” He accused.

Will winked his blind right eye before turning to his audience.

Mordaine was sitting in a palanquin hauled by creepy emaciated ebony-colored monsters with elongated muzzles and shiny, wet skin. He was accompanied by his children, who each had their own seats. His daughter bore a black-lace parasol, and was staring at Will hungrily.

Onacona stood with her arms crossed, scowling. She was fully-armed with her owl-feather cloak and bow, with what looked like a tiny copy of her standing in a similar stance, giving them a studied war-face undercut by her chubby cheeks.

“Mordaine, Onacona, good to see you. In a moment, I’ll begin the process of killing Kincaid. Is there anything you’d like to discuss before I begin?” Will asked.

“I’m not going to give you any hints on how to kill him if that’s what you’re asking,” Mordaine said, tapping his temple. “Those secrets are buried deep and locked away.”

Will blinked.

“…So he’s buried deep underground in a bunker?”

Mordaine froze for a breath.

“That’s…a guess that you could make.”

I really don’t need this castle, then, do I? Will thought.

“Onacona?” Will asked, turning to the huntress.

“I hate being outside my land. My interest in this farce is fleeting, and if this isn’t resolved quickly, I will slaughter everyone here.

“With arrows!” her tiny daughter shouted, pumping a tiny fist.

“Yes, daughter. With arrows.”

“Your daughter is adorable,” Travis said, seemingly appearing out of nowhere.

“Of course she is, I made her myself.” Onacona said, lifting her nose.

Will rolled his eyes.

“Alright, well, if no one else has anything to say, I guess I’ll get started,” Will said, clapping his hands before rubbing them together briskly.

Like a tradesman about to get to work.

Will didn’t know exactly what they were expecting from him. Maybe they thought he’d march stoically into the waiting arms of the thousands of fae manning the castle’s walls, and acrobatically battle them one at a time.

That seemed like a lot of work.

He was pretty sure they didn’t expect him to shoot straight up into the sky, disappearing into the noon-day sun, a cone of compressed air shattering around him.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Will used the beam of miasmatic light that continued straight up into the sky as a landmark to guide him, and once the air started getting thin a few miles up, he stopped right beside the beam, and began solidifying the air beneath him into a lens.

Four of his Phantom Snakes went out to the corners of his controlled area and expanded it further, making the entire lens nearly a mile wide from end to end.

The trick here was to get several miles up in the air and use a lens with a very gentle angle. That used less material for more area, and Will had noticed that greater angles caused bits of light to bounce away and get lost.

The land around Kincaid’s castle darkened to twilight as though an eclipse had blocked the sun, while the castle itself burst into radiant white light, the walls and roof beginning to smoke as the simple stone construction began to melt.

Phantom Eye

127 Charges remaining.

The fifth Phantom snake and an eye shot down to the ground, their purpose to churn the boiling pot of melting stone and kill anyone who tried to run.

As the castle began to melt, bounty tags began rolling in.

Floor-wide Alert!

Elkriver Misery has been engaged on Floor 9.

Elkriver is wanted dead for a-

Floor-wide Alert!

Nepath Handras has been engaged on Floor-

Floor-wide alert!

Onnon Gennith has-

Floor wide Alert!

B-

Floor wide Alert!

Floor wide Ale-

Floor wide-

Floor-

Fl-

No levels yet. They haven’t died. These guys are pretty tough, Will thought to himself.

Guess it’s time to stir the pot.

When Will had first conceived the idea, he’d pictured it like stirring a boiling cauldron, but in practice, he was surprised to realize that it worked a lot more like folding dough, as the melted portions of stone became sticky molten glass.

The light bearing down on the castle could only melt what it directly hit, so the exposed outer edges of the castle were bearing most of the heat, and the fae were largely tough enough to survive a few moments to seek shelter inside the castle.

That was when Will’s final Phantom Snake flew down to ground level and sent a ripple through the ground with Aspect that created an earth-spear that launched about an eighth of the castle over the rest of the castle.

Folding the castle like dough.

The white-hot melting exterior was folded in and new unheated castle bits were exposed to the concentrated sunlight.

Will repeated this process over and over, folding the hot outer portion of the fae castle inward while exposing unheated portions to the light, until the entire castle took on the appearance of a gooey lump of glowing dough with fully carbonized corpses sticking haphazardly out of it like ants.