Dario limped away, using his light Ki to cast an intense flare behind him. The cliffs in front were lit up bright as if they stood right beside the pillar. The distance was short, but each step he took brought a flash of agony so intense that he had to swallow down bile. Instead of trying to crawl up the incline or hide in a crevasse, he headed straight over shallow rocks, aiming for the explosive trap.

  Two hundred paces. He half-fell more than he walked, looking like he would crash onto the ground any second as he teetered forward, waving his arms. He had to fight the desire to just let it happen. Those dark grey sharp-edged rocks seemed to pull at him, looking almost as inviting as a bag of feathers.

  But he couldn’t give up. He couldn't die down here. He had to make it to the trap.

  The unsettling clicking and scraping of claws on stone grew nearer, but there were brief pauses that he took as hesitation. The flare had to be working, but he wouldn’t be able to keep it up for long. Soon, he’d run out of even light Ki and then he’d have nothing left. Nothing except that one arrow. He needed to get to the trap.

  He thought he could hear his ribs scraping against each other, but he pushed through the pain. A hundred more steps. Burning agony in his side and arm, his vision darkening around the edges. Almost there.

  Fifty more steps.

  The heavy clicking of claws grew suddenly faster, rapidly approaching. Acting on instinct, Dario threw himself to the ground. The pincer that would have taken his head off whooshed past, but a whipping tentacle grazed his leg.

  He was sent spinning like a disk through the air, cliffs and ruins flashing past, the remaining momentum driving him on into a rough tumble over the rocky ground. It was not at all like a bag of feathers.

  Yet the pain grew strangely distant and numb. When he rolled over to his back and opened his eyes, his vision was still dark. Had he gone blind? Only after pushing some light Ki in his eyes did he realize that the blob of darkness was Uso’s bulk, the monster towering over him as it greedily drank up the lingering brown smoke.

  “Delicious. Give me more.”

  This close, the distorted voice rumbled through his body, rattling his bones. Dario tried to speak but only a wet cough came out. He spat out a mouthful of blood.

  The monster grabbed him with an auburn pincer and lifted him up. He caught a glimpse of the surroundings and realized they’d move too far - past the trap. Damn it all. They’d been so damn close.

  “More,” it commanded.

  The pincer squeezed down on his ribs.

  Dario squealed with pain.

  “Okay,” he breathed, “Stop. Please. I… I want to stay in the Basement. I don’t need adventures. I don’t want to find treasure.” The words came out as a wet gurgle and he spat out more blood, growing weaker by the second, his vision fading. Uso shook with pleasure as it drank in the brown Ki, drawing it straight up from Dario’s chest. “I… don’t even like treasure. I…”

  Darkness was closing in and even the pain faded away. What was he doing? What was he saying? None of it was true, was it? He shouldn't go out mumbling a bunch of trogcrap.

  If he was going to die here, he should, for once, be honest with himself. Let his last words, at least, be true.

  Caught in a monster's claws, in that encroaching haze where he teetered on the brink of unconsciousness, Dario finally whispered his truths.

  “After father and Matteo disappeared to higher floors, I told myself I hated the draw the floors had on people. But it was never true. I’ve always wondered.”

  “What is this? Give me lies.”

  The pincer squeezed tighter, but Dario just grunted at the distant pain.

  “You wanted me to tell you a story, didn’t you? Here it is. Even before they left, as far back as I can remember, I wondered. I watched the ceiling and imagined going on great adventures. The truth is this: every time I look up, that longing burns in my chest.”

  "No!" Uso growled, shaking him.

  “You want to know the truth, Uso? I don’t just want it. I fucking yearn for it.”

  Stripes of green smoke rose up and Uso hissed, dropping him to the ground. Dario chuckled, tried to push himself up, but he was too weak. His seams were dry and his bones were broken.

  But he kept his mouth moving, kept whispering his truths, barely audible.

  “That desire is in my soul, Uso. I want to go on adventures. I want to find all the damn treasures.”

  Green Ki billowed out from his chest and he pushed it out around him. Uso flinched back, moving away from him. Acting on a faint memory, he took a bit of that green smoke into his seams. His muscles clenched - it was like a jolt went through his body. It hurt, but it was also strangely refreshing.

  He took in more of the electrifying Ki and used that wild energy to rush to his feet in sudden, jerking motions, like he was puppeteering his own body. A jittery laugh ripped from his throat, sounding wild and mad to his ears, like someone else’s voice. But the Ki filled him with vigour, gave him the strength to raise his voice.

  “I want to go out and explore,” he said, no longer a whisper.

  He advanced, pushing the green cloud forward to attack the giant parasite, but it was too fast. It rumbled something he couldn't make at out as it circled him, claws cracking stone as it looked for an opening.

  He spotted his bow, lying next to Uso. The quiver was still on his back. He breathed in deep, drawing in some more of the green Ki with each breath. There was still pain, but it was muted, washed away by the electrifying feeling.

  “I want to see all the wonders there are to see in Tenjou!”

  Even more Ki rose, a huge cloud of it surrounding him as he shouted, Uso backing away further. He picked up his bow.

  “Every single floor, Uso! Every dark corner, every strange plant and each dangerous creature! I want to see it all!”

  Dario laughed tauntingly as some of the green cloud rose and swept into his body. “What’s wrong, Uso? You wanted my story, right? Here it is. This is my truth.”

  He took the arrow from his quiver and nocked it to his bow. A single, pitiful arrow against a towering giant.

  But Dario was grinning.

  “There’s a saying, where I come from. If you tickle a trog’s ass, don’t cry if you get shat on. Bolt of truth!”

  What had the old man said? he thought, something about clamping down on the Ki.

  The green cloud of Ki swirled around the arrow, condensing into a bright, verdant band of energy, which pushed in further until it became a dense green ball, bound tightly around the shaft. He stepped forward even as Uso retreated, screaming his truth with each step, feeding more and more of the Ki of revelation around the arrow, until it was entirely covered in a dense layer of green.

  His final words came out in a drawn-out roar.

  “I.

  Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  WANT.

  TO.

  CLIMB!”

  The arrow left a thin trail of green smoke as it tore through the air. Uso raised his pincers, flaring brown Ki. But it pierced right through the black-brown carapace as if it were made of butter, striking through into Uso's corse. A heartbeat of silence as Uso pulled his claws in like a dying spider, then Dario released his grasp on the condensed Ki and it exploded into a cloud of smoke.

  Dario fell to a knee as Uso was covered in an eruption of green Ki, shrieking and thrashing, its horrifying voice distorting even more as it shrieked.

  His last truth was another whisper, swallowed by the parasite’s thundering screams.

  “But I still don’t want to be like them.”

  The final surge of verdant Ki was all sucked into his body, his muscles spasming as it roared through his veins. He bent forward, pushing his palms into the ground as he endured his ascension. The energy washed through his seams, seeming to stretch and smoothen them out, before sinking in.

  He finally noticed that Uso’s shrieking had stopped, so he lifted his head, panting. Smoke still rose from its mangled form, pincers gone, what remained of its shredded tentacles and cracked claws leaking ichor. It had all folded up into one knotted mess.

  But then it stirred. Dario shot up but grabbed at his ribs with a groan, the pain coming back now that the raw energy of his revelation had passed.

  The bunched up claws unfolded, some of them breaking off and splattering to the ground, but a few still worked, despite being marred. A huge mess of ruined tentacles and claws was discarded, revealing the thin, dried out body of the old man the parasite had once taken over.

  It had to have sacrificed most of itself to protect only its core. Four weak, chipped claws still worked, though barely, slowly lifting the host’s body up out of the pile of smoking gore. Dario took a shaky step forward, gripping his dagger. But then he noticed movement in the corner of his vision, up on the cliff.

  Was that Nika?

  ***

  She had been ready to strike when Dario intervened, but it had not been a bad thing. Caught off guard by yet another surge in power, she’d been in a poor position to strike from. Success had not been guaranteed. Still, leaving Dario to face the parasite alone was a recipe for disaster, so she went after them, despite her leg wound slowing her down.

  Those pincers were problematic. The counter was obvious; they’d been sculpted from the auburn Ki, so they should be vulnerable to the Ki of truth. Only, that was a quickly dwindling resource and she wasn’t sure why.

  Was it the nature of personal truths, that they should weaken over time? It was not the case for the teachings of virtue; those principles still shone as bright in her mind as they had for years. Yet she had to admit, each time she repeated her revelation, it felt less loud than it had before, like a bell that lost a bit of itself each time it was rung.

  She was holding up a hand to cover her eyes from the bright glare Dario was channeling behind him, then sucked in a sharp breath as she saw that Uso must have spotted him. The giant parasite sped up, skittering after Dario with unsettling speed, then swiped with pincer and tentacle.

  Dario barely escaped with his life, but he was knocked out of her line of sight, behind the cliff, Uso following after. If she went around, it might be too late. Taking a small gamble, she dragged herself forward up the incline.

  As she moved, she regularly swept her Ki through the surrounding stone to gather even more Ki of heft into her seams. A large amount already sat like a white mass in her body, far more than she’d ever wielded before. The strange Ki had gotten heavier with each bit that joined that white mass, like carrying the weight of a boulder inside of her, but still she pushed on up the rocky slope.

  I desire my father’s approval.

  She could not deny the revelation's truth, yet something nagged at her each time it was repeated. It was true that she loved her father and likely also true that his frequent absence had contributed to her desire to gain his approval.

  But the trouble with that revelation was this: it was a little girl’s wish, and she was not a little girl anymore.

  After being thoroughly humbled by her defeats and struggles on this floor, she had shed the last of her youthful naivety. She was a woman now, a woman who’d been tried and tested and whose ambitions still stood strong. There were plenty of other things she desired despite her father’s approval. She returned to the conclusions of her meditations, which had revealed that she wanted herself, society and her clan to thrive.

  Uso’s rumbling voice reached her through the rocks. The insidious parasite was demanding lies from Dario. That could not be good. She sped up, driving her aching arms to move faster as she climbed the final stretch.

  Again, there was something there, like a festering splinter stuck underneath her skin. The ancestors were not beyond reproach. Her clan was not beyond reproach. What if they were faced with a fresh crisis, as calamitous as what had transpired on this floor. Would they flee again, even if it stained their virtue and reputation? Would they cover up the truth, which they must at least have been part of, for this tale to have been lost to history?

  She could hear Dario’s voice, saw tiny wisps of green smoke drifting up into the air as she crested the final ledge. He was fighting back. Good.

  Yet when she finally rose on top of the cliff to see the fight unfolding below, it looked like Dario had things well in hand, though he looked quite a bit worse for wear. Finally, he was speaking his revelation, which was so obvious it was almost painful. Somehow, even in this state, he managed what she had failed to do: controlling the slippery green Ki of truths. He wrangled the energy in a way that it was condensed down into his arrow, which resulted in an explosion that entirely covered a shrieking Uso.

  Still, it might not be enough to destroy that resilient vermin, so she began to drive the ponderous aspect of heft through her seams and out into her fists. It was like wearing a pair of thick boron vambraces, the heavy weight pulling her arms down to hang by her sides.

  Smoke rose from Uso's ruined remains, though she thought she spotted a bit of movement. She considered her revelation as she fought to lift her arms up.

  Yes, she certainly wanted her father’s love and approval. That was true still and it would not soon go away, perhaps not ever. But there was another desire that had been growing in her as the darker history of her clan was revealed.

  Below, Uso somehow still lived, covered in ichor as it rose again from a disgusting pile of discarded limbs.

  “My name is Veronika Houjo,” she proclaimed loudly, lifting her arms up high. “And I want to better my clan.”

  Using the obsidian Ki that still ran through her seams, Nika empowered her legs and took a mighty jump off the cliff. Air rushed around her as she pushed the cloud of green Ki to below her feet, while her arms still held what felt like a giant boulder of heft above her head.

  She came down with a roar. Uso spotted her and a pitiful amount of brown Ki surged up as it tried to scuttle away, but it was too late. The green cloud washed down over it, the parasite shrieking as its carapace and skin hissed and bubbled. It may have already been enough to finish it off.

  But then she finally brought her arms down, letting go of all that terrible weight she’d been carrying around for days.

  The weight of a mountain came crashing down. Uso crumpled like a piece of parchment as a wide circle cracked around him, sinking deeper into the stone. His carapace was pulverized, the discarded limbs all squished together, ichor spraying out like a fountain.

  After that one deafening crunch, everything was still. In the distance, a fire sizzled out, leaving behind the blackened bones of a bear. She heard someone talking, then turned around to look at Dario. It was too quiet to make out what he was saying, so she limped over to him.

  “What was that?”

  He looked unusually pale yet still he grinned at her.

  “You should have called out your move. What a waste,” he said in a weak voice. “You could have cried, I don’t know… something like ‘Tenjin’s hammer!’, or whatever.”

  Her lips curved into a smile of her own. “Naming moves? Like in a child’s tale?” She shook her head. “You might as well just tell your opponent what you plan to do next.”

  Dario’s chuckle turned into a weak cough. “Didn’t help that guy to dodge my Bolt of Truth,” he said, nodding his head over at Uso’s squished remains.

  A wet, squelching sound had them snapping their heads around. Dario got to his feet with a groan, gripping his dagger, while Nika cycled her Ki.

  A small, thin figure rose up from the crater, covered in black gore.

  “You’ve freed me,” the dried out old man said in a weak, rasping voice. “I owe you my eternal gratitude!”

  The both of them exchanged a confused look as what looked like a walking corpse with broken bones took a few shaky steps toward them.

  “It looks like the taint is gone,” Dario muttered, eyes blazing with Ki. “Except maybe a tiny bit in the neck, but I can’t be sure from this distance.”

  “I’ve been Uso’s slave for centuries, but you’ve finally vanquished him! I can hardly believe it. I’m free, finally free! Please, allow me to repay you!”

  “Do you have treasure?” Dario called out. Nika shot him a disapproving look.

  “Treasure? No, my belongings are long gone, I’m afraid. But I have knowledge! Long-forgotten secrets! Where are you headed? The Floor of Osmosis? Or the Floor of Saturation? I can guide you!”

  Nika’s brows lifted. She’d never even heard those names. Was he talking of the Basement and the Floor of Mists? Perhaps this old man could indeed become a valuable ally.

  The man seemed to gain in strength, swaying only slightly as he stepped closer.

  “Watch out!” Dario suddenly cried out, lifting a hand. “There’s a-”

  BOOOOMMMM!

  Nika flinched back, shielding her face with an arm from the huge explosion, a blast of air slamming into them as long tongues of fire licked up the cliff face. Shards rained down around them for a few moments, clattering on the stone, and then the both of them stood there, dazed and blinking at a giant, smoking crater where the old man had been standing.

  Dario coughed into his fist. “So… Later, when we tell this story… Maybe we’ll just leave this part out.”

  Silence stretched for a while as they looked at the destroyed and the gloomy ruins of the Asomatous Floor, until Nika cleared her throat.

  “By the way, I must have misheard in the heat of battle. What was it you claimed to have done to my precious seeker?”