They do.

The vote was one against (Gnome), two undecided about (John and Aclysia) and three for (Undine, Sylph, and Salamander) advancing deeper. Therefore, they jumped into the portal and were thrown out in a new environment. Where they now found themselves was a network of black towers, build in a medieval fort style and connected through bridges that were held up by stalactite-like pillars that ended in a sea below that glimmered softly. The bridges connected to all sorts of segments of those towers but they were currently on the ceiling of one. John looked up and found nothing but a black void in place of the sky. ‘Boring,’ he thought and instead searched for either enemies, a hint at the secret room or whatever that thing Gaia would have prepared for him would be.

He found neither the former nor the latter, but he did see a suspiciously decorated tower. Lines of gold were hammered into the black, and at the base, he spied something akin to a giant door. That was either the boss room or a Secret Room. He would take the bet, “Let’s go there,” he ordered, and the moment he set foot on the bridge that would bring him to the next tower an arrow flew into his direction. Having deactivated Mana Protection, it hit him in the foot, dealing 74 damage. John clicked his tongue and took a step back; then he pulled out the arrow as it dealt ticking damage and he did not want that. Compared to what else had lived through at this point, it barely even hurt, there was an Endurance bonus at play too though.

Speaking of that he was only mildly happy with the bonuses it got him. Sure, the fuckload of HP he now had was pretty good, but the synergistic bonus with Strength 25 was a measly 0,5% max HP per hour regeneration, and with Agility 25 it was ‘Pain Tolerance 1’ which helped him with the foot situation right now but generally was less useful. As he was unwilling to raise Stats that didn’t help his build more than he already had he was now back to Wisdom boosting.

“Are you fine, master?” Aclysia asked, always worried when something happened to him, “I should have taken the lead, I apologize.” “It was my fault, don’t worry about it,” John said as he used the bee to spy the tower ahead. ‘Okay, so there are stairs inside’ he mentally noted and followed these stairs to find a half goat demon archer.

‘Name is super tasteless,’ he thought and sighed, measured the distance with his eyes. The Satantyr’s eyes were turning, he clearly heard the bee, but his concentration lay with John, which was fine by the Gamer. Mana Ray’s current range was 248 metres, 100+4*Skilllevel, he guessed that the next tower was about 200 away, give or take twenty. That was within range. John raised his hand used the spell, counted down ‘2 – 1’, then the beam instantly traveled the whole distance and hit the monster square in the head. Complete luck really, he had been aiming for the chest.

‘The broader my toolset becomes, the less I respect dungeon mechanics,’ he thought and scratched behind his ear. He saw the Satanyr get up and now try to attack the bee, but he just flew out of the window. “Sylph, can you deal with that?” he requested. “Roger, roger,” Sylph said in a fake robot voice and flew the 200 meters in about 6 seconds. There was a flash of green light, and then John got some EXP. ‘Dunzo, you can come now, hurry up~’ Sylph let them all know.

“I swear to Krieg, that girl will break the sound barrier eventually,” Salamander said as they crossed the bridge safely. “Not impossible,” John admitted, “seeing however that I could have evolved you into a source of gamma radiation I think that’s pretty fair.” “You could have done that? Sounds rad,” there was a pause, then Salamander snickered, “Oh, nice, me, a Fallout pun.”

John chose to ignore Salamander's bad joke and carried on instead. Using the bee to spy on and then neutralize the Satantyr within each tower they advanced slowly. Their strategy had to change for every encounter, although the ground structure was always the same. Step 1: Get rid of whatever Archers or Spear throwers there were with Sylph and Salamander, Step 2: Storm the Tower, Step 3: Kill everything.

The Satantyr hang out in groups of one to ten, so the fights greatly varied in difficulty. “So, Undine,” John asked as the two flying members of the group fought four archers at the top of the next tower. The show of the pale green and the red band of energy always was a spectacle. “Any more information on that thing Gaia has prepared for us?” They were still heading for the gold decorated tower in the distance; it would take them at least an hour to get there at their current speed.

‘No, only here,’ came the short musical answer. “Okay,” John shrugged, the goal was unchanged then, he would have given Sylph mana so that she could just blow the Satantyr of the roof, but he currently was a bit short on mana thanks to the Vessel fight. Sure, he would have recharged it all in the time they would have gotten to that gold tower but as the old wisdom went ‘Better safe, than sorry.’

The last of the Satantyr eventually toppled over the railing, and the burning body crashed into the bridge below. Sylph quickly returned, Salamander needed a few seconds more. “Why do I have to do missions with you?” Salamander lamented. “Huh? What is wrong with me Sally, what? I thought you think of me as sexy, what is wrong with doing stuff with me? HUH! I JUST REALIZED, I STILL DIDN’T GET MY GUMMY BEAR! Johnnie this an impossible thing, you promised so you are supposed to remember for me! Don’t mind that we will talk about it later, so what is wrong with me, Sally?” “That,” was Salamanders complete answer to this waterfall of words.

John crossed the bridge to the constant sound of everyone ignoring Sylph, who did not mind and blabbered on. ‘Here goes praying that she forgets about the Gummy Bear for the fifth time,’ John thought, he was still afraid of what would happen if he gave Sylph sugar.

It took a lot more encounters until they finally arrived at their destination. Unlike the other towers, the bridge for this one actually brought them to some form of a natural plateau, a lot like the ones on the ninth floor. On top of that stood the building that, as John now realized was actually a single piece of stone instead of stacked bricks like the towers. The golden lines that were worked into this singular piece only had the illusion of a brick building. Interrupting the perfect cylindrical form of this tower was a flat door that grew outwards of the main building. The gate was made from some kind of dark wood, steel nails hammered inside (or some magic alloy that looked like steel), aside from being about five times taller than he was it didn’t look all that great.

“I guess this is it then,” John said and clicked the yes. “Do they have a giant mirror in here or what is this reflection about?” he joked as the door slowly swung open towards the inside. His whole being froze when he looked inside.

The room behind he very much doubted belonged in that tower. It was about as big as the ground floor of his house. The red carpet laid on everything, it had been a dark red, unblemished and clean like the first day if it wouldn’t have been for the darker spots of dried blood all around. The carpet went over into a golden skirting, most of it hidden by scattered and ruptured innards, the hazel brown walls had a disgusting second layer of similar nature. From the high ceiling, a chandelier hung, dozens of light bulbs sitting in an arrangement of brilliantly cut glass, the only still clean part of the room.

Amidst a circle of corpses, most of which were in black robes, other in Soviet uniforms and a small minority of people that had their unique style each, stood two figures. One was a half-Japanese girl with stunning blue eyes in which a pink hue was about to fade, despite the blemishes on her body and face and even though she was clearly in pain, with her unruly pink hair she was the most beautiful woman to John. Rave was kneeling there, and above her, hand on his loves throat stood Thana.

She was small, not as small as Sylph but definitely on the smaller side of things. Her white hair grew to her chin, a slight blue tinge to it that turned azure at the tips. Her wide open, big eyes were like shattered gemstones of violet, two rings within, an outer one that was complete and thin, and one closer to the iris, made of six golden dots around the pitch-black at the center. Her figure was quite attractive, and for a girl her size she had big breasts, around a C-Cup but was overall thin. She would have been quite stunning if not for the black dots that stuck out of her translucent white skin like ugly piercings.

She smiled insanely, inhuman teeth, grotesque and sharp, revealed. “You came too late,” she spoke and broke Rave’s neck with nothing more than an off-handed motion, “Now she is dead, and so are you, Bloodburn,” she spoke the word, like any other, and wings of inhuman fire ignited behind her like perverted angel wings. John was frozen; he couldn’t move, this scene. Thana’s clawed hand rushed to his head, the bone claws grasping for him like a demon.

It was Aclysia who pulled him back; the claw missed him by a hair’s width. “Master, calm yourself,” “C-calm myself?!” John stuttered and looked at Rave’s blemished and broken body, the physical example that he had failed, that he would fail, that he was failing. “I am dying anyway, I might as well eradicate your whole hometown while I am still alive,” Thana said and cackled, “Yes, yes, yes and then I go to Washington and track your parents, that bit of time I should still have.” During her monologue she let John walk right by her and to Rave’s corpse.

He picked her up; he heard distance voices, Salamander, Sylph, Aclysia, Gnome, none of them mattered anymore. He had lost. He had lost her. For the second time, he had lost her and now all he could do is cry and wait for the end, wait and hope that he wouldn’t end up in hell for this failure. He felt shockwaves of a battle behind him, but he did not care.

A soothing cool enveloped John; it spread over his back, his shoulders, arms, and legs, his chest. Slowly it even enveloped all of him, only leaving space to breathe. For a moment he thought that he was dying, then he heard Undine’s voice, clear as glass, ringing in his thoughts. ‘John, calm yourself,’ she instructed. ‘How can I, she is dead!’ John answered, too deep in grief to doubt. ‘Calm yourself,’ she repeated, ‘Calm, focus your turmoil where it belongs.’

He was pulled far away, remembered the vision of his and Undine’s contract. He remembered being but a drop in the ocean, an individual, little particle with an endless amount of himself. The sea was moving, all of him and everyone else was moving. ‘There is a purpose to each wave,’ Undine whispered, ‘each of them has a cause, each of them a destination.’ The water in its entirety started to be drained, but it didn’t vanish it just was pulled to somewhere else, ebbed away, ‘Calm yourself.’

John finally did, his thoughts were in balance, ‘resist the causeless and aimless feelings inside you, be serene and realize the truth,’ she spoke, and Undine guided him to the eyes of their other party members. Aclysia saw Thana up close, her inhuman teeth, shouldn’t these be perfect human ones? Sylph was the focus of Thana’s eyes, shouldn’t the golden dots be circling? Salamander attacked Thana, her burning wings, shouldn’t they be made from the fire of humanity, of blood? Gnome blocked a strike by Thana’s claws, shouldn’t they too have been made of blood, instead of bone?

The mistakes revealed themselves to John, the storm was gone, ‘I have reached serenity,’ he told Undine. ‘And you have realized the lie, now realize your feelings, what are they?’ ‘I am afraid of Thana, because of her power, but I will need to face her because I love Jane.’ ‘But this is not Thana, what do you feel towards this monster?’ ‘Anger, for showing me what I want to lose the most,’ there was a roaring in his spirit as an infinite amount of water came rolling back. Undine’s voice, mind-shatteringly loud, overcame even this roar, ‘and what will you do with this anger?’ ‘Aim it with purpose at the one that caused it,’ his answer was the tsunami that rolled out of his thoughts and into reality as he dropped the mannequin in his arms, the illusion of Rave shattered and rammed a Mana Blade through the back of the creature.

As it was impaled with the cleansing purity of water, the imitator of Thana cried and hissed. The thing's illusion fell apart, revealing a formless body of sickly color shifting tar, grown fat of John’s, even so short-lived, misery.

“You will die,” John said with cold certainty. He normally felt no remorse for killing the beings in these dungeons, however sapient they appeared they were just parts of his ability and only lived because he used a skill. He had however never taken enjoyment in the act of killing. He felt clever at times or was satisfied when he overcame a hurdle, yes, sometimes he had a lot of fun executing convoluted plans, but never before had he been looking forward to just ending some life.

His thoughts were serene, and his anger pointed at the only just target. This was the lesson of water, be clear of mind and know where which energy belonged. “Sylph!” he said as he conjured another Mana Blade. The Illusion was broken, he didn’t need the cleansing property of water, he needed the sharpness of Wind. “You got it, boss!” Sylph obeyed, and one hundred mana was sacrificed in order to create a blade long and strong enough to cut through the now defenseless being.

The two halves wanted to reunite, “Salamander, burn it to cinders, take as much as you need” he instructed and opened his mana to her. “You are speaking my language,” the blaze elemental said and dug her spiritual fingers into him. Last time it had hurt as she tried to take what wasn’t hers, this time John allowed it, and so he only felt a slight tug at his soul, indeed it felt like part of him was carried away at that moment and replaced with something else, something that belonged to Salamander. In turn, all of his elementals took a share of his soul and his mana as they destroyed the Fear Eater.

One half of it survived the inferno and was met by a cage of water, ‘You impure being,’ she sang. “We will not absolve,” Sylph chirped and lightly touched the sphere of water, electrical currents pulsed through. “For you have angered the sum and the parts,” Gnome spoke slamming two walls of stone together around the Fear Eater. The walls crumbled and left only a miserable shadow of the former mass the being had been before. “So, die motherfucker,” Salamander ended the being in another short burst of flame.