The Fractured Tower - Book 1 - Chapter 1 - Awakening (Patreon)

                                                                                        Newborn Demon

The very first thing I feel is the sensation of some sort of tingling running through my skin. It feels strange. As if the air itself were poking and prodding at every exterior part of my body.

I slowly open my eyes to see a red and black tinted land spread out in front of me, with practically nothing there outside of dead land. It has no landmarks, no creatures, and no vegetation.

My thoughts pause at that, and I find myself blinking once in confusion.

Landmarks? Creatures? Vegetation? What are-

A splitting pain fills my head, causing me to close my eyes again before a flood of information fills my mind. Information about contracts. About the animals of Midgard. And about demons and humans.

About the realms of Midgard and Purgatory.

A few seconds pass before I open my eyes again with a new outlook on the world around me. I then slowly raise my head to look at the blood moon hanging in the sky, only to then turn my attention to my demon tower behind me. But at the same time, a notification from the great System appears floating in front of my face.

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System Notice

Newborn Demon Detected

Assigning newborn demon’s true name…

Complete.

Assigning newborn demon’s element…

Complete.

Assigning newborn demon’s class…

Complete.

Connecting newborn demon to the Purgatory network…

Connected.

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The notification then disappears, leaving me staring at my demon tower, just for everything to suddenly begin to warp before I find myself and my tower sitting in a different location. This new location has some sort of miasmic blizzard blowing through the frozen taiga around me.

Considering the blood moon in the sky, I’m still in Purgatory. But why did…

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Tower Notice

Unique ability Spatial Warp has activated.

Your tower has been sent to a random uninhabited location in Purgatory.

After five more warps, your tower will be sent to Midgard.

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My mouth parts open slightly, but I close it again before muttering, “Status,” out loud, making my status appear in the place of the notice.

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Svemir Adfail Archeron

Class: Spatial Demon

Element: Space

Unique Ability:

Spatial Warp –periodically teleports Svemir Adfail’s demon tower to a random location either in Purgatory or Midgard.
Spatial Displacement –tower’s outward appearance does not change even if the inside grows larger.

Level: 0-(0/10)

Mana: 10

Skills:

Spatial Bolt - Sends a bolt of spatial mana in the direction indicated that splits space wherever it strikes.

Current Contracts

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I read through the information before eventually looking up at the tower again.

Looks like I have a rare element… if these inherent memories are anything to go by at least. And if that’s the case, then things might be troublesome. In fact, I probably wouldn’t be free anymore if it weren’t for Spatial Warp.

Putting that aside for the moment, when I focus on my senses of the area, I find nothing except for the occasional unknown monster around me for as long as my aura can reach. Which means the Spatial Warp ability sends me somewhere far away from other demons.

I begin to walk towards my tower, slowly taking in every last detail of the structure as I go. It has one main tower at the center, with two smaller sub-towers connected to it, and a large red crystal at the top. Meanwhile the structure itself is mostly black with streaks of red here and there, along with a red energy floating around the top of the tower.

A strange sensation flows through me as I walk into the tower though. One that makes me subconsciously want to head directly towards the top of the tower, where the red crystal is.

So I make my way there, occasionally noticing some gargoyles – whose names and details I know for some reason – sitting on pedestals looking like simple stone statues. They have two short, bat-like wings, with a height of only about a meter while crouched down with their arms locked around their legs.

But the gargoyles aren’t the only defenses set up around the base of the tower. As I pass through the main floor of it, which stands tall with one major room holding one small spiral staircase at each corner of the room, my eyes quickly focus in on the observer floating next to the staircases with its one large glowing red eye slowly scanning across the area.

Unsurprisingly – considering that this is my tower – the large eyeball ignores me as I pass by under it to enter and climb the staircase to the next floor.

After I leave the staircase onto the second floor, I find myself in a long, surprisingly wooden hallway. With several banshees just calmly floating through the hall without paying me any mind.

Ignoring the defenders, I pass by them and through the hallway until I run into another staircase – one much longer than the last one. Even at the bottom of the staircase, I can already see the glowing red light from the crystal, making me wonder if I’ve really been all the way through the central tower already. But it’s confirmed as I climb the stairs to find myself on the tower with an immediate urge to touch the crystal.

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Spatial Tower

Level: 0-(0/10)

Monsters:

-Gargoyle – These monsters disguise themselves as statues when they are being looked at, with their defenses drastically increased during this.

-Banshee – These monsters may release a scream conjoined by a paralytic effect on whatever hears it.

-Observer – These monsters stay in place, obsessively guarding whatever section of territory they have in their charge with their high temperature heat vision.

Focus: Defense/Offense/Neutral

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At just a glance, I can tell that I can hide the monster descriptions by reaching out and touching the descriptions. And I can make them show again by touching the monster names.

I can also change the focus of the dungeon by selecting one of the three options.

My eyes narrow for a few seconds before I reach out to touch the Defense option.

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Spatial Tower

Defense Focus

This makes the tower develop with a focus on defending the tower from outside intruders.

Effects: The tower will increase in size as it levels, the monsters will revolve more around defending the tower from within it, and new traps will be developed by the tower for the use in defending it.

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That’s probably for the best. At least in my situation.

I swipe at the floating words before turning around again.

It looks like I have the knowledge of all of the monsters spawnable by my tower, and no others. If the unknown monsters on the edge of my aura are anything to go by at least.

After taking a few seconds to look out over the taiga around me, I focus on the crystal again. Or rather, at my reflection in it.

I have on a set of black armor, with a few rough black cloths draped over my shoulders and two glowing red eyes peeking out of my helmet. And despite the fact that none of my bare flesh is visible beneath my armor, I can somehow tell that I don’t have any visible flesh beneath it, even though I can still feel my own skin.

When I try to remember why, I realize that it has something to do with my space element messing with my body somehow.

Deciding to check it out, I take my gauntlet off to expose my hand, exposing a void of black, red, and flickers of purple in the form of a hand instead of my actual hand.

I turn it over one way, then the other, then back again before focusing on my reflection again.

“Interesting…” I mutter, my voice resonating slightly in an odd sort of way – likely due to my mouth being displaced in space as well.

How might this…

Before I can think any further on my body, I jerk my head in the direction of a fluctuation in space. One designating the beginning of a summoning request.

I close my eyes for a second to sense the Class of the contract offered by the summoner, only to nod to myself before accepting the summoning.

A flash of purple and red light envelops me and I quickly find my ethereal form floating above a summoning circle on Midgard, with the light snow and darker clouds blocking out the sky.

“Welcome, demon,” a male voice says, drawing my attention away from the sky to look around myself at the tower I now find myself standing at the top of. The tower seems to be placed in the middle of some sort of taiga in a place looking quite similar to the place I was at in Purgatory, but without anywhere near as much miasma, and obviously without the blood moon in the sky.

After a few seconds of observing, I turn my gaze to the man kneeling in front of me before identifying him.

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Arthur Freitman

Element: Ice

Level: 0

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I grimace behind my helmet at the abysmal amount of information given by identify, only to focus on the man in front of me. He has a pale blue cloak, with an average build and a staff set on the ground in front of him.

But my gaze soon narrows on the arrogant and slightly disappointed look on his face as he no doubt identifies me.

“A level 0? By the King, how did I get so bloody misfortunate?” the man mutters, not even bothering to hide his disdain in front of me.

I simply stare at him with disdain behind my helmet as he continues to mutter to himself.

“Although, that element… I’m not sure whether that’s strong or not. And an unknown might not help with the plan.”

This muttering continues for what must be an entire minute before he finally raises his hand, summons a spell circle, and pushes it out to me, sending a contract my way.

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Class E Contract with Arthur Freitman

Success Condition: You will eliminate the level 0 mayor – known by the name Frank Guther – of the nearby village of StoneFall within the span of three days.

Restrictions: You may not hurt Arthur Freitman unless under self-defense. You may not kill any human directly under the service of the Freitman Barony unless under self-defense. You may not leave the land under Baron Freitman. All of these restrictions last for the duration of the contract.

Failure Condition: You let the details of your contract and contractor known to others, you fail to eliminate the target within the three allotted days, or you die before completing the contract.

Failure Punishment: You will owe one free summoning to the individual Arthur Freitman that he can call on at any time.

Reward: 10 EXP

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I read and reread through the contract before eventually pressing my palm against the screen, signing it. I then feel my body being pulled from Purgatory into Midgard by the System to merge with my ethereal form.

“Do you have any questions about the objective?” the man – who I’m assuming is a noble, if the name of this land’s owner is anything to judge by – asks with a look on his face that says to hurry up.

Without answering him, I turn to look at the direction I feel a fain pulling sensation from. A frown spreads across my face at the sight of a small village with nearly three meter tall walls surrounding it a little over a couple of kilometers away. Within the village, several blue silhouettes appear outlined to my vision – that of the ‘humans under the service of the Freitman Barony’ if I had to guess – along with another red silhouette located closer to the center of the village.

Must be my target.

I turn back to the man who summoned me, who looks even more impatient than before with a blue silhouette outlining his body just like the ones in the village.

“No questions,” I answer him as I walk past the man towards the stairs of the tower.

Let’s see how my first contract goes.