Tower of Paradise

Was there more than one?!

I observed the mutant on the ground looking around. I was suspended in the air, my right arm gripping my spear that I had firmly embedded in the marble wall.

KathyIn clung to my neck desperately, her arms wrapped around me like a koala while her legs tightened around my waist to avoid falling into the void. The position was uncomfortably intimate; even through my armor, I could feel the pressure of her budding breasts against my torso. Her face was so close to mine that I could sense the trembling of her rapid breathing.

Below us, at the intersection where four paths crossed forming a perfect cross, that hybrid monster prowled, inspecting the frozen ground with its eight articulated legs. We couldn't go down, not while that thing was still there.

Suddenly, I felt the spear tilt slightly downward. A chill ran down my spine. There was a limit to the weight it could support or perhaps to the time it would resist being embedded in that wall. My arm, enhanced with stellar energy, could maintain our weight without problems, but the wall itself seemed about to give way.

I mentally calculated our situation: we were more than five meters from the ground and, if we fell now, we would land directly on the mutant's exoskeleton. The mental image of what would happen afterward turned my stomach.

Tick!

The spear tilted again, this time at a greater angle. A small fragment of marble detached from the wall. The instant it fell, it would alert the monster to our position. I felt my heart stop as I watched that tiny piece of stone slowly separate.

The fragment yielded to gravity as if wanting to seal our fate. My soul seemed to descend along with that small stone. With a reflex movement, I tried to move my right foot to intercept it, making it bounce off my boot, but failing to catch it.

Damn it!

When I had already given everything up for lost and was mentally preparing for a fighting death, KathyIn performed a maneuver that left me speechless. With a flexibility that defied my understanding, she crossed her legs behind my waist to secure herself and, with her head down, extended her left hand as far as she could, catching the stone fragment in the last second.

I grabbed her other hand that was floating in the air and helped her return to her original position, preventing her from losing balance and both of us falling.

I sharpened my senses. A subtle but unmistakable sound reached my ears: footsteps. They were clearly human, and they were approaching.

The creature must have heard them too, because it ignored the vertical intersection where we were hiding and advanced through the horizontal corridor, away from us. I didn't know how much bad luck that unfortunate person approaching would have, but it was evident they wouldn't survive with two of those things lurking.

I took a deep breath, tensing every muscle in my body. With a quick movement, I extracted the spear that still remained embedded in the wall and we fell to the ground. KathyIn still clung to my neck, with her legs extended as if she were a rescued princess from some fairy tale.

— Focus on the mutant's location and warn me when it approaches.

Without giving her time to respond, I placed her body over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes, holding her with my left hand while wielding my spear with my right. I began to run as fast as my enhanced legs would allow me.

— We have to hurry and get out of here. —I muttered, more to myself than to her.

— Is this the right way? —KathyIn asked with a faltering voice, evidently confused by the sudden change of direction.

— I don't know. —I answered frankly—. The only thing that matters now... is that we must hurry.

We found multiple bifurcations in our route and reached dead ends twice, which forced me to constantly recalculate our route.

Fortunately, thanks to KathyIn's ability to sense the mutant's presence through the pigeon with which she shared her senses, we managed to avoid any additional encounters with that creature.

I continued running until reaching a new corridor covered with small stones scattered everywhere. This detail gave me hope; it meant we were near the end of the labyrinth. We just had to continue straight ahead and...

As I advanced, I passed by another corridor that opened to my left. At first I didn't see it as I was focused on the path ahead of me, but when I instinctively turned my head, I witnessed something that froze my blood.

What the hell?!

In the middle of a pile of rubble, another reptile-spider was chewing on the stomach of a man bathed in blood. Its six legs stomped on the floor soaked with crimson liquid.

The mutant's six indifferent, crimson eyes looked into the distance as it chewed, with streams of blood running down its chin.

Seeing that the creature's legs were occupied, the man who was behind shouted and lunged forward brandishing his long spear. Without turning its head, the monster extended one of its upper arms, grabbed the individual's head with an iron grip and squeezed, crushing the poor man's skull like a soap bubble. A moment later, the headless body fell to the ground in a bath of blood.

In panic, I realized that this mutant was not the one KathyIn had been monitoring through her mental connection.

I didn't stop. The time limit of my private attribute was about to expire, and when it did, neither of us would have any chance of escape.

The reptile-spider saw me in a second and began chasing us. The monster ran with its six legs like a furious cheetah while stretching its two arms, eager to catch new flesh.

This isn't going to end so easily, I thought. Don't get distracted. Keep running. It's not over yet, you still can't give up.

— Arceus! —KathyIn's urgent voice pulled me from my thoughts.

— What?! —I responded abruptly, without stopping my race.

— Well... —she hesitated.

— "If it's not urgent, then tell me later!" —I snapped, mentally calculating how much stellar energy I had left.

— It's just... the other mutant is approaching! —Her voice trembled with fear.