Nimirea suddenly falls speechless to the revelation.

  “Y—you what?! Why do you bring nonsense romance into this?!” She suddenly is shouting.

  Jacob, however, starts shouting too.

  “Romance?! Who talked about romance?! As a friend!” He screams back. “Have you lost your mind?!”

  “Oh,” Nimirea now looks outraged. “Because it would be disgusting for you to even think about that?!”

  Jacob is stunned.

  “What?! What has that anything to do with this?! Who said that?!”

  “You did!” Nimirea says, with her brain momentarily overridden by the instinctual part of her being that she too often suppresses in favor of logic and rationality. “You can’t even imagine liking me romantically?!”

  “Of course I can!” Jacob sputters.

  Nimirea takes a deep breath and puts up her hands.

  “I’m not joining you, Jacob. I will kill you when the time is right. When you’re less pathetic and helpless, I’ll take your Skill and do with it what needs to be done.”

  “Why not join? Give me a good reason.”

  “We are following completely different ideals and you’ve still got six floors to clear before seeing the rest of your hopes shattered. And also, you don’t really like me. You liked what I showed you.”

  “I’ve seen much more about you than you thought you had shown me, I shall remind you,” Jacob says with a sly smile.

  “Then, why would you like me? In your words, I murdered innocents.”

  “If it was that easy, if you just liked someone based on what they do, things would be so much easier for everyone, wouldn’t they? There would be no ambiguity left.”

  “So, you like me, a murderer of innocents? Someone who would take your life right now if they could?”

  “That’s what makes it matter.”

  “That I’m a murderer?” Nimirea asks, consternated.

  “No. That I like you nonetheless. I would much rather have you and the other Dark Champions join us than have to kill all of you even though it would make for a much less satisfying outcome for you, I suppose.”

  “Jacob, I’m not old and I’ve killed more people than I can remember. I just murdered the Royal Prince in cold blood. How can that not matter to you? If you had killed as many people as I have, in your place, I would never forgive you.”

  “Yeah. You said it well. You don’t forgive yourself and you keep sacrificing yourself. Instead, I do. I do forgive. And even if what I wanted was meaningless, which it isn’t to me, your contribution could be rationalized into being more effective than your death. But I’m simply stating that I want to fight with you and not against you for the simple reason that that is how I feel.”

  “You’re… selfish,” Nimirea says, not finding any other word.

  “Everyone is. I’m just trying not to make excuses for it. Anyway, this… this sounds interesting, you know?”

  “What does?”

  “Have your worst enemy join you. That’s a good Quest. A Special Quest worth of a Champion, the Leader of the Champions.”

  “You…” Nimirea is speechless. “I will try to kill you.”

  “I mean, we already went from ‘I will kill you’ to ‘I will try and kill you’ just now. If that’s not boding well, then I don’t even know what would be a good sign.”

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Nimirea goes up to Jacob and punches him unconscious.

  “His glib tongue…” she mutters, looking at the collapsed form of him and the grievous injuries that cover all his body. “Idiot.”

  She takes out of her robe two small vials, uncorks them, and momentarily touches the liquid with her nail, activating one of her Skills, then tilts them in Jacob’s mouth.

  Instantly, all his wounds disappear as if they had never been there to start with.

  Nimirea goes to sit on the other side of the large room, trying to stay as far as possible from Jacob. After a few minutes, bored out of her mind, she returns to the snoring body of the Leader of the Champions.

  She kicks the body, knowing the sedative part of it will keep him out for twenty-four hours at the very least.

  “I don’t know why I even did this, you damn idiot,” she says, looking at the two vials that she discarded and threw on the ground. “Those are worth more than you could imagine. But… it’s just because I need you strong enough that I will be able to steal the Rainbow Skill...”

  Nodding to herself, she sits close to Jacob’s body, saying she should probably monitor him and that he may provide stress relief in the form of something to kick in order to release her frustration.

  * * *

  The fourth floor was just a repeat of the third with more Armored Demonic Insectoid Archers and Swordsmen.

  When I woke up, however, I felt a strange energized sensation that I had not expected when Nimirea punched my lights out. It goes without saying that, when someone knocks you out and you have still terrifying injuries over your body, you should wake up feeling like a convoy of metal carts ran you over. Instead, I feel like a million Mithril Coins.

  I look at the only possible explanation for this and I do her the favor of not even checking with the Grimoire.

  If she wants me to know, it’s probably good that I leave it to her to tell me in due time.

  But whatever Nimirea did to my body clearly made my entire system work better. I noticed in battle just now how, beside feeling the difference in power from the level-ups in my Skills, I could clearly feel how the increase in sheer physicality and Mana circulation made for a much smoother battle.

  Now, before entering the fifth floor, without exchanging as much as one word with Nimirea, I check on the most powerful Skill I’ve dealt with since the Grimoire.

  [Grimoire Analysis.]

  [Hellraiser Sword: deliver debuffs to your enemies together with your attacks.]

  I had to sacrifice three Skills in order to obtain Hellraiser Sword.

  I gave up on Hellbane’s Sword, Shadow Blade, and, surprisingly, it also ate Black Flame. Interestingly enough, the destructive power of Hellraiser Sword, so far, hasn’t been close to Black Flame. Black Flame sheer explosive power has not been achieved at all—yet, despite that sounding like a caveat, there’s a reason for it. A reason that I know because I raised the level of the Skills enough to unlock the effect that had been hidden away from me.

  [Hellraiser Sword, Effect #4: Black Burns: deliver a debuff that cannot be removed from anyone below True Diamond Rank by any normal means beside letting it expire. Black Burn inflicts ongoing internal damage to the target.]

  If this might not have sounded as impressive as one might have imagined, let me just explain something. For example, even though I’m stronger than before, the Armored Demonic Insectoids are tough. They’re very sturdy and, therefore, it’s much easier to kill them with Embrace of Darkness or a combination of debuffs and Tribulation of the Damned than straight damage.

  That means, however, that I need to deliver a lot of debuffs or to control the field enough that I can ensnare and kill enough enemies through Embrace of Darkness.

  Those are not easy things to do.

  Then, Black Burns comes around. With this, one simple slash, not a deep one mind you, can easily inflict crippling amounts of damage to my enemies. Slash the same monster four times with it? They’re done. I’ve seen some of the Insectoids just collapse on the ground without even showing any bleeding, without even piercing their flesh other than scoring superficial wounds on their chitin.

  Then, there’s the other three effects, each coming from different aspects of the sword getting through the skills I merged with it.

  The first seems to come straight from the fact that Hellraiser Sword is, well, a sword.

  [Hellraiser Sword, Effect #1: Bleed: deliver a debuff that cannot be removed from anyone below True Diamond Rank by any normal means beside letting it expire. Bleed makes each wound drain blood from the target at an exponential rate.]

  [Hellraiser Sword, Effect #2: Hellbane’s Mark: deliver a debuff that cannot be removed from anyone below True Diamond Rank by any normal means beside letting it expire. Hell’s Mark makes each debuff the target is already suffering more effective.]

  [Hellraiser Sword, Effect #3: Shadow Plague: deliver a debuff that cannot be removed from anyone below True Diamond Rank by any normal means beside letting it expire. Shadow Plague slows the Mana circulation of the target.]

  For example, stacking Hellbane’s Mark and Sigil of Baal has dramatically slowed the speed of the Insectoids and prolonged the duration of the debuff. I’ve tested it with a little group of stragglers before fully cleaning the fourth floor.

  I look at Nimirea, who’s been silent for the entire battle and just point at the portal.

  “Let’s go.”

  She doesn’t even reply and she simply waits for me to go through the luminous gate.

  When I step through and see the fifth floor, I frown.

  It’s the exact same thing of the fourth floor.

  [Welcome to the Fifth Floor of the Celestial Tower.]

  I guess not, I tell myself, with my eyes growing wider with the rest of the announcement.