Chapter 20: Chapter 20: Shrill shrieks fill the tower like the hissing of steam

Fire lashes out all around us.

Tendrils of magma whip and strike, splashing with red radiance out into all directions.

It sticks against their shields, against their armor, but the advance continues.

Floor five.

Floor ten.

Floor sixteen.

We proceed and progress and the core of the world, despite us delving deeper and deeper into the darkness, grows ever brighter.

The fires rise to meet us with every step. The heat comes to bathe us in its overwhelming presence, as if it were the ocean. The light of every blaze shines to meet our eyes.

— And in every crackle of flame and behind every glimmer of a spark, lies a monster.

Six men died on the way to floor sixteen.

Six men more lay dead at my feet.

I look back behind myself at the troop of soldiers, collecting beneath the nourishing umbrella that an ice and a water caster are creating.

We’re not even close.

The core is still eighty-four floors down.

We’re not even close.