Jake locked eyes with the last Tainted, the goblin that had transformed. Now that they had dealt with the others, it was the only one left.

"What do we do with it?" he asked.

"Hmm, let's start by capturing it," John said. The moment those words left his mouth, the Tainted turned heel and dashed running again, moving three times as fast compared to before.

"Crypt, follow," Jake said, and Crypt immediately gave chase. John didn't slack behind either; he ran after the Tainted with shocking speed.

Jake unsummoned his Tainted and also ran behind. He was fast, but he couldn't compare to those two, so he relied on his connection to Crypt to find them.

After a few minutes of running, he arrived at the entrance to a tower. Crypt and John were also standing outside the tower, just looking at it.

"What's happening?" Jake asked.

"The tower—can't you feel it? There is a thick abyssal energy flowing from the top. Something is up there, and that goblin ran in there," John said.

"I thought you said this was still close to where humans are?" Jake asked.

"Normally yes, but it seems we have gone deeper than we thought. I have never seen this tower before, and what makes it worse is that it is in reasonably good condition.

Even if the building doesn't collapse, weathering and the elements should work on it. This one shows no signs of that—well, not to a damaging level," John explained.

"So what do we do now?" Jake asked.

"Verify from the map we have," John replied and took out the map. He stared at it, looking for their position. When he saw where the tower was on the map, he blinked twice, cleaned his eyes, and looked again. Seeing that they were still there, he held the map with one hand, drew on his cigar, and let out a puff.

"Kid, we somehow made it into the mid sections of the ruin," John said.

"Wait, what does that mean?" Jake asked.

"You see, the ruin is classified into three sections and one additional section. The first is the outer section—that's the place we come through—and going a bit deeper is where the adventurers hunt monsters and beasts that are there, along with gathering some ancient materials that can be useful.

But then there is the mid section, and that's where the real trouble begins: stronger monsters, harder to navigate, entirely unpredictable.

Beyond that is the inner section, and that's just a no-go area. Only a small part of the inner section of the ruins has been mapped out. The final additional part of the ruin is called the area of the final trial.

It's believed to be the location where the final part of the trial that happened here took place, and for some reason, that place is entirely chaos.

But that's beside the point. The tower in front of us is from the mid section, so we have somehow found ourselves in the mid section," John said.

"So what do we do now?" Jake asked.

"Initially, I wanted to warm you up to the outer section and allow you to see the ruins more, but I guess we have to skip that," John said. He put away the map and walked to the tower.

"Experience is the best teacher. That Tainted might have some connection to the flow of Tainted in the ruins—same with this tower," he said. He pushed the double wooden doors open, their hinges creaking loudly as they opened.

Jake followed behind John. He walked into the tower, followed by Crypt. The inside of the tower was pitch black, so John lit his sword ablaze, and they used the flames as a torch.

The first floor of the tower was entirely empty. The only thing there was the spiral stairs that led up, so they got on the stairs.

"Be careful. Regardless of how good it looks, this place has existed for hundreds of years without maintenance," John said.

They tried their best to make sure they didn't make any loud noise as they went up. They ascended slowly. The higher they got, the more they felt the energy coming from the top.

"Something terrifying might be on the top," John whispered.

"Are you sure we can survive if we get there?" Jake asked.

"Well, that's left to be seen," John replied.

When they finally made it to the door that led to the top floor, John took out his cigar and dropped it, stepping on it to kill the flame.

"Something dangerous is inside that room, master," Crypt said.

"Crypt is right. I can feel a terrifying soul within that room. Be careful, Jake," Drake warned.

[Honestly, even my sensors are blaring danger.]

Jake had never once had all three of them tell him about a danger, so he immediately knew that whatever was inside that room, it was definitely terrifying.

"John, something is inside there, and it's terrifyingly strong," Jake said.

"Hmmm? You can tell?" John asked.

"Yes," Jake said. "Should we go back and call for backup?"

"No, there's no telling if that creature will remain here by the time we come back, and if we lose it now, there's no telling when we'll find anything tangible inside the ruins again," John said.

Screeeeeeech.

Suddenly, they heard a loud screeeeeeech from inside the room—a cry of pain. As if taking that as his cue, John kicked the door of the room open and stormed in.

But what he saw made him freeze. Jake walked in behind him, and there he saw it: a massive black snake with two heads. It was as wide as two grown men lying side by side, and its length covered the entire room.

But that was not the kicker. The snake had two heads, and one of those heads was eating the goblin that had run in here. It kept screeching until the snake bit into its head and decapitated it, letting the rest of its body fall.

But there was one more thing that drew attention: a large purple egg sitting at the very end of the room, surrounded by some reddish glowing stones that illuminated the room as well.

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