"Why you asked?" Darian smiled and said. "There is no particular reason behind it. When I ascended the combat tower in my time, I could not get particularly far. I reached a point where the floors ahead of me were beyond what I could manage, and when I was asked whether I would be willing to leave behind a soul fragment to be used as a warrior for future contestants, I agreed. It seemed simple enough at the time. If I could not go far in this tower myself, then I decided that I could at least make sure others would have a difficult time going far either. That was the entirety of my reasoning."
Max nodded calmy but inwardly he was sneering at Darian.
The reasoning Darian had offered was not merely unconvincing. It was, when examined against the reality of what giving up a soul fragment actually meant, so structurally flawed that Max found it difficult to understand how anyone could expect it to hold together under the weight of basic scrutiny.
