The new location gave the group a familiar panorama.
Massive, deformed chunks of meat were spread about wildly, some lucky enough to form into broken shapes such as trees, some nearly spherical, and many that created small hills that were strangely climbable. These smoothing on the rough exteriors of the hills created the impression that built trails on them for human passage.
Humans would not be passing over these small hills, instead the group's next goal was the towering mountain range in the distance.
If one mountain was difficult enough, they'd be traversing an entire collection of mountainous structures of blood and bones.
Everyone was transported without many injuries. A few of the defenders had gotten hurt during their conflict with the flesh monsters, chunks of their flesh torn and absorbed into the carnivorous mass. Esme quickly tended to those injuries and brought them back to a state where they could fight without discomfort. There was enough medical supplies to tend to injuries without Esme, but those were being saved for a more dire circumstance.
"Hm…" Worthy was humming aloud as the group walked towards the mountain range.
Currently, he was thinking of something of increasing importance. There was not a lot of time for him to think, with the continuous threat of death around each corner, so he used this time well.
"The Mountain Pilgrims…"
"Blood-soaked Pilgrim Coalition…"
Worthy thought he heard someone behind him groan at the names. Quickly, he deduced that the man must've been groaning about his injuries from battling.
Of course, there was no one from the rearguard here, in the middle of the traveling pack.
Not everyone had the benefit of hearing Worthy's incredulous naming sense. Some of them were now already exhausted from the climb, but were walking thanks to the rejuvenation of a few different Rewards, including War and Esme's.
Without them, the momentum of the group would've slowed down tremendously once they reached the first mountaintop. Now, they were going to need to reach another.
Worthy heard some people talking in the distance:
"How much of what he said do you believe? Is there really a chance that something can destroy the Devil's Den, or any settlement for that matter?"
"C'mon, pal. You know just as well as me that settlements can fall fast. Prime Settlements? Mmm, I'd say it'd be impossible for anything I've seen so far. But we don't know the limits of the tower. Nobody has ever explored a full floor, there's bound to be something treacherous at the edge of the world."
"That's an unnerving thought. What do you think is at the edge of the world? I doubt it's some kind of unspeakable monster, we have enough of those as it is."
The man thought, and then replied, "If anything is at the edge of the world, I think it'd be our wishes. People come into the tower to have their wishes fulfilled, right? Maybe the tower keeps them stored somewhere that we can't reach."
The other man raised his brow and asked, "Our wishes? Not the answer to our wishes, but just the wishes?"
"Well, I'm just thinking about it from the perspective of something imperceivable. Humans expect to have their wishes magically fulfilled by saying them out loud, but I'd bet there's something more to it. Maybe the towers learn from us by sampling our deepest, darkest desires. I've never cleared a tower, so maybe it'll invert our wishes…"
The man accompanying him looked with a strange expression, then hit him in the chest. "You're talking a whole lot of gobbledygook, Oro. Dozens of people have reached the top of towers and had their wishes fulfilled. It's just that only towers like this will fulfill impossible, or fate-defying wishes."
Oro did not know this, as made obvious by his opened mouth. Worthy didn't even, as he unknowingly had the same expression.
Shortly after a moment of silence, Oro asked:
"You're saying that other towers won't fulfill all of your wishes? Then, what's the point of people working so restlessly to clear them all…? Say, Taivat… You wouldn't happen to have the spirit of a liar in your body, right? Pathological liars are some of the worst to deal with."
The man, Taivat, hit Oro in the chest again.
"No, you bumbling buffoon. It's not widely known unless you have a connection to someone who's had their wish fulfilled, but towers don't just fulfill your wishes indiscriminately. You can have reasonable wishes fulfilled by going into the average tower, clearing dozens of milestones in the process. For the common tower, you can wish for wealth and receive it, as well as wish for good health for yourself or another person, and it'd be done… But, you could not wish for something like the death of another, not with the average place. The power of your wish must be equal to the difficulty of the respective tower. Aciago Tower is unnaturally difficult — so difficult that we've barely made it half way up its ten floors — therefore, there is practically no limit to what wish one can have fulfilled once they've reached the top floor."
It made sense, in retrospect. Long before the First Floor became an inescapable hellzone, Aciago Tower already carried a reputation for being difficult to clear. It was not meant for human habitation, and yet mankind managed to make it their home countless times in undeniably unique ways.
Finding out that in other towers, smaller wishes could be granted left him feeling quite… bothered. It was hard to find a word for his dissatisfaction, but it made him realize how young and stupid he still was. Aciago Tower was the closest tower to his home, but it was not the only tower in the world.
'How irresponsible is my old man to let me come into this place?' The sudden realization that his father might've been on the "mentally lacking" side was shocking. If Worthy had gotten the opportunity to go into an ordinary, safer tower, he'd have gotten the chance to climb to the top and have his wish for riches fulfilled.
Having his wish fulfilled…
Worthy didn't know what he wished for. Riches was one of them, but his wish was far more plentiful than that. Perhaps it was more of a concept: he wished for freedom. However, he was already as free as it came in Malas Town, as far as he knew.
If he did not know the full scope of his wish, would the tower grant it?
If a blind man wished for the ability to see an apple, he'd clearly be allowed to perceive an apple.
Likewise, if a blind man wished for the ability to see the most beautiful field in the world, there was no telling what he'd see.
Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, and his eyes could not see anything, therefore whatever he saw would be to his liking no matter what. Even if it did not contend with the taste of others.
Worthy questioned how the tower would fulfill his wish if he did not fully understand what he sought after. He wanted Hope to go to school, and he wanted his father to have the opportunity to rest, and he wanted to be able to eat a lot of food with them — but all of these were their own individual wishes. Nobody knew if the tower was guaranteed to fulfill everyone's wish because when given the opportunity to have one fulfilled, in one moment, they'll think of their deepest desire and speak it.
The conversation between the two men simply allowed the boy to think about his own experiences — past, present, and future — and make preparations.
Oro and Taivat finished their conversation at some point when Worthy was thinking. The discussion ended just in time for a shadow to fly over their heads, a massive thing suddenly emerging from the peak of the mountain range.
When it passed, many ducked their heads. A short fellow, Worthy didn't need to.
Instead of ducking, the child watched as heads dipped low and his eyes went towards the crimson haze in the sky.
The thing he saw made his heart tremble, as a new threat exposed itself to the traveling band of Climbers. Someone was shouting, but he did not listen to their words because he was already breaking into a sprint in the direction of the mountain range, where the source of the shadow had come from.
Everyone picked up the pace as a beam of energy rocketed through the sky in the direction of the source of the shadow, cutting into the thick haze and striking nothing. War stopped his sprint and readied his weapon for another swing, energy accumulating in the shining weapon as dozens pass by him.
"Continue to the mountain range! I will make quick work of this abomination here!" Everything was happening so quickly that Worthy hardly had time to fully take in the disgusting appearance of the thing coming down from the bloody sky.
It was the same shape of the spherical silhouette he witnessed on his first day. Ribbons of flesh were hanging from the back of a massive collection of flesh and blood, appearing to be a massive, ungodly eye. The thing was the size of a house, which made Worthy realize that the avian beasts were much larger than he'd realized at a distance, they were unreasonably large.
The Eye Monster was the size of a house, having no mouth, which allowed the child to assume it developed its size by assimilating others.
The spherical predator did not have any means to fly. Its ribbons did not act as airfoils or any other apparatus that'd appear to explain how the creature hovered above the ground or glided across it so freely. Its ability to fly was wholly unnatural and unexplainable, its capabilities solely determined by what the tower or some other unseen force willed.
Humans were not far too different, though. That is why they survived.
As the group hurried to approach the nearest mountain, another flash of light behind them announced the initiation of another attack from War and his Divine Sword. This time, the projectile released by the blade did not miss.
Blood did not rise because the wound of the creature was instantly cauterized and its body was ignited into a fit of flames that caused the massive abomination to fall to the ground. Smoke rose from its body and a horrid smell unlike anything that floor had produced prior permeated the air.
War did not move from his position, even though the abomination was killed. That is because his eyes were locked on to the sky above.
As the group ran, Worthy too diverted his attention to the fog in the sky. There was always movement, but the boy never had time to question what was there. Now, he needed to — and he would not need to for long. Striking through the fog from dozens of miles into the sky, a tentacle of flesh approached War to blow a chunk of his body away with explosive force.
No matter how powerful the force behind the blow was, it wasn't enough to stagger the well-rested Holy Knight.
Uplifting his weapon, he drive the flat surface of his weapon into the tentacle at a precise angle. The tentacle was redirected, crashing into the ground beside him and breaking through the ground as though it were the shell of an aged tortoise.
"Climb! Do not turn your backs, keep climbing!" As dust rose into the air to obscure the scene, War's words reached the ears of the group.
Countless abominations were pouring down from the sky, much of their focus on the Holy Knight who must've looked to be a shining beacon of hope for the creatures who grew by assimilating flesh. War Reaver must've appeared obstructively tantalizing in the eyes of the unseen abominations.
The most frightening aspect of this entire situation, save for the fact that the sky was raining monsters, was the unreasonable range of the beasts.
There was no time to be frightened, because that attention would soon be focused on them once the monsters lost interest in trying to kill War.
Withdrawing his shining, red dagger, Worthy's eyes focused on the nearing mountain range in front of him. The climb was going to be arduous and the risk of casualties was higher now than ever. Yet, the prospect of a danger excited him. It made it so that he wouldn't need to waste any more time theorizing how he'd describe his goal at the final step of the journey.
Such pointless, meaningless thoughts were left in the back of his mind.
Once the vanguard reached the mountain, activity became far more brilliant.
From the peak of the mountain, the visages of various monsters gazed down at the approaching group of a hundred meals. Their desire to consume must've outweighed any concern they might've developed over the years, because the creatures were mindlessly barreling down the mountain to reach the humans who had no choice but to ascend.
"Man, this is a super violent world we live in… Fitting for the Crimson Violence."