The Primal Hunter

Welcome to the Seventy-first floor of Nevermore: The Nine Towers

You have arrived on a planet long abandoned by those who once lived there. Yet artifacts are left behind. Nine massive towers are scattered across the planet, once part of a greater purpose, each holding secrets and power of the civilization that once was.

Your goal is to explore each tower and then ultimately decide if you wish to activate or destroy them. But be warned, for even if much time has passed, the defensive systems of the towers still remain, and who knows what entering them might lead to, much less the outcome of their activations.

Main objective: Activate or destroy the Nine Towers.

Bonus objectives: Discover the true nature of the Nine Towers.

Current progress: Towers activated (0/9), Towers Destroyed (0/9)

Note: More hidden events, achievements, or objectives may be hidden on the floor.

Current Nevermore Points: 1,242,425

It was almost nostalgic reading the long system message about the floor they had just arrived on. Jake would rate it just about as nostalgic as the feeling of the Golden Mark left by the Fallen King, allowing them all to stay in communication even when far apart.

The five of them had appeared on top of a small hill, giving them a pretty bad view of what they were dealing with. Jake, taking the job of scout as usual, quickly flew into the sky and scanned the area before he made a rough calculation of the curvature of the planet and ultimately concluded it was pretty fucking big. It was not as big as Earth after the system, but maybe about two-thirds the size.

“You see anything?” the Sword Saint asked when Jake landed back on the ground.

“Bunch of beasts, but they are all weak and barely in C-grade. Ah, but there are quite a few elementals here and there, all levels around 280. I also spot two towers, one over there and one over there,” Jake said as he pointed in two directions. The others could see one of the towers far off in the distance, but only Jake had the Perception to see the tip of the second.

These towers were all roughly ten kilometers tall each, looking like huge skyscrapers. One of the two Jake saw had a red crystalline color, while the second looked more yellowish. So, it appeared that the towers had been nicely color-coded, which was nice as it made it a lot easier to communicate about what towers people were at.

Jake also shared the size of the planet and other characteristics as the others listened. Once he was done with his explanation, Dina briefly shared that the plants around told her that this planet was rather special in that it had absolutely no underground nor any bodies of water any larger than lakes anywhere on the entire planet. It was definitely a weird place, but confirming those two things was helpful as it meant they wouldn’t waste any time looking for hidden achievements underground or underwater.

“So, I guess we all know what we’re doing?” Jake asked after they were done talking.

“Split up,” the Fallen King answered without any hesitation.

the

“Ree!” Sylphie agreed.

the fuck away because no one will be nearby,” Jake added with a grin. “Then we can

the Sword Saint said, seeming almost giddy to

take the closest. Jake, the Sword Saint, and Sylphie would head off in three other directions to try and find a tower each. The Sword Saint did stay behind for a second, though, as he took out a canvas and began to paint

quickly

where he had wanted to step down, temporarily disorientating him. What was…

That is until he took that very first step. He had traveled nearly twice as far as a usual One Step and consumed even less stamina than before… and that wasn’t even the

It was like he was an untouchable entity within the fluid and warping space, as he only now truly realized the meaning when it

reason why space warped as it did was because the skill was getting pushed beyond what it normally allowed Jake to do forcibly…

To get good.

if the boots actually made movement skills twice as effective and barely cost anything. It was that Jake was horrible at using One Step according to the standards of the mythical boots. Making the baseline improvement from the boots incredibly effective.

Marks and the locations of his other party members, he realized he was definitely not the one who had improved the most. The Sword Saint,

sprinting skill and was quickly running out of gas. But she kept up her utterly ridiculous speed for hours as she

the Golden Mark. “You sure got a

you discover this narrative

ree ree,” she responded, gladly explaining how she had managed to drastically improve her ability to move incredibly

the wind super swooshyly” means, but if it works, it works, I guess,” Jake responded, realizing no Sylphie explanation would ever help

he had gone to the closest tower. Right as

he communicated to all of them, as it appeared he had made an upgrade to his Golden Mark skill, now allowing one to also send pictures. What the Fallen King

He also saw what looked like veins running through the entire tower, as well as small wisps of energy in the ground and even some floating in the air all around the Fallen King. Because, oh yeah, the picture wasn’t exactly a two-dimensional one, but more of a semi-three-dimensional snapshot where what appeared in front of the Fallen King was

see the world?” Dina asked pretty quickly

more interpretable to your minds,”

the reason the King’s sight was so odd. He viewed everything through some weird soul-sight or something at all times, which definitely had some advantages but also many disadvantages, as his

Inside, the tower was clearly spatially expanded, and from what Jake saw in the limited vision pictures the Unique Lifeform repeatedly sent, everything was a mess inside. Nevertheless, he began exploring

what looked like an elevator there, but it was clearly broken, and the Fallen King also quickly confirmed that breaking walls and ceilings wasn’t feasible as everything

floor, the challenge of the tower began to appear as they got their first clue as to what kind of creatures had built these towers in the first place. Robot-like golems were stationed as guards on the second tower floor. Eight in total, with four of them patrolling, with four others sealed-off side rooms. Their levels were all 275 to 280, making them relatively strong… but far from strong enough. This was also where the King’s vision was good, as things like walls didn’t matter when it came to detecting living beings nearby… which kind of made Jake feel dumb for when

Fallen King didn’t hesitate as he simply floated into the room with the four guards. He was instantly noticed by the guards, who quickly proved to be aggressive as they attacked on sight. The four of them charged at once as the

blasted out the very next second, hitting all the guards. They all stumbled back, physically seemingly unhurt, but through the vision of the Fallen King, Jake could see it definitely wasn’t so. Golden cracks

released. The four guards fell back further as a third wave came soon after. One of the four Soulshapes shattered on