PART IV: AFTER THE DEFEAT OF THE BLACK MAGE

Chapter 8: Karote, the Unending Tower

• After the mission to Hotel Arcus, Neinheart called the Adversary to a meeting in Ereve, where he revealed that the Alliance was on the verge of dissolution without a common goal to keep it intact, though Neinheart believed that a new Alliance would be needed in Grandis.

• The Chief Knights then arrived to report the statuses of their missions:

  • Hawkeye reported that the Thunder Breakers were searching for Havoc, who was presumed alive after his body had been unable to be recovered following his duel with Seren.

  • Eckhart reported that his Night Walkers had been skirmishing against the Specter army at the border between worlds, where he had learned that the Specters had an unusually fast recovery rate.

  • Oz reported that her investigation of Yum Yum Island had led her to conclude that the perpetrator was not a new Commander of the Black Mage, but rather, Kaling, whose affiliation remained unknown to the Alliance.

  • Mihile reported that the Dawn Warriors had taken Grendel into custody after he had fused Maple World and Grandis, and that they were currently searching for Will.

  • Irena reported that she had learned about a new lead - Karote, a self-building tower that took the span of a lifetime to complete. Irena explained that according to legend, the day of its completion would reveal a secret that even the gods feared, though an unknown power continually destroyed the tower after it reached a certain height.

• The Adversary, Belle, Irena, and Neinheart traveled to Hotel Arcus, where a Seeker named Nicky offered to escort them to the tower, claiming that his father wanted to see it completed.

• Archelon offered the Glory Guard the use of the Arcus Gate, a portal created with the power of the Ancient Gods, capable of taking the user anywhere across Grandis. However, Archelon warned the Adversary that Karote had been built after his original body had fallen into slumber and before his consciousness had awakened in his robot body.

• He explained that the intermittent time in which he had been inactive was when the line between good and evil had vanished. He then warned them to be careful, as he feared that what awaited them was more difficult than what a human heart could handle.

• Inside the tower, the Adversary encountered several statues of a mysterious man on all the floors they encountered. Each statue responded to the Adversary’s touch and transported them to a subspace where robotic Guardians recognized them as a Vessel. However, these Guardians regarded the Adversary as a defective Vessel and attempted to dispose of them, until the more intelligent models assessed them and deemed them a true Vessel.

• Each time that the Adversary defeated the robots and returned, they witnessed memories of the man who had created Karote. They learned that the man had been transformed into a cyborg inside the laboratory of the elders, where experiments had been repeatedly conducted over countless years to mass-produce Adversaries. However, the man had been deemed a defective Vessel by the Guardians, who had thrown him off the floating laboratory.

• Falling to the bottom of the ocean, the man used his cybernetic enhancements and the light of a giant, mysterious anglerfish to create Karote in order to reach the surface. Upon reaching the surface, the man grew convinced that he wasn’t defective, and that the elders had been afraid that they had created an Adversary stronger than they were.

• The man attempted to reach the laboratory in the sky with Karote, though Kalos the Guardian continually destroyed it, recognizing the man as a defective Vessel. Realizing that he was unable to reach the laboratory, the man enchanted Karote to be self-completing until a true Vessel could complete the tower and grant him entry.

• From these memories, Neinheart concluded that the reason why the statues responded to the Adversary was because they, despite no longer having a Seal Stone, were a true Vessel of the Adversary, which meant that they would be recognized as worthy by Kalos. Because of this, he realized that the creator of the tower had created Karote in order to manipulate a worthy Vessel into reaching the laboratory.

• Though Neinheart believed it wise to turn back, Nicky insisted on pushing forward and climbed to the top of Karote, which was rapidly completing itself in the Adversary’s presence. At the top, the Glory Guard encountered Kalos, who recognized the Adversary as a true Vessel. He revealed that the robotic Guardians inside the tower had been stolen and reprogrammed, as the Guardians were normally unable to operate outside the bounds of their domain.

• Kalos then recognized Nicky as a false Vessel, created from technology stolen from the laboratory of Odium. Nicky then revealed himself as T-Boy and explained that his father was the creator of Karote, and that he had created Nicky and his siblings with stolen Odium technology. Because of this, T-Boy hacked into Kalos and seized control of him in order to defeat the Adversary.

• After a fierce battle, the Adversary defeated T-Boy and Kalos, causing Karote to crumble apart from the force of their battle. As everyone plummeted, Nicky called his father and reported that the path to Odium was open at last. However, he also confronted his father and realized that his father had deliberately programmed him with impulsivity and thrill-seeking, knowing that it would cause Nicky to self-destruct in the process of seizing power, thereby ensuring that Nicky would hack Kalos and eliminate both the Guardian and the Adversary at once.

• Crippled by the realization that his father had only been using him, Nicky decided to reveal to the Adversary that Gerand Darmoor had once sought out the Angler Company, revealing that he planned to destroy the Seal Stone inside the Adversary, for which their father had agreed to help Darmoor, knowing that the Adversary would be pushed on the path of Odium.

• Following this revelation, Nicky pushed the Adversary to safety towards Cosim, who had just appeared to save them. With Cosim catching the Adversary, Nicky plummeted from the sky towards the ocean. Cosim then revealed to the Adversary that he was Nicky and Senya’s sibling.