The glow of spells and the clashing of metal gradually dwindled. The four "brave" adventurers defeated the evil skeletal remains, broke the seal on the great doors, and stormed into the arcane tower. In the darkness, the pitch-black tower loomed like a creature lurking silently, waiting for prey, its entrance its gaping maw. After it "devoured" the adventurers, everything returned to silence. On the balcony, with the "seal" broken, Lucian breathed in the damp, earthy scent mingled with the smell of rotting leaves from outside and shook his head with some sympathy. "In this kind of sealed, dangerous environment, it's rare for anyone to awaken bloodline power or become a formal mage. What a shame—they've all been blinded by the treasure and power inside the arcane tower. After triggering traps during their covert scouting, instead of retreating, they chose to charge in head-on. According to standard mage protocol, even if the arcane tower can't be entered or investigated due to its seal, they should have used Familiars, invisibility, or other arcane means to thoroughly map out the surroundings before launching even a tentative attack." At this moment, Lucian had no intention whatsoever of using the adventurers to escape. Under the watchful eye of a high-ranking mage, the best course of action was to do nothing at all. Attempting something didn't require recklessness.
"Gold both grants tremendous motivation and blinds the heart and eyes," Adam remarked with solemn philosophical weight, then laughed. "Lucian, you're a powerhouse when it comes to Arcane Magic—guess which floor they'll make it to?"
Lucian glanced back at the two young servants standing guard by the balcony door, who showed not a shred of concern. "We should be seeing them soon." Then, seemingly unbothered by the servants overhearing, he added, "If only they could fight their way up to this floor. Then we could borrow their strength to break off these shackles."
The two young servants glared at Lucian with murderous eyes—he actually dared speak about escape right in front of them. But it would be abnormal if a prisoner had never entertained thoughts of breaking free. A couple of wistful comments when hope was slim actually put one more at ease.
"At least with an increase in experimental material, we'll get some breathing room. Mid-tier material like us will be used more cautiously and safely. The resources here aren't scarce, but most of them are in the dangerous Dark Forest—beyond the reach of ordinary knights and mages. Add in the fact that the Witch deliberately withheld certain knowledge, and nobody can advance to high-tier, with mid-tier being exceedingly rare as well." Adam laughed self-deprecatingly, as though trying to relieve some of the pressure building inside him.
Seeing signs that the two were about to dive into deeper conversation, the ruddy-faced servant barked sharply: "Shut it! Your evening walk is over—back to the cells, now!"
Lucian and Adam exchanged a smile and said nothing. They followed the two young servants back to the cells without a word. ……When they arrived near the cells, Lucian was slightly startled to see the four adventurers—looking either dejected or terrified—being escorted by several guards whose faces were hidden behind dark helmets. Had they been captured in just a few minutes? The old witch really didn't give them any face!
Lucian thought this while signaling to Adam that his guess had been correct.
The four adventurers were reasonably good-looking. The two blond men wore silver-white full plate armor—one was a mature middle-aged man, the other youthful and vigorous. Their footsteps rang with the clash of metal as they walked. The two blonde, blue-eyed young women were both quite lovely. One wore form-fitting dark scale mail that showed off her fine figure; the other was enveloped in an oversized red mage's robe. Both had delicate, striking features.
Karina walked along in a state of terror, unable to maintain the focus required of a spellcaster. She had believed that this adventurer party—comprising every powerful member they could assemble—guided by "previous expedition notes," would at least have the strength to escape from the arcane tower even if they couldn't defeat the evil Witch. Yet before they had even caught sight of the Witch, they had been effortlessly defeated and captured by several knights who appeared to be flesh golems, all under the influence of the Magic Circles.
This gave her the overwhelming sense that the gap in power between herself and the Witch was simply too vast—that resistance was utterly futile. Then she thought of those few times she had ventured into the distant Dark Forest, thought of those terrifying monsters that made her whole body go rigid from sheer oppressive presence even at a distance, and a fierce doubt rose in Karina's heart: "Are we even strong at all? Was there ever any real chance of defeating the Witch?"
Entangled in fear, doubt, and self-denial, Karina was led to the cells by the flesh golem knights who never relaxed their vigilance. Suddenly, she heard a voice from across the way—tinged with a sigh, yet carrying a note of amusement: "Partner, you really do understand mages better than I do."
"Who?" Karina instinctively looked up. Four men were approaching from the other end of the corridor. Two wore the servant's garb she had seen on the way in; the other two were dressed in simple linen clothes. The one who had spoken was a tall, rugged blond man with a firm, steady stride—somehow, at first glance, he looked even more like a knight than Alvar and Brad. The person he was speaking to was a handsome young man with dark hair. His crude clothing could not conceal his elegant bearing. His smile was gentle, his gaze deep.
"Are they the Witch's male favorites?" The legends of the evil Witch, passed down through generation after generation, had been embellished with all manner of bizarre, terrifying, and risqué colors. Karina's thoughts naturally drifted in that direction. She felt a sudden twinge of envy toward the Witch's lifestyle, which deepened into hatred. Then she caught herself—if they were male favorites, why would they be wearing clothes like prisoners', and especially those strange black shackles that seemed to restrict their movement? And the dark-haired, handsome one even had a collar around his neck that made her feel deeply uncomfortable.
"Could they be adventurers from a previous expedition?" Her gaze shifted. She saw her companions—Ophelia, Alvar, and Brad—all wearing expressions of confusion. From their shared tacit understanding, she could tell they were thinking roughly the same thing. But having just been captured, they were still in the grip of panic and bewilderment, far less composed than Adam, who had long grown accustomed to the situation. They didn't dare strike up a conversation with the two "seniors" in front of the servants and flesh golem knights. Just as when Lucian and Adam had first encountered each other, their eyes met briefly before the flesh golems ushered them into the cells.
Karina was placed in the very cell to Lucian's right that had just been emptied. As they passed the open cell, Lucian watched the flesh golem knights produce black Binding Shackles and Anti-Magic Collars and put them on the four adventurers one by one.
Something clicked in Lucian's mind. He slowed his pace, eyes narrowing slightly as he observed the Binding Shackles and Anti-Magic Collar being fastened, their eerie glow igniting as they took effect. This was both a confirmation of the Binding Shackles' structure he had already analyzed and an initial glimpse at the Anti-Magic Collar he had no way to examine up close.
The moment the Anti-Magic Collar closed around her neck, Karina felt her already depleted spiritual power stop recovering entirely. She could no longer cast a single spell.
"This collar suppresses magic? That gentleman must be a mage too?" At the thought, she instinctively looked up toward the doorway—and her gaze collided with Lucian's. As if sensing the question in her mind, Lucian gave a slight nod and quickened his pace to follow the servants.
"Which mage could he be?" Karina began mentally cataloging the mages who had once appeared in this region only to vanish mysteriously, but none of them matched this handsome young man. In this narrow, sparsely populated region, every formal knight or mage was a figure of enormous stature—a senior member of the Adventurer's Guild that governed the cities, a powerhouse worthy of being recorded in the annals of history. The only catch was that they tended to vanish mysteriously once they reached a certain level of power. That was precisely why Karina and the others had come to explore this arcane tower—not just out of greed for the treasure and power within, but to break free from that predetermined fate.
Lost in thought, Karina suddenly felt the flesh golem tugging at her mage's robe. A cascade of terrible associations flooded her mind. She wanted to cast a spell but couldn't, so she could only throw a panicked punch. But the flesh golem was utterly indifferent, easily stripping the robe from her body.
Being accosted by a flesh golem—a thing like a walking corpse—was something Karina had never imagined in her wildest nightmares. She clutched her arms to her chest, backed into a corner, and screamed. But to her stunned surprise, the golem made no further move. It tossed her a set of linen clothes, then picked up her staff, her robe, and the necklace it had previously removed, and turned to leave, locking the door behind it.
"So they were confiscating dangerous items… but did they have to be so rough about it? Just tell me and I'd have undressed myself!" Karina wanted to cry but had no tears. Then she remembered the golem only followed orders—it wouldn't communicate. Musing on this, she murmured to herself with a trace of relief: "At least it's a Witch's tower." She then glanced down at her undergarments and added, "At least no other men saw."
………Over the following period, Karina, Alvar, and the others were brought to the Witch's laboratory several times. Each time they returned, their faces were pale and their eyes filled with terror. They had now truly grasped their status as experimental material. Lucian, meanwhile, underwent another round of "electrical stimulation"—in the Witch's words, this was to gradually draw out the full potential of his soul.
That evening, all the prisoners were brought to the balcony for their walk. Since their first meeting, they finally saw each other face to face once more.
Karina, Ophelia, and the other two huddled together, whispering about their miserable experiences over these past few days. The servants merely stood guard at the door, making no effort to eavesdrop. Lucian and Adam, meanwhile, leaned against the balcony railing, exchanging observations in low voices about phenomena they had noticed over the past few days. Because the route to the laboratory was fixed, there wasn't much new to report, and they finished quickly.
"Adam, have you noticed that during the last few days of the lunar month and the first few days of the new one, the Witch doesn't conduct any experiments? Or rather, she conducts experiments that don't require living subjects?" Lucian said thoughtfully, prompted by the anomalies he had observed over the past few days.
Adam chuckled. "Sharp eye, partner. I've been locked up here for decades. Even at the times when experimental material was most plentiful, she never had anyone brought to the lab for the last two days of the month or the first three days of the next. All the other dates saw human experiments of varying frequency. My guess is—" He didn't finish, merely gesturing downward.
Understanding the unspoken meaning, Lucian gave a slight nod and asked nothing further. Adam was saying that during the days when the silver moon was at its dimmest, the Witch was likely attempting to break the seals on the underground ruins. It was the best opportunity to escape.
Just then, Karina and her group walked over to Lucian and Adam, hoping to learn more from these two "seniors" who had been imprisoned for so long.
"Hello, gentlemen. I'm Karina, a mage. I'm not sure how to address you?" Karina kept her voice small, still somewhat wary of the servants.
Adam was quite interested in gaining new "allies." He smiled. "I'm Adam."
"Adam? You mean—the Dark Lord?" Ophelia, Alvar, Karina, and Brad all exclaimed in unison, clearly stunned by the name.
Adam smoothed his hair and let out a rueful sigh. "I didn't think the outside world still remembered me."
A sharp intake of breath rippled through the group. None of them had imagined that this rugged yet easygoing and humorous knight was none other than the legendary Great Knight—the "legendary figure" who had reached the fifth tier, a level no one else had ever attained.
Seeing Lucian's puzzled expression, Adam shrugged. "After I escaped the forest, I lived comfortably on the outside for a while—until I was captured and brought here."
Karina's eyes went wide. She had assumed Adam had been killed by the monsters of the Dark Forest or had perished in a failed breakthrough. She never would have guessed that the old witch had kept him locked up here for decades. The Witch's power far exceeded anything they had imagined.
"Has our entire adventure been nothing but a joke?" The thought rose unbidden.
Forcing herself to calm down, Karina turned her gaze to Lucian. Compared to the Great Knight Adam, she was even more curious about this mage's identity.