To his surprise, upon opening the door, he didn't encounter any magical creatures. Instead, he found a room filled with shelves, on which were numerous potions.
Holde carefully examined these potions. Most of them were a deep green, and just by their smell, a pungent odor wafted towards him.
Holde strongly suspected that these potions had been left for too long, had corrupted, and had gone bad.
After spoiling, they naturally changed color.
In any case, he wouldn't dare drink any of these potions.
It was a joke; drinking corrupted potions like these would likely lead to death.
Besides the majority of deep green potions, there were also some red and blue potions.
These bottles of potions were contained in crystal-clear containers.
In contrast to the deep green potions, the red and blue potions did not have a pungent smell, nor did they smell of corruption.
Instead, they had an herbal scent.
Holde suspected that after the red and blue potions had corrupted and spoiled, their color would have turned into the deep green potions.
If the deep green potions might be useless.
Then the red and blue potions, if not spoiled, should be useful.
Of course—although he deduced they might be useful, Holde had no intention of personally testing their efficacy.
Even though he guessed that these potions might be related to things that prolong life, or could even directly prolong life, that was just a guess. In reality, who knew what these red and blue potions actually were.
In the real world, medicine cannot be taken randomly.
Without knowing what these potions were, who would dare to drink them? At most, Holde wanted to take these potions back to be studied by his biological laboratory.
He wondered if these potions possessed mystical powers, and if drinking them could prevent all illnesses...
There were still quite a few potions here that had not spoiled, and Holde found himself in a dilemma. It seemed unlikely that he could carry all the potions back by himself—what was that?
As Holde scanned the potions on the shelves, he discovered something like a notebook on one of them.
Holde hurried over. The notebook was clearly old and dusty. Flipping through it, Holde scanned the writing and felt a surge of joy. It was in English! At least it wasn't some runes or gibberish that he wouldn't understand.
English was good!
He could understand the notebook written in English.
The first page contained several lines of text, which were some words.
"The ancient tower has become a ruin..."
"Outside the story, it is already a ruin..."
"Inside the story..."
"Those who listen to the story are often already within it..."
"..."
These were some cryptic words.
Holde did not understand their meaning.
The ancient tower had become a ruin?
Did this refer to the fact that the ancient tower now looked desolate and uninhabited, filled with dust, and even the magical creatures like slimes that appeared were dead, leaving only their corpses?
It certainly seemed to have lost its former glory and had been desolate for a long time.
But to call it a ruin might not be entirely accurate.
The meaning in the text seemed to suggest that the ancient tower had become a ruin.
But the ancient tower Holde was looking at now, although covered in dust, still had its structural integrity. How could it be called a ruin?
Outside the story?
Inside the story?
Outside the story, the ancient tower was indeed a ruin.
What about inside the story?
Was it still a ruin?
Probably not.
Those who listen to the story are often within it.
What story did this refer to?
Was it himself?
Was he, himself, the listener?
"Those who listen to the story are often already within it..."
Holde soon realized something.
Recalling the endless stairwell he had experienced, the moving ancient tower, and everything he had seen.
Holde suddenly realized something.
"Is this place not the real world?"
"Could it be... a dreamscape?"
As this thought arose.
A loud bang echoed.
Holde felt a violent tremor.
The surrounding walls seemed to explode in an instant.
The ancient tower exploded.
The ancient tower was crumbling.
An endless cold wind, carrying the weightless Holde, sent him plummeting through the air.
Mid-air.
Holde cast one last glance at the night sky.
The night sky, obscured by large stones, seemed to be shattering as well.
Everything was breaking apart. Holde could even see the various rooms of the ancient tower shattering, revealing the magical creatures within.
There were skeletons walking freely.
There were skeletons with long swords and shields.
There were slimes, green, red, and even black, as large as a room.
There were blood-red bats, their sharp teeth and massive bodies directly conveying their combat power, certainly not beings that could be easily dealt with by firearms.
There were orcs, also with shields, possessing beastly heads and human bodies.
There were witches who could fly and burrow.
And in the highest level, countless bats coalesced into a single entity.
Holde could not look directly at that entity. His intuition told him that looking directly at such a great being would result in death.
Just as in the Book of Exodus, God said: "Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me and live."
And similar to how in the Cthulhu Mythos, looking directly at the true form of an elder god would lead to complete madness.
Holde dared not, and could not, look directly at the true form of the entity that appeared at the highest level of the ancient tower.
It was merely a concept, conveyed to him from some unknown source, that this being's name was Vampire, and also the True Ancestor of the Bloodline.
Bloodline.
True Ancestor.
...
"Damn it, what kind of creature is this!"
Kyle ran frantically, letting out a fierce scream.
Behind him, a yellow skeleton and more than ten white skeletons were pursuing him.
The yellow skeleton, as if possessing intelligence, commanded the more than ten white skeletons, armed with swords and shields, to chase Kyle together.
Kyle didn't dare to look back at these skeletons, to look at these walking bone structures.
He fled in a panic, and when his vision darkened and his limbs lost all strength, he finally stopped in a place he thought was safe, a corner of the ancient tower, in the darkness.
Breathing heavily, Kyle nervously listened to the sounds around him. With the exploration lamp turned off, and only a faint moonlight illuminating the area, he heard no footsteps of skeletons.
This involuntarily brought him some temporary relief, and he let out a long sigh of relief.
Why was Kyle here? Why was he being chased by skeletons?
In fact, like Holde, as soon as Kyle ascended the stairwell, he suddenly discovered that the people around him, including his own brother Holde, had vanished.
The group of over a dozen bodyguards he had brought had disappeared without fulfilling their intended purpose, which greatly troubled Kyle.
The most terrifying thing was that when he realized his bodyguards had vanished, he found that his own body had unknowingly, and automatically, walked into a tower, an ancient tower filled with dust.
This made Kyle, who had just come to his senses, break out in a cold sweat. What kind of magic did this ancient tower possess to attract him and make him walk inside it unconsciously?