Uriel could feel the man's footsteps right beside him. If he made the mistake of waiting a little longer, considering his slowness, the man would either move out of his reach or simply evade him. It had to be now; now was his only chance.
All the pain Uriel had been holding inside suddenly exploded. He let the fury consume him. The resentment of having his eye pierced and possibly dying just as his ascent had begun surged within him.
His hand stretched out to try to grab the assassin's foot; however, the man managed to pull it out of reach at the last second.
Uriel couldn't believe it. He literally had everything in his favor: the distance, the timing, even his enemy's overconfidence. Yet he had still managed to react fast enough to escape his grasp.
The assassin looked surprised. He had certainly believed he had killed Uriel a few moments ago, so his escape had been achieved through pure instinctive reaction. That was what irritated Uriel the most in the microsecond when their faces met.
What scared Uriel the most was the possibility that he might use the opportunity to escape and attack again later. If that happened, then with a mage incapable of casting spells and a tank missing an eye, they wouldn't have nearly as many chances as they did now.
The bastard had to die now. He had to kill him by any means possible. That was the only thing Uriel could think about at this moment.
Uriel lunged again, this time rising with all his strength.
The assassin tried to pull away once more, but at that moment he found that there was nothing beneath his feet to push off from.
He had fallen into the hole where the other corpse had been trapped, the one that had been stuck between the boards all this time.
The hole was large enough for three people, but Uriel had decided not to enter it to kill the corpse because of the amount of broken planks and splinters inside. After all, it was a collapsed floor. It was fine to be a tank, but that didn't mean he wanted to take damage for free.
"AAGHHH!"
The assassin screamed in pain. That was followed by the sound of struggling and snarling.
Crunch.
The noise of something being chewed was followed by more screams and, finally, silence…
Uriel approached the hole, and there he saw the assassin still alive.
However, his right thigh had been pierced by one of the planks, which had turned into a dangerous wooden stake after breaking.
His left leg was partially devoured, and still on top of him lay a corpse with multiple holes in its face. The leg looked grotesque, so that's what happened when one of those things tried to eat you, Uriel thought in horror. He no longer liked the idea of charging straight at them so much.
Uriel was certain: this assassin had reached the end of the road. With these wounds, he wouldn't be able to escape again. He was defenseless, so Uriel summoned his hammer, ready to kill the opponent who had taken his eye.
"Wait… wait a second. Hey, you… do you have any idea who you're defending?"
That's a good question. In fact, I'd love to know the details of how Ininise ended up becoming the oracle of a god, whatever that might mean. But those were things I could ask myself. Uriel had the feeling that Ininise wouldn't lie to him.
"That woman will doom my world. Kill her, please… kill her."
It was strange. The man was begging desperately for her death. He wasn't even begging for his own life. Even on the brink of death, the only thing he wanted was for Ininise to die.
"Please… my family, my children… I don't want them to die. I beg you, please."
It was true. In the end, all these people were like me, Uriel thought. They were all climbing the tower for some reason. Ininise, apparently, from what little he understood, wanted to hide from her own people, who were hunting her. And these men were willing to venture here to save—according to their own beliefs—their world.
Uriel knew it: he was like them. In the end, what gave him the right to kill these people, to stand in their way? After all, he would hate it if someone stopped him from recovering his sister, for example.
This man had taken his eye. It still hurt like hell, but in the end, wouldn't he have done the same if he were in his position?
Uriel's thoughts turned in a strange direction. Perhaps the pain had given him a certain clarity, or perhaps it was the fact that he was about to kill someone for the first time. A simple question emerged in his mind:
Why should I really kill this man?
Uriel paused for a few moments. His single eye wasn't focused on anything now; it was as if he were looking beyond what could be seen. But then he spoke.
"Ininise, do you want me to kill him?"
Ininise had been watching how the events unfolded. She was surprised by the question.
Uriel waited for her. His mind wasn't thinking about anything at that moment; he only wanted an answer to his question.
"I… I don't know."
Her gaze dropped to the floor.
"He tried to kill you. Even so, don't you hate him? If you let him live, he'll come after you and kill you, without a doubt."
Uriel explained. The assassin was still whispering pleas, asking for Ininise's death.
Ininise raised her gaze. Tears began to fall.
"I've been running my whole life… this isn't the first time people have tried to kill me. It probably won't be the last…"
Ininise wiped her tears even as they kept falling again and again.
"But I never wanted to hurt anyone… that's why I r-ran away."
Her voice broke into sobs.
"I-I just want to l-live peacefully. I don't want to k-kill anyone… that's why I came here."
Uriel understood her wishes. She wanted to live, but this man did too. In fact, he wanted his family to see tomorrow, according to his words. Ininise hadn't denied anything he said. She didn't know if she would doom his world, how she would do it, or whether it was even true.
"Ininise… do you want to die?"
Ininise took a few moments, but she still gave a clear answer.
"No. I don't."
Uriel looked at the assassin. He was motionless, barely conscious now from the blood loss and pain. Uriel climbed down into the small hole, carefully stepping on the corpse.
Uriel had already decided. He would kill this man.
Why would he do it?
Did he hate him? Not really. He felt resentment for losing his eye, but he had been hit many times before; that hadn't made him kill anyone. So why would he do it now?
Just like when he helped Cris, he would do it because, if he didn't, this guy would continue to be a threat. He no longer cared about any kind of personal resentment. What mattered here was that Ininise—the person he was protecting and whom he personally liked—didn't want to die, and the assassin wanted to kill her.
That was all.
So what if he also had a family? Uriel had one too. If he died, his mother would die of grief. But even so, he had chosen to shoot that arrow.
Would he have stopped if the assassin had known this?
Probably not.
Uriel understood that he was the only idiot who would ask himself these kinds of questions about someone who had tried to kill him.
Uriel's mind was clear despite the pain.
He raised the hammer with all his strength.
The assassin tried to whisper something. Uriel focused and managed to hear it.
"M… my name is Ma… Malexus…"
Uriel brought the hammer down, striking Malexus's skull with force, crushing it and killing him instantly.