From the moment I was chosen by the holy relic

"His name is Sawyer Elnot."

Her voice became extremely slow, her tone like reciting incantations from an ancient stele:

"He is a Tacit master, that is, a structurer of seals."

"He did not personally oversee the construction of any of the towers, but he was involved in the design drafts of all the towers and left his own coded mark on each one."

"He is not the tower master, but he is a system actor in the tower."

"You can think of him as the node commander of all the 'non-ritual operations' among the five towers. All the judgments, commands, comparisons, and awakening mechanisms issued from the towers are ultimately summarized by him."

"A tower is a static structure."

"And he is the dynamic execution consciousness of the entire system."

"Because he can access the secondary vein channels of any tower."

"He possesses a key imprint that allows him to synchronize his mind with the core mechanisms of the Five Towers. Rumor has it that he can remotely read the monitoring results of the Dream Rift Tower, trigger the seven-lock structure of the Dream Curse Tower, and even make minor adjustments to the Ash Fire system of the Abyss Tower."

"He is the 'last gatekeeper' among the Night Whisperers."

"And more importantly,"

Eileen gazed at the campfire, her eyes darkening slightly.

"He controls a group of orc test subjects selected from the Bloodshaping Tower."

"They are not out-of-control monsters, but the fourth model of the Blood Shaping Tower, originally intended as 'physical armed carriers' when the Black King's will failed to be deployed."

"Although they cannot support the Black King, their physical strength, resistance to the Black Curse, and hunting instincts have all been tuned to the extreme by Voss."

"They're not a military unit. They're a hunting party."

Eric asked in a low voice, "Then why is Sawyer willing to do this?"

"Because he is not serving the tower."

Eileen's tone shifted subtly, as if a chill had descended from solemnity:

"He is building a path back for the Black King."

"His oath is inscribed on the monument—"

"If God cannot descend to earth, I will use structure as my path."

"I have no skill in my hands, nor do I curse in my heart; I rely solely on the bones of rules to pave the way."

"He is the only Night Whisperer who has never been bound to the Tower Heart."

"He has rules as his bones, calculation as his brain, and planning as his blood."

The flames flickered, spitting out tiny sparks that echoed in the darkness like the sound of some distant signal.

Eileen spoke slowly, her voice lower than usual, as if afraid of disturbing some slumbering shadows.

"Many people believe that the chaos broke out during the war."

"But real disasters always begin silently, just like fire, which never starts from flames, but from unseen ashes."

She glanced up at Eric, then looked gently at Leah, who was deep in thought:

That period of history is known as the Dark Flame Era.

"It wasn't all darkness, nor were all nations engulfed in bloodshed. The world in the beginning was even more peaceful than it is now."

"But it is precisely because of peace that darkness has a place to hide."

"After the five towers were completed, the five tower masters remained in their respective towers forever."

"They no longer move, no longer speak. Their lives have been rewritten as the will of the tower itself."

Eileen put away the tattered animal hide pages, her voice becoming softer:

"There was not a single real war throughout the entire Dark Flame Era."

"No kingdoms were conquered, no cities were burned."

"But the world has changed."

"The Dream Tower detected the first appearance of the 'Sealing Totem' in the Bloodstained One's dream; the Gold Casting Tower identified three overlapping spiritual frequencies, and the misjudgment was burned; the Dream Curse Tower initiated a pressure test, and the out-of-control 'personality stripping' spread throughout the entire village."

"And the Blood-Sculpted Tower has already produced its thirteenth set of structures."

"The Tower of Abyss, its ashes have drifted beyond the borders of the Empire."

"That was the first century of the Tower's awakening."

"It is also the night, the moment when the seeds are truly sown."

"We don't know when the fire started."

"But we all smelled it, gray, rotten, the smell of the old demons rising again."

The night wind blew through the woods, and Eric gathered the fire, making it burn again. The firelight shone on Eileen's face, casting faint shadows on her eyelashes. She didn't turn the pages of the book, but simply gazed quietly at the flickering flames, as if she were taking a story from some long-forgotten corner, wiping away the dust, and then telling it to the person before her.

"Do you know that in those days, the fire didn't start from the enemy's blade?"

"It begins from the moment trust collapses."

Her voice was low, like the low chirping of a night bird in the forest, carrying a faint, distant sorrow.

"One hundred and twenty years, that was the one hundred and twentieth year of the Third Era, the middle of the Dark Flame Era. By then, the five towers had been operating for an entire era. They were silent and still, yet they were never truly dormant. The tower masters no longer walked in the mortal world; their wills merged into their respective towers, transforming into incantations, judgments, and conditions awaiting awakening."

"And that person outside the tower, Sawyer Elnot, awakened a batch of beast-like components left deep within the Bloodsculpting Tower. They were originally failed vessels, fleshy shells meant to contain the Black King's will but failing to do so. But Sawyer didn't need success. What he needed was a group of silent beings who could kill, pursue, and obey orders."

"Their first operation was at the Alanil Monastery in the North. Dream Rift overheard a monk dreaming of the totem of the Ring of the Gate. The tower remained silent, but Sawyer knew. The following night, the entire monastery vanished, leaving only a line of blood-written words beside the altar—'It wasn't him.'"

"There were no cries, no sieges, only stripping away. The moment a layer of the dream was peeled away, the entire monastery seemed to be erased from reality."

"At the same time, the Ashfire Curse Dust of the Abyss Tower has begun its second round of release."

"Blackfire infantry began to emerge. They were originally villagers, miners, blacksmiths, monks, the most ordinary and nameless people, but as they inhaled the cursed ash into their lungs, their bones began to break and heal, heal and break again, and they began to fear the firelight at night, swallow iron filings, and whisper the tower inscription."

"They formed groups of them, creating the first true Blackfire units."

"They are not the army."

"They are the lesions resulting from the corruption of the Abyss, yet the Night Whispers regard them as natural infiltrators. Because they were once human, neighbors, soldiers, and priests, they can approach their targets without being suspected."

"A third of the Elven Forest has been corrupted. The Dwarven passages have collapsed seven times, not because of earthquakes, but because the 'Spellcaster Apostles' have quietly planted the command for structural collapse in their dreams."

"The Spirit Apostles were once failed mental test subjects of the Dream Tower, those whose personalities were stripped away only to the sixth lock, failing to completely return to zero. They were insane, yet also awake. They lived in a dream structure from which they could never awaken. Every word they spoke carried a vague distortion of cause and effect, and every glance evoked false memories."

"They weren't assassins, yet they killed the most. Because they didn't need thorns; they just needed you to start questioning who you were."

Eileen's voice grew even softer.

"Do you understand, Eric? Back then, there were no real enemy fronts in the world. No city gates were besieged, no country was formally declared war on, yet the world had already collapsed."

"Because every conflict felt real."

"The war between the elves and dwarves in the Silver Ridge mines was caused by a batch of iron ore mixed with ore engraved with Dream Lock symbols, which triggered the mental breakdown of the dwarven craftsmen; while the elves believed it was a dwarven sorcery and poison."

"Humans and dwarves clashed on the northern plains because a dwarven caravan carrying fragments of spells suddenly disappeared, and the next day, those spells appeared in children's textbooks in human territory."

"Elves, dwarves, humans, and even giants—all races began to suspect that the other had been infiltrated by the Black Tower. So they simply took action themselves."

"The Black Tower remains unmoved."

"The orcs need not move."

"As long as the races bleed each other, the Five Towers can quietly wait for the world to decay on its own."

Eileen looked up, her gaze sweeping across the firelight, and looked at Eric.

"At that time, the orcs were divided into four types."

"The Blood-Sculpted Beastmen are the first and strongest. They take direct orders from those outside the tower, do not form groups or fortresses, act alone, have clear missions, and are tasked with locking onto those with the Blood Seal, capturing or eliminating them."

"The second type is the Blackfire Infantry. They are humans corrupted by the emanations of the Abyss Tower, mutated, photophobic, with gray blood and scorched skin. They use fire and poison as weapons. They are the key to breaking down city structures, and frontal attacks are mostly carried out by them."

"The third type is the Spellcaster Apostles. They do not appear in animal form, but they are no longer classified as human. Their language is incantated, their eyes are alluring, and their deaths are without weapons, only chaos. They are spies, assassins, and sources of infection."

"Finally, there are the wild beast packs. They weren't created by the tower, but rather secondary species that multiplied after being corrupted by dark magic over a long period. They have no rules, no culture, no language, and not even a belief. They simply eat, gnaw, grab, bite, hatch, and then go find the next nest. They are the most like the traditional orc race, and also the most numerous."

"They even established their own tribal totems, learned to communicate in the Ta language, and began to construct simple dream spell arrays on their own."

"At this time, the various races of the world are trapped in mutual hatred, unable to see clearly, unable to stop, and unable to retreat."

The Black Tower remains silent. The orcs continue to multiply. The Bloodstained Ones are still being hunted.

"And the world, in the end, began to wonder: were we born to fight for that door?"

After she finished speaking, she looked down at the fire, as if she were seeing the shadow of the "other" under the seven dream locks again in her dream.

"Those were days without light."

"We call it Ember Storm."

"People have tried to unite, and they have failed three times."

"The first alliance was formed after the Elf King disappeared. The nations were in a panic and hastily assembled, but as soon as they joined, they were corrupted by the curse marks leaked from the Dream Tower. They suffered mental breakdowns during the meeting and none of them succeeded."

"The second time was in the North Ridge. Representatives from the seven kingdoms gathered deep within the dwarven mine tunnels. A brief, tentative agreement had just been reached when the Blackfire infantry stormed in from the old well. The entire mine hall fell, and all the representatives were wiped out."

"The third time, they thought they had it all figured out. The strongest legions, the oldest oath stones, the most cautious agenda—the trust was shattered by a single falling black feather after the flames were lit. No one admitted to setting it, no one wanted to believe that someone else hadn't. And so, on a night without enemy forces, the Alliance tore itself apart."

She paused, her voice lowering slightly.

"But in the end, they still stood together."

"It's not because they saw hope, but because they realized that without unity, even the strongest fortress is just broken bricks in front of the tower."

"In the Third Age, Year 380, the Fourth Alliance was founded at Ashfrost Hill. There were no oaths, only a line inscribed on the Twilight Rocks: 'Those who do not wish to die together will not live alone.'"

"They started a true coalition war."

"Within decades, the orcs were driven out of the Western Ridge; the Blackfire Infantry were compressed in the Seven Great Canyons; the Spirit Spell Apostles were all burned to ashes in Deep Dream Village; and the Blood-Shaped Construct forces were forced to retreat to the Blood-Shaped Tower itself for the first time."

"They didn't win cleanly, but they achieved a stalemate. The towers stopped advancing, the orcs stopped expanding, and the area affected by the Ashfire was compressed to within a hundred miles of the five tower cores."

"But the war has dragged on for too long."