Chapter 513: The Soul Gate Key, To The Top of the Tower of Souls

"Use your spell to hit everything in this hall," Leon said, turning toward Emilia.

"B-But if I do, I’ll hit Violet too!"

"Don’t worry about it," Leon replied with a smile as he placed one of his abyss rifts near the entrance to the chamber. "Do it fast, or you won’t have enough time to fire it!"

Emilia hesitated for only a moment before realizing that Leon already had a plan.

"A-Alright!"

She immediately raised her scepter and began channeling the power of her strongest spell.

Golden light gathered around the weapon, growing brighter as Emilia concentrated her Spirit and directed it into the spell, energy beginning to build.

Violet continued sprinting toward Leon and Emilia while avoiding the attacks, but unfortunately, she couldn’t escape the next one.

SLASH!

Another monster struck her shoulder with a powerful blow, sending a sharp burst of pain through her body.

Violet stumbled forward, nearly losing her balance as she struggled to keep moving, and the monsters behind her immediately took advantage of the opening.

She was about to be caught.

Fwoosh!

Leon moved before the situation could deteriorate any further.

His figure blurred as he dashed toward Violet, intercepting one of the monsters that had nearly reached her.

His weapon flashed through the air, cutting through the creature before it could launch another attack, while his other hand caught Violet and pulled her toward him.

Without wasting a moment, he activated [Abyss Teleportation].

The abyss rift he had placed near the chamber responded immediately, swallowing both of them before they could be struck by the pursuing monsters.

In the blink of an eye, Leon and Violet disappeared from the corridor and reappeared beside Emilia, safely out of the horde’s reach.

Less than half a second later, Emilia finally released the spell she had been preparing.

The attack swept through the tightly packed horde before the monsters could react, engulfing their bodies in divine power and disintegrating them one after another.

When the golden light finally faded, the entire hallway had fallen silent. Not a single monster remained alive.

Emilia lowered her scepte as the last traces of golden energy disappeared from the weapon.

She looked toward the now-empty corridor before turning to Violet, relief washing over her face.

"That was close!" she exclaimed. "Are you okay? I really wish I had a healing spell..."

Violet glanced at her injured shoulder before giving a small nod.

"It’s fine," she assured her. "I would have been dead if not for you guys."

Although the wound hurt, it didn’t appear to be serious enough to prevent her from moving.

More importantly, she was no longer surrounded by an entire horde of monsters, and she could finally catch her breath without worrying about being attacked from behind.

Leon examined her briefly before shaking his head.

"You could have just turned into your dragon form, you know."

Violet immediately frowned at the suggestion.

"In such tight halls? I don’t want to take the chance of getting crushed myself. The walls seem way too sturdy."

With Violet safely beside them, three of the four had finally found the exit chamber.

The only person still missing was Celeste, and Leon hoped she had managed to avoid the monsters while searching for the remaining fragment.

Violet seemed to remember something at that moment, reaching into her storage space before pulling out a familiar object.

"I found this, by the way."

She handed Leon another [Gate Fragment], bringing his total to four.

Leon accepted it and stored it away, pleased.

’Let’s hope Celeste has the last one,’ he thought. ’And that she’s safe.’

He opened his [Friends List] to check her status, she was still alive.

Unfortunately, the tower’s restrictions prevented them from sending messages to one another, and he couldn’t even access his [World Map] to determine her current location.

There was no way to contact her or guide her toward the exit chamber directly. All they could do was wait and continue making sound.

For the next several minutes, Leon and Emilia kept an eye on the surrounding passages while Violet rested after her exhausting escape.

Thankfully, they didn’t have to wait too long.

Around ten minutes later, a familiar figure finally emerged from one of the other corridors and entered the chamber.

Celeste walked toward them before dropping onto the ground, clearly exhausted from her journey across the third floor.

"Took me a while to find it," she said, letting out a tired sigh. "I had to use most of my Darkness Embers, so I need to rest up to recharge."

Thankfully, as expected, she had also completed one of the closed chambers.

"I just let my embers go everywhere in the chamber and all the monsters died instantly," she laughed, "It was kind of funny."

Fwoosh!

The fragments suddenly emerged from Leon’s inventory, floating into the air as though an invisible force had taken control of them.

Ding!

[Gate Fragment (5/5)]

The five fragments drew closer together, their individual shapes merging as their energy intertwined.

They began spinning around one another, their movements gradually accelerating as a faint light spread across their surfaces.

A moment later, the pieces transformed into a single key with a distinctive heart-shaped design.

[Soul Gate Key]

Leon reached out and took hold of the newly formed key, examining it briefly before turning toward the enormous gate at the far end of the chamber.

"Well," he said with a satisfied smile, "with that, we should be able to reach the top and complete my first hunt."

He walked toward the gate, confident, and the key immediately jumped from his hands to insert itself into the lock.

Click!

As soon as that happened, the gate swung open, revealing darkness behind it.

Everybody seemed tense at that moment.

"We can take a small break bfore heading inside," Leon spoke, "But we shouln’t take too long, who knows what the Lord of Souls can do."

And indeed, as soon as Leon opened the gate, a panel appeared before all of them.

Ding!

[It has been a while since so many souls managed to reach the top of my tower.]

[How... interesting.]

[It seems like your final challenge will be extremely entertaining, I will be waiting for you.]

’We’ll see about that,’ Leon thought.