The tower to heaven reaped untold destruction on the lives of any living being outside. While this was a tragedy it was a boon for The Challenger Club. If the reason wasn't obvious already, everything alive that was outside was now blinded or by their search around the area one could assume that all life exposed to the light was blinded.
That means free soul essence without their vision Magi who rely on vision will suffer and be easy pickings.
"Alright," Lex began, his voice cutting through the silence of the room, "it's time for the first execution mission. We go out, we slaughter every Magi we see. No mercy. But before we do that, we need to figure out who's leading."
He stood before the group, his gaze shifting over each member, his expression calculating. "Who wants to take charge? Who's got the guts to lead us into this?"
"No one? Wow… okay I guess I got this then. First order of business, what can you guys do?" Lex looked around and Darius and William looked unwilling to talk. Scrunching his face Lex continued his dialogue.
"Jesus christ you people don't talk fine i'll go first i can control probability and fate." Lex stated he summoned his knife and tossed it in the air." He pointed at Darius to go next.
Darius's dark eyebrows furrowed, looking around the area to see there the only ones in the room he decided to divulge his secrets." I can give you a mental disorder. For example, I could give you schizophrenia."
William and Lex nodded and William described his own class as he spoke, carefully omitting the raw details of how it worked. He could feel Lex's gaze boring into him, searching for something unspoken.
"Jesus," Lex muttered. "You're all just freaks of nature, huh?"
"Like you're one to talk," William shot back.
Lex grinned. "Fair." He clapped his hands together, the sound breaking the tension. "Alright, now that we're done with the whole 'mysterious brooding introductions' bit, let's focus on the job."
Outside, the world was still reeling from the tower's wrath. The streets were filled with the blind—people stumbling over one another, crying out in confusion, helpless in their newfound darkness. Shadows stretched unnaturally, as if resisting the light's departure. The air itself felt different, charged with something unstable, like the aftermath of a storm that hadn't fully passed.
"We're looking at an open slaughter," Lex said, pacing now, his boots clicking against the floor. "They're helpless. No counterattack, no retaliation. Just us, picking them off one by one."
Darius rubbed his temples. "It's too easy."
William crossed his arms. "You think it's a trap?"
"I think the tower didn't just blind them," Darius replied. "It did something else. Something worse."
Lex stopped pacing. His grin widened, but there was something sharp behind it. "Guess we'll find out, huh?"
He grabbed his weapon and slung it over his shoulder.
"Gear up. We move in five."
____________________________________________________________________________
Lex exhaled, watching the tiny flecks of light drift lazily around them. "Creepy as hell, but kinda pretty."
Darius stepped carefully over a patch of the fungal growth, his expression unreadable. "Not just creepy. These things… they weren't always this active."
William frowned, glancing at the slow, rhythmic pulsing of the mushrooms. "What do you mean?"
Darius knelt, brushing his fingers lightly over a thick strand of a mycelium that stretched across the ground. "They used to be passive. Just part of the environment. Now…" He pulled his hand back and rubbed his fingers together. A faint, sticky residue clung to them. "They're reacting to something."
Lex's grin widened. "So, what? You think they're alive-alive?"
Before Darius could answer, the ground trembled beneath them—a slow, steady vibration, like something shifting beneath the fungal layers.
William tensed. "That's not normal."
Then, the bodies began to rise.
From beneath the thick mats of mycelium, figures clawed their way up—humanoid, but grotesquely wrong. Their skin was veined with glowing strands of fungus, their eyes hollow pits leaking wisps of pale spores. They moved in jerky, unnatural motions, their joints stiff, as though the mushrooms themselves were pulling them upright like marionettes.
Lex let out a low whistle. "Well, that's new."
William was already gripping his weapon. "Not new enough to hesitate. We either leave or kill them before they do whatever the hell they're about to do."
Darius stood slowly, his gaze locked onto the creatures. "They don't know we're here yet."
Lex's smirk sharpened. "Then let's make sure they never get the chance to."
Without hesitation, he stepped forward and drove his blade straight into the chest of the nearest fungal corpse. The creature gave no reaction—no scream, no resistance—only a slight shudder as the blade tore through its brittle flesh. A moment passed.
Then, a thick, wet hiss escaped from the wound.
Lex jerked his weapon free just as the body convulsed violently. Instead of collapsing, the corpse stiffened, its fungal veins glowing brighter. A sickly burst of spores erupted from the wound, swirling in the air like ghostly embers.
Lex took a step back, coughing, eyes narrowing. Then, he waited.
Nothing.
No rush of energy. No essence flowing into him.
His expression darkened. "Well. That's disappointing."
Darius' voice was quiet but firm. "That's because they're not alive. Not really."
William swore under his breath. "Then what the hell are they?"
Darius's fingers twitched as he reached out, his power brushing against the creatures. His brows furrowed. "There's… something in there. A presence, but not a soul. Like they're echoes of something that used to be."
Lex clicked his tongue. "So, useless to us."
The corpse he stabbed twitched violently again, its head snapping toward him with an unnatural crack. Then, all at once, every fungal puppet turned their empty, glowing eyes toward the group.
William tightened his grip on his weapon. "Useless or not, I think we just pissed them off."
The creatures lurched forward.
Lex moved first. His blade cut through the air in a blur, slicing deep into the nearest creature's throat. The head lolled to the side, hanging by strands of glowing fungal fibers. It didn't fall. Instead, the creature shuddered, its severed head tilting unnaturally as if observing him from a new angle.
Lex swore under his breath and yanked his weapon free, stepping back. "Yeah, okay. That's not fair."
The creatures moved in eerie synchrony, their glowing veins pulsing with an unnatural rhythm. They did not lunge or rush. They simply walked, a slow, deliberate march, heads twitching and limbs bending at sickening angles.
Darius clenched his fists, reaching out with his mind. He pressed against the entities, searching for consciousness, for something to manipulate. His breath caught. There was nothing there. They were hollow. Echoes of something that should not be walking.
William lifted his weapon, but hesitated. "How do you kill something that's already dead?"
"You don't," Darius murmured. "You run."
Lex scoffed. "Not happening." Just then the sound of a thousand voices assaulted there ears. They all spoke at the same time.
"ncnnwcjouhuop?" One of the humanoid mushrooms walked forward and this time only one concentrated voice, a voice that had the weight of centuries of existence. William looked around and pulled Darius and Lex closer. "Have you guys ever met a magi that speaks?" Before they could answer the voice of the catalyst whispered in their ear.
[You are in the presence of mushroom king cycle five Magi do not provoke on pain of instant death…]
[Mushroom king wants to talk, he hasn't talked to anyone in years…]
[Translate?]
[Yes/No]
All of them looked at each other with growing fear. Cycle five! This monster could kill them in one blink; it's possible they were in the presence of the strongest Magi in the land of darkness. They all issued a yes in their minds.
Mushroom king didn't stop staring at them, its face unchanging. "Do you not understand me? Well that should be the logical guess. You're a completely different species from the last ones who've walked this land."
William shook his head "No sir we understand." Mushroom king nodded and spoke again. "Well that's good. What do you call your kins child?" Mushroom king looked at William like he was food. The nice pretense he was putting couldn't hide the hunger in his gaze.
"I suggest you answer quick or i'd give into my hunger for flesh and consume you." He said this in a matter of fact tone like the sky was blue. The ground under them shifted and opened up beneath them pure white roots grabbed them and held them in place."
William could feel it caress his back in an almost caring way; this feeling shook him to his core.
"I'm so lonely nobodies been on these lands for one thousand years. So I slumber and rest undisturbed. For eons I have waited for the arrival of my kind but I fear to find myself to be the last of my kind. Doomed to an existence Born Within Eternity.
Before my great slumber the sun rose and fell but now something ghastly has taken its place. Coveting the world in a eternal darkness. The world I once knew is now a spec! A distant memory."
Taking a pause in his speech, the mushroom king looked at them all. His gaze pierced down into their soul. And not in any metaphor William could feel it! His soul writhed under the gaze his body responded accordingly. Cramping up he couldn't command his body almost like the nervous system in his body was erased just like that.
It burned like a fire inside his flesh; it felt like his body was being cooked to well over done. The pain came in waves crashing into his consciousness like a sledgehammer to glass. It felt like thick sharp claws were handling his soul. And now oh god now… The feeling folded in on himself going into a small point and it went deeper than William could sense. This was a violation of no other; he felt dirty, used, forgotten; he felt like a toy that would be thrown away after the childs done with it.
Eventually the intrusion stopped and his gaze went up and looked at the humanoid mushroom in front of him. Nothing not a single word out of both parties nobody spoke. The Mushroom King looked at William and spoke again.
"Well done Alixni human scum you're the only one awake out of your party."Looking to his left and right he realised that he was the only one awake frowning he wanted to make sure the other two were not too injured. But his body was bound.
"You know? When I woke up I thought I'd be alone or atleast with family. Something I didn't expect was the mad plans of the two were to succeed…" All the mushrooms looked up at the black sky with a sad expression, their faces contorting in a way uncannily similar to humans.
All the mushrooms looked up at the black sky with a sad expression, their faces contorting in a way uncannily similar to humans.
The Mushroom King's voice returned, softer now. "I have been asleep for a long time."
His glowing eyes dimmed, not in weakness but in reflection. "I do not know how many centuries have passed. Time means nothing to things that grow without change. But when I woke, I felt it. Something… different."
The ground shifted slightly under William, and the roots holding him pulsed once, like they were echoing a heartbeat that had only recently returned.
"When I opened my eyes, the world was darker, quieter. My children—mute. The air, stale. But that Tower…" The Mushroom King's gaze turned skyward, voice almost reverent now. "It called to me. A spire of light in the void. The only thing in this rotting world still reaching up."
William stared at him. "You think it's a way out?"
"I know it is," the King said, more sharply this time. "I don't know what lies at the top. A god. A gate. Oblivion, maybe. But I was not reborn to sit in the dirt again."
He took a slow step forward, massive fungal limbs dragging softly across the ground. "So I've decided. I'm going to leave this place. I'm going to climb the Tower. Break it. Enter it. Escape it. Whatever I must do. That is the only thing left."
The silence that followed was suffocating.
"I will storm the Tower in one month's time. Alone if I must. But I doubt I'll be the only one drawn to it. The old world's bones are shifting. Things are waking up." His gaze bore into William. "You woke me up."
William felt his blood run cold.
"I don't know what you are," the King said, "but you reek of broken cycles and unnatural hunger. I should crush you. End you. But that would be a waste."
He leaned closer. "Because if you're heading toward the Tower too… then maybe—just maybe—you're worth keeping alive."
The roots gently set William on the ground. Darius and Lex were still out cold.
"I'll be watching," the Mushroom King said, his voice beginning to fade as his form unraveled into spores. "Don't disappoint me, little devourer."
The fungal figures receded with him, drawn into the earth, vanishing like mist curling back into the soil.
Only the Tower remained in the far horizon. Distant. Tall.
Waiting.