TS5: Chapter 13 (Patreon)

As Ursa spoke, he spread his arms wide, and Thorn saw a faint impression of a massive bear roaring at the heavens surrounding him.

What was astounding was that Ursa used no mana or mental energy, as far as Thorn could tell, but rather it was his pure physical strength that caused the images to appear around him. It was clear to Thorn that Ursa was in the 10th tier, or maybe far beyond, but all of his mana was completely sealed, and he used nothing but his physical body in his attacks.

"Enough." Hearing a voice from the head table, Ursa glanced over and saw Tessra glaring at him.

"What, you want in on this fight too?" Ursa asked, revealing his teeth in a savage grin.

"You were not invited here," Tessra said, her face slightly pale but firm.

"Maybe I wasn't," Ursa said. "Doesn't mean I can't show up. When you're as strong as me, you can go anywhere you want. Besides, I have business with him."

Seeing that he was pointing at Thorn, Tessra's eyes narrowed, but the bear god beast was no longer paying any attention to her. Instead, he turned back to Thorn.

"You smell like a god beast that I was hunting," he said, “and there is no point in denying it, because I would recognize her anywhere."

Seeing Ursa point at Akira, Thorn's expression hardened, and he took a step forward, mana beginning to swirl around him. Before he could speak, however, Ursa clenched his fist and punched out at Akira, generating an overwhelming wave of force that ripped through the air. Having learned his lesson last time, Thorn used Titan Step, dashing in front of the table to block the blow even as he focused all his strength into his defense. The last time, he had been able to disperse the force by retreating, but this time, with his friends behind him, there was nowhere to retreat to, and so he was forced to block the blow head on.

His armor absorbed much of it, but even then he could feel faint cracks beginning to run through it. The thought sent a shiver down his spine, but the fact that Ursa's attacks were strong enough to damage his armor was the least of his worries. The remnant force ripped through his body, shaking his bones, causing tremendous damage to his muscles. Feeling blood rise in his throat, Thorn growled and pulled strength from the earth under his feet, locking himself in place and absorbing all of the force of the attack. His divine heart began to pump, rapidly healing the damage that he had taken, but the trickle of blood from his nose spoke clearly to just how powerful the attack had been. Coughing, Thorn wiped the blood from his lip as he waved for his teammates to stand down. Each of them had begun readying their own attack, but sensing Thorn's calm, they stopped.

"What's the matter? Too afraid to fight?" Ursa said. "If you tell me where that moon wolf you're hiding is, I might just let you and your friends live."

"That implies you were planning on killing them," a calm voice said from the side of the room.

Eyes narrowing, Ursa turned and looked, seeing a woman in a simple robe standing along the wall. With all eyes on her, the woman strolled forward. It was curious, but as soon as Thorn saw her, he felt an acute sense of danger, something that not even Ursa had given him. The woman, who appeared to be a mortal, glanced his direction, and Thorn felt his heart seize in his chest. Ursa had clearly felt the same, because the bear god beast took a step backwards, watching the woman warily.

"I've heard much about you," the woman said, speaking to Ursa, "and you're putting me in a very difficult position, one that I don't appreciate."

With a sigh, she looked around the hall and shook her head.

"It's been an age since I've been this far down the tower," she said. "It sure brings back memories. But we'll end everything here. You can all go home now."

Though she didn't speak loudly, it was as if her words were absolute law, and many of the visitors who sat at the tables actually stood to begin to leave. Ursa, however, was having none of it and let out a low, rumbling growl as he shook his head, fighting the influence of her words.

"What if I don't want to," he said.

His question caused the woman to pause and rub her forehead as if she had a headache.

"Listen, you are about to attack someone on my clan's land, territory, and even if your attack fails and nothing came of it, I'm sure that the steward would have something to say. I have no desire for my clan to be held responsible for your crimes. So, if you are dead set on digging your own grave, do so somewhere else. Otherwise, I will have to take action myself."

After a moment of silence, Ursa snorted, and without a word, turned and led the god beasts out of the hall. The woman watched him go and shook her head, throwing a glance at Thorn and the table behind him. When her gaze found Velin, they paused for a full second, the expression in them unreadable. Turning to face Tessra, the woman waved her hand.

"You can continue with your feast," she said. “I’ll ensure that there are no other issues.”

With those words, the woman was gone, as if she had never existed in the first place.

"Yes, clan leader," Tessra said, bowing to the empty air.

Turning to make sure everyone was all right, Thorn caught sight of Torra's face, and the nigh-maniacal expression on it. As their eyes met, the ascendant seemed to realize what expression he was making and he quickly returned to his jolly smile.

"It's not every day you get to see one of the ten clan leaders," the Ascendant said, his eyes sweeping the table. "It would seem that there's someone very important sitting here."

Thorn, of course, knew exactly what was going on. Though the clan leader had spoken in a roundabout way, it was clear that she knew just how valuable Velin was, and that it would be disastrous if she came to harm in the Vantor Clan’s territory. Had Ursa continued to fight against Thorn, it's likely that the clan leader never would have shown up, but as soon as he targeted the table, and Velin looked like she would be dragged into the fight, she had appeared to put a stop to things.

"Is everyone all right?" Thorn asked.

"Yes," Velin said. "I'm fine, thanks to you."

"More thanks to the clan leader," Thorn said, ruefully shaking his head. "I honestly don't know if I could have taken him."

Surprised by the statement, Mina and Velin both looked at Thorn with wide eyes, but Corvo nodded.

"I know what you mean. His level of physical strength was off the charts."

"I probably could have taken him, but only if a high casualty rate was acceptable," Alph continued, not noticing the incredulous look Tora was giving him.

"How high would you need to go?" Thorn asked.

Thinking for a moment, Alph's fingers flickered as if calculating.

"Higher than 90%," he said, causing a hiss of surprise to escape Thorn’s lips.

"And this is the guy that's hunting you?" Mina asked Akira.

Thorn's battle pet, who had been unusually silent the whole time, her fur still on end, still bristling, nodded.

"Yes," she said. "I'm glad Hati said we shouldn't fight him. I didn't realize he was so strong."

"My sincere apologies for that uncomfortable situation."

Hearing Tessra's voice, everyone turned and saw that she had approached the table, Matthias in tow. The swordsman’s face was white, and he clutched the hilt of his sword tightly as he looked at Thorn with grudging respect, impressed that Thorn had been able to survive two direct blows from the powerful god-beast.

"It was not my intent for you to suffer wounds at this feast," Tessra said, bowing again.

Thorn waved his hand, his expression and tone unconcerned.

"You don't need to apologize," he said. "I’m not wounded and I can fix my armor. Besides, it's not your fault that Ursa targeted me. He has some business with some friends of mine, and is clearly frustrated that he can't find them."

After the fierce display put on by Ursa, no one seemed to be in the mood to duel anymore, and so the feast got underway. It was fairly subdued at first, but thanks to Tessra’s skilled social graces, the atmosphere warmed, and soon the incident had been put behind them. As he ate, Thorn spoke with Hati in his shadow.

Do you know why he's chasing you?

[No, not exactly. though I have a suspicion. My guess is that I have started to encroach upon his aspect, and he can sense that. So he hunts me to take it back. Or maybe my aspect is close enough to his that he wants to add it to his own.]

Which means that we're going to be seeing more of him. Something we'll need to prepare for.

The rest of the feast was relatively uneventful, and apart from Tessra mentioning to Thorn that she would visit him soon, nothing else of note happened. After taking one of the flying platforms back to their accommodation at the palace on the main island, the team split up, and returned to their rooms to get some rest. Typically, Thorn, who had no need of sleep, would use this time to forge, but after coming out of the bathroom Velin found him sitting in a chair in their room, staring out at the tower outside. The Titan was so lost in thought that he didn't catch her question at first.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"I asked you what you were thinking about," she said, observing him carefully.

With a sigh, Thorn shook his head.

"I was just thinking about that encounter earlier today. And Ursa, the Tyrant."

Nodding seriously, Velin came and sat on the armrest of Thorn's chair, looking out at the tower with him.

"I can imagine meeting someone that strong has to be a bit of a shock," she said.

"It was," Thorn admitted, "kind of eye-opening, really."

They sat in silence for a moment, each occupied with their own thoughts.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Velin asked, after a minute had passed.

"Not sure what there is to talk about," Thorn said, clenching his fist. "I've faced people who are much stronger than me before, but it's been a while. Not since Aciakko was chasing me around on Lestra have I felt such a gap in power," Thorn said.

"What about Master Keadore, or even the clan leader from the Vantor clan?" Velin asked. "They're clearly much stronger than you."

"That's different," Thorn said. "That's an insurmountable gap. They're so much stronger than me that it's not even a contest, and if we were to start fighting, there is no question about who would win. But Ursa, he was different. I could actually see his strength. Our tiers are not that far apart, and yet, I got the feeling that if I faced him, I would not be coming out on top. Sure, I know that some of that has to do with his domain. After all, he calls himself Ursa the Tyrant, which means that his aspect has something to do with tyrannical strength. I was probably feeling a bit of that aura which led to my sense of helplessness. But still, even after I shrugged it off, it was clear that he was at least a couple of steps above me in terms of power."

Hearing the faint excitement in Thorn's voice, a small smile slipped across Velin's lips, and she realized that she had no need to worry for her husband. He wasn’t sitting here moping, but rather, seemed to be quietly envisioning an incredible future.

"What are you going to do about it?" she asked.

Slowly, the serious expression on Thorn's face transformed into one of excitement, and stretching out his hand as if he could touch the tower in the distance, his fingers curled into a fist.

"I'm going to get stronger," he said. "Strong enough to trade blows with Ursa. Strong enough that we don't have to rely on Master Keadore to keep you safe. Strong enough that where I walk, the world trembles."

Sensing that something fundamental had shifted in her normally mild-mannered husband, Velin leaned over and gave him a light kiss on the cheek. As she stood, her eyes lingering on his profile, she seemed to hear a faint ringing sound, an echo of a hammer striking the hot metal on an anvil. Thorn's gaze stretched far into the distance, and though he wasn't conscious of it, his will began to shift and move. He had always had a fairly go-with-the-flow sort of attitude, and though over the years he had learned to take decisive action, his temperament tended to be mild. This was especially true in recent days, as his situation had continued to stabilize.

At first, when he arrived in the Endless Worlds, he had simply been trying to survive and understand what was going on. Those days were well past, and then he had been attempting to carve out a space for himself, Velin, and his friends. That had been achieved and more. Though he had some desire to explore the Endless Worlds and to climb the tower, that purpose wasn't actually his and was driven by a vague sense of what he was supposed to do. Now, as he sat in stillness, his mind churning over his encounter with Ursa the Tyrant and the clan leader of the Vantor clan, his will began to solidify, reforging itself into something new.

The genuine desire to improve himself, to grow in strength and skill, not for any of the many external reasons that had driven him before, but simply for the sake of overcoming the challenge in front of him settled in his heart, his will writing the mandate firmly in his soul. After an unknown amount of time, Thorn let out a sigh, his breath carrying with it a peculiar heat, as if venting the fire that now burned inside of him.

At some point Velin had left the room, and Thorn found himself alone. His gaze turned to the top of the tower in the distance, and for the first time, he truly considered what it was that he was doing. Up until this point, he had been operating on a desire to climb to the top of the tower, to ascend beyond it, to discover what happened to his parents, to discover more about himself. But suddenly he realized that while uncovering the mystery was a fine goal it wasn't the thing he actually wanted.

Slowly, his gaze began to drop from the 100th floor to the 99th. This was the territory of the Beser clan, the most powerful challenger clan in the endless worlds. Below it was the 98th floor, and once more, Thorn's eyes rested on it. Each time he moved down a floor, the faint sounds of forging would intensify, and his will strengthened. Slowly, floor by floor, his gaze worked itself down the tower, pausing at each floor as he recalled everything he knew about it. In his preparation for climbing the tower, he had been gathering what information he could, and now, as he reviewed that information, fixing it firmly in his mind, the expression in his eyes grew more and more intense. By the time he reached the 10th floor, his eyes were practically burning with a flame so bright, they seemed to illuminate the night.