Vampire's Blood Ascension-Chapter 34: The Pale Tower

Under the extreme heat of the pale desert, Rudy dashed towards the giant tower with gritted teeth.

Sweat was rolling down his body, and, for some strange reason, he felt much heavier than before.

’What’s going on?’ Rudy questioned as his steps slowed on their own, and he trudged forward while huffing.

The desert’s heat was merciless; inhaling, he felt it burn him from the inside, while on the outside, it felt like he was in an oven.

"Dammit!" Gritting his teeth, he pushed his fatigued body towards the tower that was still far away.

His eyelids trembled and tried to shut themselves, but he forced them open.

Seeing the skeletal remains of dreadborns from some lost time, Rudy wondered, "Did the desert kill them?"

It wasn’t entirely impossible; the desert was strange, and in no way did it seem like a place for living beings, but Rudy had the unfortunate fate of being here on his first day in the old realm.

Fatigue and the heat pressed down on him, and his own body told him to stop, but he didn’t.

He dragged his body towards the pale tower as he felt that if he didn’t do it now, he would never be able to do it.

Step by step, he trudged near the tower, and more essence trickled down his core for the desert to consume, and more fatigued he felt.

Moments turned into hours, his body was no longer sweating as he had none of it left, and his eyes were so heavy that he could barely open them.

His shoulders were low, and his back was bent, but no matter what, his steps didn’t halt.

Time passed, and the pale tower was finally near him, while the sun was about to dip below the horizon.

The heat was no longer as sharp as before; however, his condition wasn’t any better. The fatigue was already unbearable, and his throat was so dry it felt like it was peeling off from inside.

He could take out the water stored in his spatial ring, but it would be meaningless.

"This desert isn’t just consuming my essence, it’s also sucking my energy..." Rudy mumbled in a dry voice.

A few more minutes later, only a quarter of his blood essence was remaining, and he was still meters away from the tower.

"Damnit..." the words escaped his lips as his legs gave out and he fell face-first into the pale sand.

The sand clung to his body and stung like tiny needles, but he had to move, so he crawled forward.

He was losing more essence than before, but the pain kept him awake; however, that too had its limits, and just a few hundred meters from the pale tower, the fatigue claimed him, and his eyes shut.

At that moment, the sun dipped below the horizon, and the moon overtook the sky of the pale desert.

Just as the night unfolded, something strange and mystical happened.

Darkness engulfed the sand, turning it dark, as a cold wind drifted throughout the desert.

Feeling the cold, Rudy’s eyes fluttered open, and his gaze fell on the dark sand before him.

"What...?" Confused, he pushed himself to sit up and saw that the pale desert had turned into a dark desert.

All of a sudden, the sound of rattling resounded from his left, and he turned towards it.

A few steps away from him was a cracked skull twice the size of a human with big eye sockets and a monstrous jaw, and at the moment, it was shaking.

He looked around and saw that all of the bones were rattling, and mumbled, "What’s this now?"

Far away, two skeletal limbs shot out of the dark sand, and a four-legged skeleton pushed itself out.

’What the?!’ Rudy’s eyes widened; he gritted his teeth and stood up, staring at it.

The skeleton looked around itself, and as it walked, two of the countless corrupt cores flew upwards and floated at its chest. Veins and flesh appeared from seemingly nowhere and knit themselves around the skeleton; its organs formed as well, and within moments, a dreadborn that had died centuries, if not eons ago, was alive once again.

Rudy’s face went pale, his gaze shot to the remains around him, and without wasting any more time, he gritted his teeth, channeled his remaining blood essence in his feet, and dashed towards the pale tower.

As he did so, something unexpected surprised him.

Just as his feet landed, he didn’t lose his essence, nor did he feel fatigued; instead, essence entered his core, and a bit of his fatigue was relieved. ’The pale desert during the day and the dark desert at night, both are opposites of one another.’

A grin found its way onto his face, and without looking elsewhere, he ran forward as if his life depended on it, which it did.

Skeletal limbs shot out of the sand around him.

He tried to ignore them, but many were in his way towards the tower.

Without a single thought, he retrieved his long sword from his spatial ring and swung at the remains that fell in his path.

The remains of latent dreadborns fell apart while the remains of deviants were left with deep cracks; however, he didn’t have the leniency to attack them multiple times.

He reached the pale tower and looked around. "Where’s the entrance?!"

Growls and roars of the dreadborns reached him, and he began climbing the pale tower.

He placed his hands and feet within the segmented grooves of the pale tower and began climbing it.

The cold wind swished past his body like thin blades, and his muscles groaned as he pushed himself up the tower.

Halfway through the climb, Rudy’s expression turned grave as he finally understood that what he was climbing wasn’t a pale tower, but a giant spine.

It was a spine of some ancient abomination, and if it came alive, he didn’t know whether he could survive...

’It’s not moving, so I believe the desert can’t just make anything come alive...’ Rudy concluded in his head as his hand finally reached the topmost edge of the giant spine.