Regression of the Tower's Final Survivor-Chapter 77: Hunting Party

Vex didn’t trust easily, which made traveling with the Lightbreakers feel like wearing armor made of glass.

He watched them from his usual position at the rear of the formation, his magitech eye cataloging movement patterns and threat assessments while his natural eye tracked the expressions and gestures that told him more than any system interface could. After weeks of climbing with this team, he still felt like an observer rather than a member, someone tolerated for his useful skills rather than welcomed for who he was.

The Anchor fell away behind them as they crossed the bridge network toward the outer islands, following coordinates provided by the Voidhunters in exchange for something Dante had called "diplomatic consideration." Whatever that meant in practice, Vex suspected it involved the berserker breaking fewer of their people’s bones in the future.

"You’re brooding again."

He didn’t flinch at Astrid’s voice, though he hadn’t heard her approach, which meant she was getting better at the whole stealth thing or he was getting worse at paying attention. Neither option pleased him.

"I’m observing."

"Same thing, just with fancier words." She fell into step beside him, her axe swaying with each movement in a rhythm that was probably supposed to be casual but telegraphed her readiness to violence if required. "The eye tells you everything you need to know about threats, so what else is there to observe?"

"People." He gestured vaguely at the team ahead of them. "Reactions. Behaviors. The eye gives me data, but data isn’t understanding."

"That’s surprisingly philosophical for a sniper."

"Snipers have lots of time to think." He allowed himself a small smile. "We spend most of our time waiting for a shot that might never come. You learn to fill the hours somehow."

Astrid was quiet for a moment, her expression shifting into something almost thoughtful. "You know, you’re the only one who hasn’t given me any trouble since joining."

"Trouble?"

"Everyone else either treats me like I’m going to snap and murder them, which is fair, or tries to manage my temper like I’m some kind of bomb that needs defusing." She kicked a loose stone off the bridge, watching it tumble into the void below. "You just... don’t do either. You watch, you assess, and you treat me like another professional doing a job."

"Because that’s what you are." Vex adjusted his rifle on his shoulder, settling into a more comfortable carry position. "The rage is a tool you’ve learned to wield. I’ve seen you in combat, you’re not out of control. You’re calculating, even when you’re screaming and covered in blood."

"You really do observe."

"It’s what I’m good at."

They walked in comfortable silence for a while, the gravity shifting subtly as they moved between islands. The magitech eye tracked the fluctuations automatically, warning him when the pressure was about to increase or decrease so he could adjust his positioning accordingly.

"So where did you learn all this?" Astrid asked eventually. "The eye, the rifle, the whole package. You didn’t come out of nowhere."

Vex weighed the question, measuring how much truth against how much deflection.

"Floor 9," he said finally. "I was part of a team that specialized in long-range support. We worked with other parties, provided overwatch for dangerous areas, took contracts for things that needed to die from a distance."

"Was?"

"They left." He kept his voice flat, refusing to give the words any emotional weight. "Contract went wrong, people got hurt, and when it came time to decide who was responsible, they decided it was easier to cut the new guy loose than admit their planning was at fault."

"They abandoned you."

"They did what made sense from their perspective." He could still remember the conversation, the cold logic of a leader explaining that someone had to take the fall and Vex was the most expendable option. "I was young, inexperienced, and I made the mistake of trusting people who saw me as a resource rather than a person."

"And now you don’t trust anyone."

"Now I observe before I trust." He looked at her, letting his natural eye meet hers while the magitech one continued scanning their surroundings. "Your team is different. Dante doesn’t use people up and throw them away. He invests in them, trains them, makes them stronger. But I’ve been wrong before, so I watch and I wait and I see if the pattern holds."

Astrid nodded slowly, something shifting in her expression that looked almost like respect.

"For what it’s worth," she said, "I think you’re one of us now. Even if you haven’t figured that out yet."

---

The Voidhunters’ contract was simple: kill a Graviton Beast that had taken up residence in an abandoned mining complex three islands out from the Anchor. The creature had been attacking supply convoys, disrupting trade routes, and generally making itself enough of a nuisance that the mercenary faction wanted it dead rather than captured.

"Standard bounty terms," Dante explained as they approached the target island. "Kill the beast, bring back proof, collect the second Void Fragment as our reward." 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

"What kind of proof?" Ren asked.

"Its heart. Apparently, Graviton Beasts have a crystallized gravity core that forms when they die. The Voidhunters want it for their weapons research."

Vex studied the island through his scope, the magitech eye overlaying tactical data on his natural vision. The formation was jagged and unstable, old mining equipment visible among the crags, and there were cave entrances at three different points that could serve as the beast’s lair.

"Multiple entry points," he reported. "The largest is on the eastern face, wide enough for something big to pass through. Smaller openings to the north and south, probably ventilation or secondary access."

"What’s your read on approach?"

Vex considered the terrain, running calculations that had become second nature over years of planning long-range engagements. "The eastern entrance is the obvious choice, which means it’s probably trapped or watched. If this beast is intelligent enough to attack convoys, it’s intelligent enough to know hunters will come eventually."

"So we go in through the smaller tunnels?"

"We split." The suggestion came out before he could think better of it, the tactical assessment overriding his usual reluctance to involve himself in strategy discussions. "Main force through the east draws attention while a smaller team flanks through the north. Beast focuses on the big threat, I take a shot from an unexpected angle."

Dante was looking at him with an expression Vex couldn’t quite read.

"That puts you alone in hostile territory."

"That’s how I work best." Vex met his gaze steadily. "I’m more useful to you as eyes in the dark than another body in a crowded tunnel."

The silence stretched for a moment, and Vex prepared himself for the familiar feeling of being overruled by people who didn’t understand how snipers were supposed to operate.

"Alright." Dante nodded once. "You take the north tunnel. Ravenna goes with you, her senses will help navigate in the dark. Everyone else hits the main entrance and makes noise."

Vex blinked. "You’re actually letting me—"

"You know your capabilities better than I do." Dante was already turning to organize the rest of the team. "Don’t miss."

"I don’t miss."

It came out more confident than he felt, but Astrid grinned at him as she passed, and something in his chest loosened just slightly.

---

The tunnels were worse than expected.

Vex moved through darkness that seemed to swallow light from his magitech eye, the readings flickering with interference that suggested heavy magical presence ahead. Beside him, Ravenna’s demon eyes glowed faintly orange, the only illumination in passages that felt like they were pressing closer with every step.

"Something’s wrong," she whispered, her voice pitched to carry no further than his ears. "The ambient energy here is... warped. Like gravity itself has been twisted into something alive."

"The Graviton Beast."

"Maybe. Or maybe something worse." She stopped moving, one hand raised in warning. "There’s a chamber ahead. Big. And something is in it."

Vex settled into a firing position, using a rock formation as a brace while he sighted down the tunnel toward the darkness ahead. His eye couldn’t penetrate the interference, which meant he was going in partially blind.

He hated going in blind.

The sounds of combat echoed from somewhere distant, Dante’s team engaging the beast through the main entrance. Roars and crashes and the distinctive sound of Astrid’s battle cry filtered through the stone, distorted into something almost unrecognizable by the time it reached them.

"They’ve made contact," Ravenna confirmed unnecessarily. "The beast is focused on them."

"Then we move." Vex advanced toward the chamber, keeping his rifle ready for whatever they found.

What they found was a nursery.

The cavern was massive, easily fifty meters across, and scattered throughout were eggs. Dozens of them, each one pulsing with gravitational energy that made the air shimmer and warp around them.

"Oh no," Ravenna breathed.

The Graviton Beast wasn’t just a monster that needed killing. It was a mother protecting its young.

Based on the size of those eggs, the thing that laid them was much, much bigger than anything the Voidhunters had described.

"Dante needs to know," Vex said, already backing toward the tunnel. "The intel was wrong. This isn’t a standard bounty target, this is—"

The ceiling collapsed above them.

Not naturally, not from age or instability, but from something forcing its way through the rock with the casual disregard of a creature that considered stone to be a minor inconvenience. Vex dove clear as tons of debris crashed down where he’d been standing, rolling into a firing position that gave him a clear view of the thing emerging from above.

The Graviton Beast was a nightmare made of impossible physics. Its body seemed to exist in multiple gravitational states simultaneously, parts of it floating while others crushed the ground beneath them, its form constantly shifting as it redistributed its own weight across dimensions that shouldn’t exist. Eyes like collapsed stars burned in a face that was equal parts predator and something else, something intelligent and ancient and absolutely furious.

It saw them. Saw the rifle pointed at its head. And it smiled.

"The lair is compromised," Vex said into the communication crystal Dante had given him, his voice steady despite the hammering of his heart. "Target is significantly larger than expected. Recommend full retreat and reassessment."

The beast lunged, and Vex pulled the trigger, but then everything went sideways.