Tower of God: The Flower of Earth (Slow Updates)

Chapter Forty-Nine

After I rejoined my team, we headed towards the platform to go to the next floor. We looked around, standing in the entrance of a ghost town in the middle of nowhere.

We saw a plaque, letters missing, but still readable under all the sand.

"Solmie... The lost town of Solmie, population, ghosts." Weldon gulped softly, having heard the stories.

The network of roads that led to Solime was unrecognizable as the dead nature had begun reclaiming the now unused area. Broken branches and leaves that cover the pebble roads inside the town while the yellowed tall grasses of the unkempt gardens sway in the wind.

Doors were broken, rotten and in most cases barely a door at all. Whether this was the work of Regulars looting the floor, some sort of animals or the elements was unclear, but it didn't really matter. There were signs of fires, in some cases, it was merely a trail of soot and smoke above a windowpane, in others, it was a pile of ash mixed with the sand where once a building stood.

Wind blew the sand around, some flying into my face and making me choke on the tiny, fine grains.

Solime, once home to dozens of Regulars and their families had all but faded away from history. Silence had taken hold and would've been deafening were it not for the many Regulars that visited the ghost town for their testing.

This town was a far more unsettling sight than the desert around it. But there was something oddly poetic about dead nature reclaiming what was once theirs, to begin with.

"Well, guess we gotta go find out what our test is. Hopefully, it is not just surviving in this desert." Edric stretched trying to pop his back as he extended his arms over his head.

"That is exactly what you have to do. Plus more." A chilling voice said behind us, we all felt shivers run up our spines. We slowly turned around to face a man.

His skin was as black as obsidian, and I assumed as dense as well. The daisy white hair and eyes made Edric squeak in surprise and jump into Ewart's arm, as Ewart wobbled, unable to hold his weight. The two young men tumbled backwards.

Weldon blinked a few times before finally getting the courage to speak. "Who... Who are you?" He gulped.

"I am Geumji Deon. Welcome to the floor of the Unlucky Ones. You have passed the individual exams to get here, but this is the floor where you are tested to see if you are worthy to keep climbing the tower."

"Why is it called the floor of the Unlucky Ones?..."

"Because you can find the corpses of those who were not lucky beneath the sands. Follow me." He walked towards the town.

The team looked at each other, and stuck close together as we followed the test administrator. He led us into what looked like an old western-style saloon, a few other individual regulars and teams sitting in the seats. We took ours, and watched the man as chills ran down our spines. None of us had ever seen anything exactly like him before.

"All the Regulars have arrived. We will now begin testing. Women on one side, Men on the other. Those who fall into both or neither category can go lean against the bar table." He ordered, as the regulars did as instructed, most either going to one side or the other, but a couple against the table. "You will all begin testing. Now." The saloon and Geumji Deon faded away into dust, as did the rest of the town, leaving all the regulars standing in the seemingly never-ending sand dunes.

"What... What just happened?" One of the testers near me whispered, trembling slightly in fear at what just had happened. "Was he a g-g-g..."

"Ghost? No, I don't think so. It may be a ghost town, but he wouldn't be a ghost. He's testing us." Another young woman spoke and tried to take a step towards the guys that were a part of her team, but was blocked by an invisible shield. She hit the wall, as did the other teammates.

I tried walking towards Kal, who was the closest to me, but found that we couldn't even interact with the teammates of our own group. "I think we need to make teams with other team members.

"What?! No! I want to work with my team!" Some protested.

"Think about it! The unlucky ones had to be the ones who refused to work together! We have to work in a group with those not on our team to survive and get back to Solmie, or wherever this test takes us!"

Some refused to and tried to work with their original teams, before the sand around our feet shifted. I watched as it seemed to roll around my feet, and the others who were not causing problems, before suddenly giving away from under the feet of the troublemakers, acting similar to a sinkhole.

The troublemakers tried to escape, one by one being dropped through the ground before it closed up behind them.

Ewart's eyes widened as he watched this. "Oh... That is what he meant by the corpses are under the sand..." He whispered, only Edric able to hear him with his sensitive hearing.

"Ok, ok. So we have to work together with other people to get out of here. What way do we go though?..." A voice spoke up.

"Mercy, you're a guide. Can you help us with this?" Kal whispered over to her, before seeing her shake her head.

"No can do. I cannot lead people out of this. Every path is jumbled together and only leads to one result that I am seeing. Death."

"You see nothing, Dwarf?" A girl nearby her groaned.

"Don't call me dwarf. And no, I do see things. I see paths that lead to all of your deaths. All but mine. But you know what? I actually happen to like my companions, and want to lead them out of here, but to do that, I need to find a path where we don't all die." She furrowed her eyebrows together, as a little fire flame in her eyes sparked angrily.

"Whatever, Dwarf." The girl glared right back.

"Oh. What do you know? I do see one different path." She drew her billhook style blade from her weapons pocket and stabbed the girl in the leg, not wanting to be drawn into the sand for stabbing her in the heart like she wanted to. "I see one where you are hurt and you now have to rely on my instinct and the others around you to survive." She drew it back out, and whipped out a rag to wipe off the blood.

The girl screamed in pain and fell on her side, holding her leg and trying to stop the bleeding.

"Mercy!" I snapped at her, and pulled out bandages to stop her bleeding and not get sand in it and have it be infected.

"She called me a dwarf! Degradingly!"

"Still! No stabbing! We need you to focus and help us get out of here." I tied the wound tightly. "I have a gut feeling we don't want to be out here during the night."

She sighed and nodded, before pulling out a small device from her pocket. She pushed a button and a full-size brass telescope expanded from the small cylinder.

Kal and the others watched as she scanned the horizons for any clear crossroads with her ability, before stopping at about five degrees to the northwest of a sand dune. "That way. That's the only way we will survive."

"Very well. That way we shall go." Some nodded and started moving out. Two girls took the injured girl and helped her walk as they made their way towards the hills, as I looked at the sun.

Hopefully, we would make it wherever Mercy saw before night. 

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AN

Hello readers! Sorry for long time no update. Life, in general, got crazy, between working two jobs and college. While I still have that, I now have a bit more free time due to COVID-19 self-isolation, so hopefully, I will get back to my normal writing schedule. I hope you all have a wonderful day and enjoy the Tower Of God Anime that's coming out on the 1st! Hope to see you next week!