The crowd of mercenaries stood animatedly in front of the tower, lured by the huge reward, their goal was simple and yet difficult to break through the defenses of the first floors. They stood in anticipation as the gates were about to fall under the onslaught of internal battles, explosions and shouts were heard, the crowd screaming for the gates to be opened. And I stood there being one of them, my hand on the hilt of my sword and I waited for the time to draw my sword and my breath quickened. Then finally there was a loud explosion.

  The gate shattered into splinters. The most impatient that stood right at the gate was wounded by pieces of the gate and someone was killed, amateurs. Apparently the previous explosions did not impress them much and they did not make an inference from it that their problems. A crowd of mercenaries pushed the wounded inside and I too and we saw the first floor where there were mostly magical elevators and the reception desk where bodies in robes were scattered everywhere and the battle was going on inside.

  We were warned that all those who would wear red robes were our allies and those in white and blue robes were enemies and they should be attacked. I approached one of them from the back and cut off his head cutting his neck. I felt something flying at me I grabbed the decapitated corpse and covered myself with it. I felt like I was being pushed away with my makeshift shield so I let go of the corpse and jumped away from it. The corpse was pierced through and I was hit hard. I decided to take a quick look around and saw mages being killed all around me, I spit out the phlegm that had accumulated in my throat and saw the one who had cast the spell on me get slaughtered by a mercenary without a hand.

  With this floor where all the enemy mages are dead, we need to go upstairs. Allies led us to the elevator and began to activate some spells. I do not know how it works. I felt us start to lift, but something felt oddly unnatural. A small shaking didn't give me a rest in front of us opened a passage to the next floor there at the entrance stood mages in blue robes trying to escape we ran out of the elevator attacking the mages I came out first cutting off his hand which he tried to do something probably to invoke a spell, and then I chopped his head off someone less fortunate stayed in the elevator and a spell that looked like a fireball flew in, I lunged at the last mage, lunged at his stomach and then drove my sword in from below his jaw where there was only soft tissue, somehow I managed to cut through his head, I must have been incredibly lucky.

  From the second elevator came out allied mages they called us with them we entered it without delay on a wide stone platform stood about 3 mages in red robes and 5 mercenaries probably the rest of the mercenaries have already gone higher on other elevators or died

  And now we were on one of the higher floors here according to the information we were told there might be strong mages and creatures.

  The doors opened and there was a battle going on here too, but unfortunately we quickly lost the advantage because a stupid mercenary ran out of ours screaming and the mages, not seeing a better opportunity, started to cast fireballs and some kind of wind bullet that must have penetrated my corpse shield earlier.

  I ran out and sliced the stomach of the mage who turned to screamed idiot, but we still had a slight advantage. A spell whistled past my ear and I rolled to the left and another projectile flew into the place where I was standing before, and behind me mercenary's half a body was blown off, so the first shot was not meant for me but for the idiot who was shouting, "Rest in peace idiot. I looked at the mage that had launched what we had seen before were young men of about 16~20 years old, now there was an obviously experienced man standing in front of me in the glitter of the lenses of his glasses, the flames that flared up behind me from his spell that aimed at me lit up the tables and tools, he put up a translucent barrier in front of him, so he wanted to lock us up to burn or suffocate, smart dick. The elevator behind us is on fire and we can't get out since all the working elevators are on their side. A couple of allied mages tried to attack the barrier with a spell but failed, as well as my attempts to pierce the barrier left on it a ripple like on water. Seeing this we decided to join forces and hit this barrier once again, again only ripples but it was obvious that the mage tensed up and asked for help from the students.

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  -"Give it up already, you fuckin magician!" I shouted to him.

  With renewed vigor we started hitting the barrier, as it cracked, I stuck my dagger into the crack and stepped back, the mage behind me launched a spell that caused the cracks in the shield to spread like a spider's web.

  I wiped the sweat from my forehead with my hand and some mercenary rammed the barrier with his shoulder and a fire projectile flew into it. With only 2 mercenaries and 2 mages left on our side quickly assessing our position I ran around the adult mage and headed towards the students. In a panic they couldn't do anything dangerous to me so I easily chopped his head off while the rest of the allies distracted the adult mage. The mage got into a confrontation which surprised me in close combat. He wasn't that bad but unfortunately he can't hold out against so many people I killed the last apprentice. It's very sad to kill such young men but the job must be done. I rushed towards him from the back and stabbed him with my sword, blood flowed from him, he fell to the ground dying and looked at me with anger, but what can I do?

  There was a loud explosion, it went off in a wave through the tower, most likely the explosion occurred somewhere on the upper floors. I looked around and saw the mages lost their balance and fell. I helped them get up and we ran to the elevator mages opened and assigned to the floor above.

  We entered it beaten and tired. All of us breathed heavily and said nothing at least a minute of calm in this hell.

  Another explosion but much stronger I feel that we stopped rising mages began to panic and interfere in the structure of the elevator. From their hands came out a blue glow, we still stood and did not rise.

  Suddenly blood started to flow from the mages noses and the blood vessels in their eyes started to enlarge causing their eyes to turn red, they started to fall. We picked them up and put them on the wall after we put them down I started to feel us slowly start to descend. Boom, another explosion when our elevator fell down. It was holding nothing back, we were falling and it looked like we were going to crash. Boom, another explosion, the elevator started falling faster than us, we literally started flying.

  The elevator suddenly slowed down. We hit the floor of the elevator. I think I broke my leg. I sat down and went down. Phew thank god if you are, I've never been so scared. The doors opened in front of me to some basement where there were some magical drawings hidden in a box on a pedestal. I didn't have the energy to drag anyone down here.

  I crawled inside leaning against the wall I sat there knowing that I would not survive, there was an explosion that only emphasized that I would not survive this is the end of the story the creepiest thing is that I hear the tower began to collapse its debris hail down one of them broke the roof of this basement I guess the tower is broken finally since I see a light in the hole the elevator has collapsed most likely everyone who was inside is dead and I will soon go to them.

  The magic drawings on the floor started flashing until they went out and the box disappeared revealing a levitating apple in front of me and it started shaking in the air until it fell and rolled towards me knocking me slightly, I picked it up surprisingly it looked clean but it had a lot of bites on it I decided to take a bite from the side where there were no bites.

  Mmmm it tasted incredible, nothing but a perfect apple. I wanted to take one last bite before I might die.

  I woke up in the big bed and stretched, I opened my eyes and found this apple on the bedside table next to me.