From Alessio Leone's Perspective
Scrolls.Potions.Sealing runes.Catalysts.
Those were the kinds of items that, in the higher levels of the Black Tower, would become indispensable for any player hoping to survive.No matter how skilled one was, or how rare their class might be — without support, without consumables, without auxiliary resources — even the strongest warrior would eventually fall.
In practical terms, such items were to adventurers what firearms were to an army:the difference between strategy and slaughter.Between a fair fight and an execution.Tools capable of turning the tide of battle, rewriting outcomes, and allowing an ordinary player to take down an enemy far above their level.
But all of that still belonged to the Tower's future —a future that would only begin to take shape after level twenty-five, when players' main classes underwent their first evolutions and the auxiliary professions were finally unlocked.
From that point onward, the game itself would change in nature.Blacksmiths, alchemists, enchanters, and scribes would dominate the shadows behind the frontlines, crafting the resources that fueled wars and guilds alike.But until then… none of this should exist.
Not officially.
It was technically possible to obtain an auxiliary-class item beforehand — provided one was lucky or insane enough to negotiate with a master NPC in those trades.But the cost…the cost was outrageous.It was like trying to forge a divine weapon with bare hands.Ten, a hundred times the effort, resources, and risk required at higher levels.
And that was exactly why Alessio was stunned.
The gray-and-gold scroll the mages were unrolling before him shouldn't have been there.Not at this stage.Not in this setting.And certainly not in the hands of such a primitive group.
He watched silently, eyes behind his helmet following their every move.The mages' fingers trembled as the seal activated, runes along the parchment igniting in a bright golden glow.The air grew thick, heavy, charged with concentrated energy.
Then, the light appeared.
First, a thin beam — a single vertical line rising from the scroll's center toward the sky, slicing through the air with a sharp, restrained thunderclap.The brightness was so intense that the surrounding shadows warped, stretching in opposite directions.
The beam climbed dozens of meters before stopping, and for a brief instant the world held its breath.No wind.No sound.
Then, the light expanded.
The sky above them flared, and a half-sphere of gold began to spread outward from the central point, growing in every direction until it enveloped everything — trees, stones, ground, and sky.The entire forest was bathed in warm tones, as if the sun itself had descended to the earth.
The sound that followed was deep and metallic — like the toll of a bell.
The barrier had risen.
Alessio looked up.He could clearly see the translucent outline of the dome now surrounding them, shimmering in gold and gray, runes spiraling across its inner surface.The air inside felt denser, the temperature slightly higher — as though the barrier drained a portion of the area's life energy just to stay active.
He knew it well.Too well.
An area barrier.One of the most complex forms of auxiliary magic ever created within the Tower.
A spell that didn't attack, didn't defend, didn't heal.It isolated.
Anyone trapped inside that field was cut off from the outside world.No escape, no teleportation, no external support.The only way out was to die — or to destroy the scroll sustaining the spell.
Alessio exhaled audibly inside his helmet.The metallic echo was faint, muffled by the distortion of the barrier.
"So that's what this is…" he muttered.
He glanced around.
The forest was still there — he could smell the sap, feel the rough brush of leaves under the stagnant wind, hear the occasional crack of a breaking branch in the distance.But somehow, everything felt different.The world had boundaries now.
The barrier hadn't erased the forest, only isolated a part of it.Everything beyond the golden semicircle seemed to dissolve into a hazy glow, as if the air itself were filtered through a translucent veil.The farther the trees were, the less defined they became — until the horizon itself was nothing but a curved wall of golden-gray light, sealing them completely.
It was a claustrophobic feeling.The space wasn't small, but the isolation made it feel like they were trapped inside a bubble — a fragment of reality torn out and suspended between worlds.Even sound behaved strangely: the wind no longer crossed the boundary, and the forest noises beyond came muted, distorted, as though underwater.
The treetops above reflected the barrier's glow, scattering rippling patterns of light across the leaf-covered ground.The golden dome pulsed periodically, sending faint waves of energy that made the soil tremble beneath Alessio's boots.The scent of ozone was strong, mixed with resin and hot iron — the signature aroma of condensed magic.
The air, once crisp, now felt heavy.Each breath carried resistance, as though the very oxygen were filtered through the spell's energy.And the light… it never faded.It didn't flicker or dim — it just stayed, unyielding, casting sharp shadows wherever it touched.
It felt like being inside a distorted mirror of the real forest — a golden echo of it.They could still see the trees, yes, but nothing beyond them.No horizon. No exit.The world ended exactly at the edge of the barrier.
Even the birds were gone.Alessio looked up and noticed they simply wouldn't cross the dome; some approached, then veered off sharply before touching the luminous field, shrieking as they fled.Animal instinct recognized what most players wouldn't — that this was no ordinary prison.It was absolute isolation.
Sith, a few meters behind him, watched as well, her green eyes gleaming under the barrier's glow.The cubs in her arms squirmed, restless under the pressure of the surrounding energy.
The thirty men in front of them laughed.They pounded fists against weapons, traded crude remarks — as if victory were already theirs.
But Alessio didn't move.His shield remained strapped to his arm, his axe resting against the ground.
And for a moment, he wondered where those idiots had gotten a barrier scroll like that.It was the kind of thing even the great guilds of the Second Cycle could barely produce.Much less a pack of low-level criminals.
Maybe they'd looted it from an NPC cache.Or maybe someone had given it to them.
It didn't matter.
Because, regardless of its origin, the outcome would be the same.
He let out another sigh, this one longer, almost weary, and shook his head slightly.
"A barrier scroll… just for this?" he murmured, his tone laced with irony.
What a waste.An item of that value, used only to trap two people.
To him, this wasn't an ambush.It was an expensive mistake.
And, as always in the Black Tower, every mistake was paid for — in blood.