Jin's dreams were ever shifting as night after night she returned to the base covered in mud and ash. The first few nights, she woke up from nightmares of slaughtering monsters, goblins, and people… then those tangled with the memories of the friends she had lost. Dare's smile and thumbs up before he was impaled. Basima would be smiling with the sun transforming her hair into a golden halo before a blade exploded through her chest. Then it was Jin's blade being plunged through her heart…

She didn't jump awake from that.

No, she awoke feeling nothing at all.

She didn't want to feel anything.

She simply stared at the empty space beside her in the small bed and felt just as empty.

"Come on, Sky Girl," a voice said, though it sounded both too close and too far. "It's time to eat something. Can't have you wasting away on us."

Jin didn't know why she should listen. Didn't see any reason at that moment to move at all. She could just stay there and close her eyes and pretend Basima was still lying beside her. It's not like anything beyond this moment actually mattered. All that awaited was more routine slaughter, more fighting, more death… Because nothing in the whole of reality actually had a purpose or meaning.

The universe wouldn't care if she didn't eat. If she didn't get up. If she just went back to sleep and let herself waste away like the voice had warned.

Just when she started to think it might be better to just lie here and let herself die, another voice echoed in her mind, whispering sweetly—Basima's voice.

I will live for the moment.

Jin felt her lungs take a deeper breath, reminding itself to keep living if only for the moment, and she pushed herself up and out of the bed. She didn't contemplate her actions; she just did them. Feeling like her body had been hijacked and put on autopilot as she grabbed her armor and fastened it on her, tying her hair back so it stayed out of her face, and following after the others as she sat in the kitchen and mechanically ate the food, not truly tasting whatever it was.

She didn't even know what day it was anymore. Couldn't remember how long they've been in this swamp, just searching, scavenging, and killing everything they came across. Everything just blurred together in this murky bog.

A sharp smack on her arm made her jump and look up to find Hadia glaring at her and giving a pointed head tilt towards Alim. When her gaze turned to find him instead, he gave her a soft smile and his hands moved slower for her as he asked, "Do you want to try claiming that other base we found with Li's bracelet for the Workers today? Or should we focus on more goblin camps? They've been doing really well with helping supply us with both resources and tribute points so far. We just broke two hundred points."

"Probably goblin camps," Jin replied, her hands moving slower than she intended. She shook her head, as if that would help clear the fog from her mind, and signed a little faster, "Unless we can make the thing self-sustaining, there's no point in gaining the extra upkeep cost, right?"

"I still vote going back to the first floor and letting them know so they can come here and start upgrading it themselves," Hadia interjected, and Jin felt like she could barely keep up with reading the quick hand motions. "They've been allies so far, getting them going on this floor will also help us if they can turn all the crap we've looted into usable items. You're only alive right now Alim because we got lucky and found a handful of antidote potions in that first little hoard."

"The Workers will come eventually," Karam pointed out. His slower one-handed signing was easier for Jin to follow. "We don't want to risk running into the Fighters." He glanced over at her for some reason, an uneasy expression clouding his features, which seemed a bit sharper than before he became Crystal Caste.

Jin's mind felt torn by Kar's words. One part of her absolutely wanted to run into the Fighters and slaughter every single one of them so that the nightmares of bloodshed would at least serve a purpose. But the other part of her… the honest part of her… That part knew that doing something that reckless would simply end in her own slaughter and wouldn't give her what she really wanted… It wouldn't fill the void in her heart… It wouldn't bring back Basima to fill that empty space beside her… and it wouldn't magically bring her best friend, Phoenix, across realities just to give her a hug and tell her that tomorrow the sun would come out even if today was nothing but gray and lonely.

The sudden mental image of Phoenix sitting beside her, red curls wildly bouncing with every turn of her head, and a smile that might as well have been its own sun… it made her wonder what Phoenix would do if she were here right now. Would she tell her it was okay to kill if it meant surviving? Would she be disgusted by Jin's bloodshed? Would she still smile at her?

"Maybe someday you can ask her," Clover whispered into her mind.

"How? Do you have some way to magically cross realities?" she silently retorted, slightly annoyed and ashamed that Clover was witnessing her scattered thoughts that were probably unhealthy for her to even be contemplating.

"No, but if you make it to the top of the tower with the most points, you get a divine wish, right?" Clover pointed out. Their mental voice became a gentle whisper as they added, "If you give up now and waste away in your bed, then I'm not going to stop you, but I believe you're resilient enough to not only keep fighting every day, but to win this, Jin. You're not a submissive Servant like they want you to be. You can become so much more, but only if you choose it. Only if you become your own Champion."

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Jin imagined what that future might look like—reaching the top, proving to the gods that she was stronger than they ever thought possible, making the wish to go back to where Phoenix was waiting, to bring her new friends with her, to see Phoenix smile and welcome her back home and have Karam be able to heal Phoenix and all the other children of their sicknesses…

That was a future Jin could fight for.

She finally looked back at the group that seemed to be watching her with concern, and this time, Jin wasn't slow, and her limbs no longer felt as heavy as she signed, "We keep hunting goblins. For as long as it takes to upgrade this base. We still need to find the boss, too. We keep pushing forward. Our goal is the next floor. Until we reach the top."

The others nodded, even if a few of those nods were hesitant.

Jin finished her breakfast of scrambled eggs and smoked fish, then stood and conjured her spear, ready once again to fight for another day.

Pax kept his arm around the flailing goblin's throat as he pressed his other palm against its back and triggered [Overkill]. Needle after needle was conjured from his palm to shoot into the monster's spine, making the goblin thrash even more. He almost lost his grip on the creature when an elbow managed to hit his solar plexus. But as soon as he stopped channeling the needles, the toxins each one inflicted simultaneously dealt a burst of Corrosion damage, and the small body went limp.

He dropped the corpse and quickly looked for Zendri, only to see her finishing her own target as she plunged her thorn-like dagger into a goblin's guts, making it cry out before falling to the muddy ground.

Looking around at the absolute carnage around them, he didn't relax yet, knowing the best way for them to make sure the camp of goblins was all dealt with was to loot the bodies. "You good, Zen?" he mentally asked her, knowing it should still reach her since she was within his Aura range, though it didn't rely on her being within the Aura itself.

"Yeah," she replied through the mental connection. "I just need to rest a bit, I think. That was a lot more than we normally attempt."

"Sorry about that. I didn't expect one of them to still be awake to yell when I used my [Sneak Attack] and [Poison Sting] combo on that first one. You want me to go ahead and prepare the looting ritual this time? We might actually need to do two of them with this many."

Zendri nodded and tossed the dimensional bag they had purchased from the treasure room shop on their way to the second floor. They had made sure to hold hands while walking through the portals, just to make sure they stayed together, and were glad the portal hadn't dumped them out near the Fighters. They had barely paid attention to the floor clue nonsense that the alcoves had shared with them, but had both agreed they needed a dimension bag to at least hold any food they managed to find, and this time, Pax allowed them to stop and loot the monsters they killed.

"We should go claim either the Whisper or Speaker base," Zendri mentally told him as he pulled the ritual salt out of the bag. "It will be better for us if we can get some actual sleep in here. Neither of us has gotten enough in this dreadful swamp."

"That's your spoiled noble side showing again, Zen," he retorted, carefully making a large circle on the ground with the salt. "Can't get to sleep without your fluffy pillow?"

"You do realize you get meaner when you're sleep deprived, right?" she snapped back. "Come on, the remaining Whispers haven't claimed it yet, so they're probably still hunting on the first floor to catch up, and I doubt the four Speakers remaining are even going to think about leaving the first floor until they're forced to in like seven more weeks."

"We should focus on finishing my list, then finding the Servants."

"We already agreed that your list is unfinishable without more help," Zendri pointed out, lifting the goblin she had just killed and depositing its corpse into the salt circle. "Antoni is never without at least two other Fighters, and we've been watching them for weeks between hunting and mapping, trying to find an opening."

She let out an annoyed huff as she turned to look at him with a hand on her hip. "You and I both know that even if you manage to get close enough to assassinate him, the other Fighters would slaughter you before you could get away."

"We just need to find a Dimension Spirit Gem so I can unlock a teleport, then it'll be fine," Pax said, before raising his hands above the circle and pouring his mana into it and silently incanting.

Zendri's laughter was a distraction he didn't want at that particular moment, as she said, "Well, until you find one, we could be sleeping in a real bed instead."

"Look, if you want your fluffy pillow so bad, why don't you just go by yourself and—" Pax's quip was cut off as they both heard a loud creaking sound in the distance. Turning to look at what could have possibly made such an odd sound, both of their eyes went wide in surprise as what looked like a giant tree was slowly moving through the swamp on dozens of large roots that acted like legs.

It looked similar to the type of tree the two bases they had found earlier were made of, but it was larger and seemed to have multiple buildings attached to its trunk. The scariest part, though, was that there were dozens of goblins both on and around it, some swinging on the draping vines and others riding on the roots near the trunk.

Pax's bracelet vibrated, and he was grateful that he had figured out how to put the damn thing on silent mode as a new notification displayed itself.

Congratulations! You are the first to discover the floor boss: Goblin Chief Goburakasha! You have been awarded ten points for the discovery. Rabbit's blessing upon you, Champion!

He turned to meet Zendri's crimson eyes as she finished reading the message over his shoulder and saw the shock he felt reflected on her face. "Zen, I think we need to go claim the Speaker's base now."

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