“From Soft? What’s that?” were Patches’s final words, before Amulak ran away, Raime over his shoulder and the sled trailing behind. He was running out of appendages at this point, but thankfully, his staff could be carried with one hand. A psychic shiver shot through his mind as he ran, indications that his Seeker Chains had finally been broken free of, but he wouldn’t be around to see the effects of that. Amulak could only continue to run through the narrow tunnels, until he reached an intersection once more. Skidding to a stop on the moss-slick stone, the mage had a moment to listen.

The winds continued to wail, and sounds of violence bounced through tunnels in every which way to create a warped cacophony, but it didn’t seem as if any of those hungering ghosts had managed to follow him. Amulak, based off his memory then, had a couple of different paths to take.

The path to the right lead to a pond. Though shallow enough to tread in most portions, at the very center, there would be a thirty meter swim in pitch darkness. Monsters often wouldn’t emerge in the area, but on the off-chance they did, a fight in water would absolutely cripple a mage like Amulak.

The path to the left would spiral downwards, making it a longer detour, and one that had a higher chance of encountering monsters as well. Flaming skulls make this corridor their home, but the highest-tier speedruns of the Blasphemed Tunnels prefer this route: so long as you dodge the fireballs, you were good. With two bodies to tow though? Might be a bit more of a struggle for a newbie mage.

Hmm...now this was a conundrum. Burdened down by two bodies as he was, neither option that was available to him was particularly appealing to Amulak. A small chance of certain death, or a higher chance of having to engage while slowed down and alone? 

...Actually, why the hell was he still lugging the extra around? Keeping it plus the sled in his grasp was crazy. Screw it, he’d even do Patches a favor if the big lug survived. Releasing his grasp on Patches’s friend’s corpse and the sled, Amulak quickly used his staff to draw an arrow in the direction he was heading off in next to where he’d set the sled down before making to the left, trusting that he had enough left in the tank to make it through the flaming skull tunnel. 

Discarding what was essentially a free meal inside a tunnel system infested by ghostly monsters may not have been the best of ideas, at least for the corpse’s own survival, but perhaps it was what Amulak had to do to get what he wanted. So he continued on, Raime’s cold, heavy body still around his shoulders as the path began to decline and curve. Soon, the light-giving moss that had lit up the previous areas disappeared, and instead, a dim, red hue lit up the steadily-warming tunnel. Amulak began to sweat under his robes, the air itself hot and dry enough that it was almost painful. Did an Immortal body need food and water, or were such desires merely a mental state?

He could not dwell on such considerations for long, as the path he traversed upon was soon lined with human skulls.
As one, they ignited, dry teeth clacking together in raucous cheer. Four of them hovered upwards, clusters of fireballs gathered up in their mouths, while three others shot forth, homing comets intent on shattering Amulak’s ribs and legs. In the distance, the mage could see more human skulls, dormant but undoubtedly dangerous once activated. What choice did he have though?
It was time to run the gauntlet, you fucking casual.

Amulak burst into motion, Raime’s corpse tucked over his shoulder with one hand while the other gripped his staff. This was fine. He’d seen faster projectiles to dodge before. Fucking Touhou 26. If he could clear that, he could clear this. 
As he ran, he chanted, precasting a Mana Shield to cover himself for the first hit. As much as he thought he could dodge, something would inevitably get through. If more than one of those skulls got too uncomfortably close to him, Seeker Chains would handle that problem. Hopefully, he had enough mana and good enough reflexes to make it to the end before completely running out of juice and healing potions.

Touhou 26 was indeed bullshit, even though ZUN’s art remained the same level of quality it’s always been, but a bullet hell, built upon massive patterns of energy pellets, was a completely different beast from a squad of flaming skulls intent on focusing all their fire at Amulak. The first couple moments were easy enough for the mage to dance around, the charging skulls missing their attacks as they shot past the decently mobile mage. He may have been encumbered by a dead body, but his pro gamer reactions had been dulled only by his body, rather than his mind, and with a superhuman set of limbs at his command? Amulak was untouchable.
But only up to a certain point.

The tunnel grew narrower gradually, and the attacks of the charging skulls and the flame-spewing skulls became more coordinated as they acclimated to his movement patterns. Some would lunge forward, feinting to cause momentary hesitation, while others would bombard the area in front of him to hide the presence of yet more monsters behind the fiery veil. Taking damage was unavoidable, Amulak’s Mana Shield constantly burning away as more and more blows landed. It was like being cooked in a sauna, like being bludgeoned by softballs, and even as his Seeker Chains restrained the skulls that flung themselves at him, that just caused them to switch to ranged attacks, intensifying the sheer number of projectiles that headed his way. They continued to scorch his boneplate, continued to stall his movement, and through it all, Amulak still had to use his own weapons and his own body to ensure that Raime’s corpse wasn’t destroyed in the process of going through this gauntlet.

But the end was near, and for all the attacks he had sustained, Amulak’s rare armor and decent defensive attributes meant that wasn’t dead. The spiraling tunnel grew tighter and tighter, until the skulls themselves couldn’t shoot their flames without being blocked by each other.

And then, the spiral became a vertical drop.

Amulak fell into the darkness, but rather than a bone-crunching impact, he struck slimy, black water instead. Rising out of the muck, water dripping from his dark cloak, he would find himself in a tunnel lit up by indecipherable sigils carved into stone bricks, with only a fraction of his resources remaining. And, merely another fifty meters away, he could see the ever-present mist of the Thunderstruck Grove, seeping down into the end of the Blasphemed Tunnels.

“Haah...haah…” Amulak gasped for breath, his blood pumping in his veins after that ridiculous hell run. Holy shit, how did people pull that off at even lower levels than he was? Being dragged down lugging and protecting a corpse didn’t help, but he wasn’t going to use that as an excuse. 

But he’d survived, and now there was a literal light at the end of the tunnel. Rising out of the water, the aspiring necromancer winced deeply to see that he was holding on to life by mere inches, his HP having reached double digit values. Fortunately, this was why he had healing potions. Even if he didn’t need to survive getting hit by the lightning bolt, he still had to get there in the first place. While there wasn’t anything he’d actually read about any last surprises after the gauntlet, that didn’t mean there couldn’t be, considering the unexpected ghosts that had blocked off him and Patches in the first place. 
Chugging down both of his potions in quick succession, Amulak braced himself for the final leg of the journey and hauled Raime’s corpse back up, starting to trudge towards the exit of the Blasphemed Tunnels.

Step by step, Amulak drew closer to the end of the Tunnels. The mist grew thicker, the atmosphere electric. Fatigue should have clung to his body, but the pull of the end was too great, and the mage almost felt as if he were floating through. His ears began to ring, drowning out all other sound. The mist was impenetrable.

And then, the mist disappeared parted.

A black tree stood, bark scarred by countless bolts of lightning. Like the hand of a demon god, it burst out from the bedrock of the tunnel, reaching out to claw the clouds out of the sky. And yet, it could no longer grow. A mound of ash had settled around it, and its peak could not yet surpass the crevasse that it was stuck in. Countless rusted spikes were driving into its wretched form, crude in construction and glistening with fossilized resin. Amulak could feel his heart rate increase as he witnessed this deathly tree. Was it fear? Awe? Or merely anticipation? Whatever feelings stirred his heart, he could not deny the gravitas of the Ancient Blackened Tree.

Raime was discarded upon the ashen mounds, and slowly, with the spikes as handholds and footholds, Amulak began to climb, rising to a heaven he would never reach. The black bark was warm underneath his touch, and the rumbling of thunder shook his organs with their depth. Time passed. It must have passed. But the sensations of his body were distant. He reached up, hand over hand, until those hands grasped only air.

At the top of the tree, Amulak looked skywards.

And in that moment, he was filled with light.

Ten thousand volts of sheer, unrestrained power burst into his veins, searing flesh and boiling blood as agony, true agony, branded itself into his very mind. What mercy could a mere charm bring in comparison to the wrath of the heavens? What meager fortitude could he bring to muster against such an earth-shattering might?! His very eyes were marked, marked by the serpent’s afterimage that leapt from the clouds into his body, into his very being! The spreading roots of the nervous system, the might of mind and soul torn away by mere impulse! That was the essence of life, was it not? The taboo knowledge that infected the minds of so many, that drew humans into depravity! What difference was there, between men and monsters? There were none! They were all lightning incarnate, birthed from the first burst of light upon a barren wasteland.

It was neither brain, nor heart, nor mind, nor soul that commanded flesh. It was the nervous system, the gossamer threads that plucked at the mortal shell, granting the motion that the unenlightened defined as ‘life’.

That was the epiphany that struck Amulak and he fell back to the base of the blackened tree, flakes of carbonized skin peeling off to add to the ash there.

From the molting of his body, though, something else [i]crawled[/i] out, horrifying yet...endearing.

[hider=Shackles of Enlightenment, Weishaupt]
[u][b]Type Guard, First Stage[/b][/u]
[sub]+20% MP, +20% SP[/sub]
[i]A thirty-centimeter long centipede-esque creature, with a human eye between its jaws. It lacks a carapace and its segmented body is covered with pale, white skin instead. Each one of its one hundred limbs have three small fingers extending out from it.[/i]

[b]Weishaupt’s Status[/b]
[indent]An extraordinarily weak creature, with only 10 HP and negligible stats other than its impressive AGI. When burrowed inside a Host, however, it becomes untargetable and unkillable, except by its host. When destroyed, this Nuclei can reform around its Master in ten minutes.[/indent]

[b]The Tree of Knowledge[/b]
[indent]Active. (Target’s LVL) MP per round. When Weishaupt is burrowed inside a willing host, multiple benefits are conferred.
-Telepathic correspondence and sensory information can be exchanged between Master and Host at a maximum range of 100 meters.
-Any spells that the Master casts can originate from the Host’s location instead.
-The Master can take any of the Host’s Resources as their own.
-By paying double the cost themselves, the Master can activate any of the Host’s skills or spells, except for Nuclei-related ones.
-The Host is immune to any mind-altering status effects.[/indent]
[indent]If the Master ends this ability, Weishaupt will burst out of the Host’s body and return to the Master. If the Host is killed before this can happen, Weishaupt will be destroyed as well.[/indent]
[/hider]

For a moment, Amulak could only take in shuddering breaths, trying to think through the pain he’d just suffered. After that moment, though, he’d realized what had just happened. 

A roar erupted across the grove.

“FUUUUUUUUUCK YEEEEEEES!”