The battlefield vanished like smoke.
One second Kael was stepping over the twitching remains of a mechanical war-god, lungs burning, nerves frayed, blood hot on his tongue—
The next, silence fell.
Not peace. Not calm.
Silence.
Heavy. Pressing. Alive.
Kael stumbled as his boots struck something new: smooth, glassy, frictionless. The kind of surface that didn't exist in nature. He looked down—and froze.
It wasn't a floor.
It was the sky.
Or something worse.
Below him was a churning ocean of stars—constellations he didn't recognize, galaxies turning in slow agony. They shifted like breathing lungs. Time didn't flow here. It spiraled.
He gagged. "What… the hell…"
"Don't look down for too long," Riven said beside him, his voice dry but tight with restraint. "Unless you want your soul to start bleeding."
Kael tore his eyes away. Looked up. That was a mistake too.
Towering above were monoliths—hourglasses the size of ships, each one floating freely, rotating slowly on invisible axes. They were filled with impossible sands: molten gold, pitch-black smoke, shards of light, colors that had no name.
Some hourglasses bled time upward. Others shattered and reformed in endless loops.
This wasn't a room. It was a vaulted dimension.
"The hell is this?" Kael breathed.
"The Reward Hall," Riven said. He didn't smile. "If the Tower's a god, this is where it blesses... or curses."
Kael's heart pounded in his ears.
He wasn't ready for this.
He'd just survived a war—barely. His hands were still shaking. His ribs still ached. He could still taste blood in his mouth. Now he was in a place that felt like it shouldn't even exist.
His voice came out rough. "We're not dead, right?"
Riven snorted. "Not yet."
A soft tone echoed through the chamber. Pure, crystalline. Like a harp string pulled taut over eternity.
A platform rose in front of them—silver, clean, with a glowing sigil pulsing in its center.
[KAEL VIREN]
"Looks like you got yourself a spotlight," Riven said.
Kael stepped forward slowly. The sigil reacted immediately.
---
>> FLOOR 2 CLEARED: THE FORGOTTEN WAR
>> PERSONALIZED EVALUATION: INITIATING...
---
Words flared across the space like projected light:
TIME DEVIATION USED: 7.1x
TOTAL ENEMIES NEUTRALIZED: 32
CORE DAMAGE TAKEN: 68% SYSTEM TRAUMA
ECHO OVERRIDE: SUCCESSFUL (1/1 — GENERAL SARN)
Kael grimaced. "Sixty-eight percent trauma? Feels like ninety."
The Tower didn't care.
The numbers scrolled away. A new screen faded in.
---
>> PERFORMANCE RANKING: B+
Instinctive temporal manipulation detected. Adaptation rapid, but crude.
Potential trajectory: Deviant. Tower response pending.
---
"Deviant?" Kael echoed.
Riven sucked in a sharp breath. "Shit. Already?"
Kael turned. "What does that mean?"
"It means you're moving faster than the Tower's predictive model allows. You're already breaking its rhythm."
"That's good, right?"
"Depends. Are you ready to be hunted?"
Kael's stomach turned. "...I don't like how you said that."
Before he could ask more, the platform pulsed again. New lights ignited around him, forming a floating ring of three sigils. Each one rotated gently, humming with a different type of pressure. Power. Promise.
---
>> REWARD OPTIONS UNLOCKED: 3
1. [Temporal Reflex: Phase Step]
A micro-blink. Allows the user to shift across adjacent time-frames for 0.3 seconds. Functions as an evasive maneuver with partial invulnerability.
2. [Chrono Core Fragment: Tier-1 Upgrade]
A crystalline fragment formed from condensed time. Grants a permanent synchronization boost with the Tower. Unlocks one Gauntlet slot and enhances perception.
3. [Echo Memory: General Sarn's Remnant]
A corrupted shard of the Tower Echo you defeated. Grants partial ability transfer and access to combat memories. Risk: psychological degradation. [Unstable]
---
Kael's hands curled into fists.
Each choice felt like a future.
The Phase Step was obviously combat gold. Hell, even just surviving longer in this tower would depend on things like that. Blink-dodging? That could save his ass every floor.
But the Core Fragment… it pulsed differently. It didn't promise power. It promised growth. Like feeding roots deep into the Tower's soil. It whispered long-term.
And then there was the Echo Memory.
That one pulsed with something foul. Something alive.
He didn't even want to look at it.
"That thing... Sarn," Kael muttered, staring at the third sigil. "If I take it in… what happens?"
"You won't be the same," Riven said quietly. "Your thoughts won't all be yours anymore."
"It's a voice in my head?"
"No. It's worse than a voice. It's a fragment of pattern. You'll start to see what it saw. Think how it thought. Kill how it killed."
Kael flinched.
He looked at the first. Then the second.
He reached out, fingers hovering—then closed around the second sigil.
Chrono Core Fragment.
His choice was made.
---
The moment he touched it, the world ripped.
Silver light exploded across his chest, drilling straight through muscle, bone, and soul. He screamed as something ancient wrapped around his spine—a thread of time itself weaving into him.
He collapsed to his knees.
The Gauntlet on his arm spasmed. Its structure unfolded like origami in reverse, expanding, mutating. New lines etched across it in spiraling patterns. It pulsed with raw clarity.
Kael gasped, eyes wide.
He could see behind sound. He could feel the pulse of time around him like air pressure.
---
>> CHRONO CORE TIER 1 INSTALLED
>> SYNC RATIO INCREASED: 42% → 64%
>> GAUNTLET SLOT UNLOCKED: 1 / 4
New Passive Unlocked: [Chrono Pulse – Level 1]
You now instinctively resist minor distortions in time.
Reaction latency reduced. Awareness increased.
---
Kael dropped forward, coughing. The light faded. The burn cooled.
Then he laughed.
It wasn't normal laughter. Not relief. Not joy.
Hysterical. Unstable. Wild.
"I'm still alive," he wheezed. "I actually made it…"
Riven crouched beside him. "You did more than make it."
Kael looked at him.
Riven wasn't smiling.
"You caught the Tower's attention."
Kael's expression dropped.
"Wait. That 'Deviant' thing. That was real?"
Riven stood slowly. "You climbed too fast. You adapted too quickly. The Tower... doesn't like speed it didn't plan for."
Kael's skin crawled. "What does it do?"
Riven's voice was low. Distant.
"It sends someone to slow you down."
Kael turned back toward the platform.
A new light ignited.
Not gold. Not silver.
Red.
And the Tower spoke again.
---
>> NOTICE: ASCENT ANOMALY DETECTED
> > CLIMBER: KAEL VIREN
RATE OF PROGRESSION: UNSTABLE
SYSTEM INTERVENTION REQUIRED
>> HUNTER CLASS DISPATCHED
---
Kael whispered: "What the fuck…"
A new door was forming across the hall.
No light.
No fanfare.
Just pressure. Crushing, coiled, aware.
Riven stared at it. "We need to move."
"Where does that go?"
"Not where. Who."
Kael's blood turned to ice.
"They're sending someone to kill me?"
"No," Riven said.
"They're sending someone who's already killed others like you."
---
The doorway pulsed red.
Not a glow — a throb. A heartbeat. Living. It wasn't made of stone or steel like the ones Kael had seen before.
This one looked like it had been carved out of bone and rust, veins twitching just beneath the surface.
It hated him.
He felt it in his chest. Like a hand pressed against his lungs, ready to crush.
Riven muttered beside him. "Shit. That's fast."
Kael turned slowly, still winded from the Core installation. "What is that?"
"Hunter's Gate."
The name alone made his skin crawl.
"And it's… for me?"
"No one else here is stupid enough to trip it this early."
Kael forced a breath through his teeth. "That's not my damn fault. I didn't ask to be fast."
Riven shrugged. "Tower doesn't care. Climb too slow? You die. Climb too fast? You get marked."
"By what?"
"You ever hear of a Shepherd?"
Kael shook his head.
"Hunters are what the Tower sends before a Shepherd shows up."
A pause. Then a bitter smirk.
"If you're lucky, they just cripple you. Make you start over."
Kael didn't feel lucky.
He turned toward the bone door again. Something moved just behind it. A whisper of motion. A suggestion.
"...Is it coming now?"
"No. It's being sent now. Hunters don't just exist on the same floors we do. They're woven into the Tower's veins. Like white blood cells. Like knives."
Kael muttered, "So I'm being stalked by a supernatural immune system."
"That's the idea."
He wanted to scream. He'd just barely survived Floor Two, nearly got his head crushed by a temporal warmachine, coughed blood through a battlefield — and now he was targeted for being too good at it?
Bullshit.
He turned back to the reward sigils. The two he hadn't picked were fading now, dissolving into dust, gone forever.
"Can I prepare?" he asked. "For this Hunter?"
Riven didn't answer right away.
Instead, he stepped forward and placed a hand on the last platform. A second sigil pulsed beneath his palm — his own interface. Kael could barely see it.
His rewards were different. More complex. Some of them moved.
"You don't prepare for a Hunter," Riven said softly. "You outsmart them. You delay. You survive. Maybe you get lucky."
Kael snorted. "I don't do luck."
"Then start learning. Fast."
The moment Riven took his hand away, the air above his platform shimmered. Something floated down toward him: a folded blade. Thin. Simple. Elegant.
Kael blinked. "That's it?"
"It's not the weapon," Riven said. "It's what it does in time."
He flicked it open, and for a heartbeat — Kael swore the room blinked. Like someone cut a second from existence.
"You'll understand later."
Kael turned back to his own Gauntlet.
The lines across it pulsed. Brighter now. Each breath he took felt thicker, more real. He could sense the Tower's rhythm.
It wasn't just giving him strength.
It was weaving him in.
---
[STATUS UPDATE: KAEL VIREN]
Core Sync: 64%
New Trait: Chrono Pulse Lv. 1
Gauntlet Slot: 1/4 Unlocked
Tower Attention: Marked (Class: Hunter Engagement Pending)
---
The red door behind them pulsed again. This time, Kael heard something. A whisper.
A voice that wasn't a voice.
"Out of line. Out of time. Needs correction."
Kael's head snapped around.
Riven raised an eyebrow. "You heard it?"
"Yeah."
"Then it's already watching you."
A chill ran down Kael's spine.
"I don't want to go through that door."
"You won't," Riven said. "Yet."
"What does it mean… 'Hunter Class Dispatched'? Where will it come from?"
"It'll find you on the next floor."
Kael felt his stomach twist. "So Floor Three's already compromised?"
"Not quite. It'll start adapting the moment you step in. The Hunter won't strike immediately. It watches first. Analyzes."
"Like a hitman with a clipboard."
"Exactly. You'll feel it long before it moves."
Kael stood in silence.
So this was the Tower's idea of balance. Throw him into wars, mutate his body, feed him ancient weapons—and then punish him for not dying fast enough.
Fine.
Let it watch.
He wasn't done climbing.
He clenched his fist.
---
The sigil beneath his feet flared once more.
REWARD PHASE COMPLETE
YOU MAY NOW ASCEND TO FLOOR THREE
---
"Ready?" Riven asked.
"No," Kael said. "But let's go anyway."
They stepped toward the next portal — a swirling vortex of white and silver.
Behind them, the red door pulsed one last time.
From somewhere deep inside, a shadow uncoiled. Something tall. Wrapped in time that didn't flow right. A mask with no face. A voice like memory being erased.
---
> "Kael Viren.
Deviation Logged.
Target: Assigned."