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Chapter 17 - Side Chapter: Yue’s Journal – “The Cold God Is Changing”

📓 [Unofficial Record – Not System Logged]

Written by: Yue Lin

Status: Survivor Tier (Linked: Player #00192-ZH)

Floor: Between Floor 9 and Floor 10

Entry Time: 02:14 a.m.

ENTRY 1 – Day 1 of the Tower

I remember the way he looked at the sky when the Tower descended.

Like it didn't surprise him.

Like he'd seen it before.

I didn't know his name then. Just another survivor.

Beautiful in a way that didn't feel real.

Like a statue sculpted by someone angry at the gods.

When he killed the first monster with a kitchen knife, I thought it was luck.

It wasn't.

ENTRY 2 – After Floor 3

He doesn't sleep much.

He doesn't eat unless the system forces him to.

He hasn't asked me a single question.

But he keeps me alive.

Every floor, every monster, he moves like it's personal.

Like he's hunting something, not surviving.

I asked him once if he wanted to talk.

He just said, "Talk slows the climb."

ENTRY 3 – After Floor 6

The floor where no one could speak.

He didn't just survive it.

He moved like he was built for it.

Others died in panic. Or sobbed. Or screamed by accident.

He moved like a shadow between sirens.

At one point, I think I saw one bow its head as he passed.

That was the first time I realized…

The Tower doesn't see him as prey.

It sees him as something worse.

ENTRY 4 – After Floor 9

He fought himself. Over and over.

Versions of himself that laughed. Cried. Raged.

He broke them all.

One of them whispered something before it shattered.

I couldn't hear it.

But he looked colder afterward. Not tired. Not wounded.

Just… less human.

ENTRY 5 – Tonight

He hasn't spoken to me in 16 hours.

But he left a ration pack by my side.

And wrapped a strip of his coat around my ankle where I twisted it on the last floor.

He won't let me die.

But he also won't let me reach him.

Sometimes I wonder if he's protecting me…

Or just preserving me.

Like I'm the last part of him that isn't made of stone.

ENTRY 6 – The Dream

I don't know how, but I saw something.

Maybe the Tower let me see.

He was standing in front of a door made of light and ruin.

And something behind it whispered his name like a question.

He didn't answer.

He just stared at it like it was beneath him.

I woke up shaking.

And I realized…

He's not climbing the Tower.

He's dismantling it.

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