Shojiro froze, staring at the massive skeletal hand retreating into the crimson floor.
It didn't make sense. Why had it appeared only when he tried to get away?
His instincts screamed at him to move, to retreat again — and he obeyed.
The moment he took three steps back, the entire tower shuddered.
The crimson walls groaned. The floor cracked open like a living wound.
From the depths below, something colossal began to rise — a titanic skeleton, fused from hundreds of lesser bones, its skull scraping the ceiling.
Shojiro's eyes widened.
"So that's it…" he muttered.
"The Tower hates cowards."
Testing his theory, he forced himself to stop — heart pounding, every muscle ready to flee — but he didn't move.
Instantly, the trembling ceased. The giant skeletal figure paused, its burning sockets dimming.
Then, slowly, it sank back into the crimson ground, disappearing without a trace.
He exhaled sharply, realization dawning.
"Never run. Always face forward."
Then another voice echoed in his head — Kaiser's, rough and commanding, like thunder rolling across an iron sky.
> "Attack at close range. Feel the rhythm of the pulse — your heartbeat is the weapon. Each motion must carry intention. Strike like you mean to erase existence itself."
Shojiro clenched his fists, feeling the beat of his own heart like war drums in his chest. The tower wanted fear. It wanted hesitation. But he would give it neither.
His eyes sharpened, breath steadying as he whispered under his breath,
"Challenge accepted."
Then, he let go.
He cut off every logical thought — every instinct to plan, to predict, to analyze. His mind emptied, his consciousness narrowing to pure motion, pure intent. A trance-like calm overtook him as his body moved on instinct alone.
The skeletons surged forward in waves. Shojiro roared and charged headlong into them.
Fists smashed through bone. Knees shattered ribs. Elbows broke skulls.
He didn't care that they reformed. He didn't care that pain shot through his arms with every blow.
He fought with reckless precision — each strike a pulse, each heartbeat a drum of defiance.
He no longer fought to survive. He fought to dominate.
The tower watched, the crimson air trembling as if acknowledging the change.
Each strike came faster.
Each breath shorter.
The tower echoed with the sound of splintering bone and Shojiro's heavy, ragged breathing.
But no matter how many times he broke them — they kept rising.
Again.
And again.
And again.
He struck until his knuckles bled, until his arms trembled, until his vision blurred.
And yet he refused to fall.
Through the haze of pain, one sound began to cut through —
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
His heartbeat.
Louder.
Sharper.
Resonating through his bones, shaking the air around him.
Then the floor beneath him began to pulse in rhythm — faintly at first, then violently, as if the tower itself was answering his heart.
A voice—Kaiser's—echoed again, not as words, but as instinct.
"Feel it. The rhythm. The pulse of life itself. Let it out."
Shojiro gritted his teeth and pressed his palm against his chest — right over the life point under his sternum.
A tingle sparked beneath his skin.
Then a flare — a burning warmth spreading outward, racing through his veins like liquid lightning.
His vision blurred crimson.
The air thickened.
And then — stars.
Tiny crimson motes floated up from his skin, shimmering like fragments of a dying sun. The glow expanded, tracing his veins, threading down his arms and pooling into his fists.
Shojiro gasped as his life point opened.
The Vythra erupted from within him — wild, raw, unrefined. His body sang with the force of it, muscles tightening, heartbeat now a thunderous drum.
He looked down.
His fists burned with crimson light. The bones beneath his skin glowed like forged steel.
For the first time, the skeletons hesitated.
Shojiro's lips curled into a grin.
"Now we're talking."
He lunged forward, arm cutting through the air.
The moment his fist connected with the first skeleton, the Vythra exploded outward — a shockwave of crimson force that reduced the creature to dust. No regeneration. No reforming.
It was gone. Completely erased.
The other skeletons paused — their empty sockets reflecting the glow of his burning veins.
Shojiro rolled his shoulders, energy surging through him like a living storm.
"Alright, tower…"
His voice dropped low, confident, almost feral.
"Let's see what else you've got."
The tower pulsed again — not in anger this time, but in recognition.
The trial had begun in earnest.
Shojiro didn't hesitate.
He charged forward, crimson energy flaring around his body like a storm barely contained.
The first skeleton lunged — blade raised — but Shojiro ducked low, feinting an uppercut before snapping his other arm forward.
A clean, savage straight right.
CRACK.
The skull shattered on impact, spinning into the air before bursting into ash.
He pivoted, grabbing another skeleton by the ribs.
"Too light."
With a sharp twist, bones splintered under his grip — the sound wet and brittle — and Shojiro hurled the broken remains into a group advancing from his flank.
The collision sent bones scattering like shrapnel.
Without pause, he leapt.
His knees coiled, muscles tightening, and he launched himself into the air — twisting mid-fall before bringing his elbow down like a meteor.
BOOM.
Crimson energy erupted from the point of impact, vaporizing a small cluster of skeletons instantly. The floor cracked beneath him, the crimson Vythra humming violently through the fracture lines.
A flicker of movement — behind him.
Shojiro spun just in time to catch a skeletal arm reaching for his neck. He snatched the creature's jaw with one hand and tore downward.
Bone split clean in two.
He caught the dangling spine before it fell apart, squeezing —
SNAP.
The entire frame collapsed into dust under his grip.
Another one came.
Shojiro caught it mid-swing, hooked his arm around its neck, and yanked it back into a chokehold.
"Sleep."
He twisted — a clean, brutal snap — then slammed it into the ground, severing its ribcage from the spine.
Two more charged in tandem.
Shojiro grabbed the nearest by the wrist, pivoted, and suplexed it straight into the other, their bones shattering together on impact.
For a moment — silence.
The sound of cracking bones faded. The crimson haze settled.
Then — crunch.
Shojiro stepped through the remains, breathing hard, chest rising and falling, the faint crimson glow still pulsing beneath his skin.
One by one, the skeletal remains disintegrated into dust, leaving nothing but fragments of glowing crimson motes drifting upward.
And then… the tower responded.
The ground trembled beneath his feet.
Bones began to shift, sliding and clicking together in unnatural rhythm. From the center of the floor, a structure emerged — a staircase, built entirely from ivory-white femurs and vertebrae, curving upward into the darkness above.
Shojiro stared at it — blood still drying on his lip, his fists still faintly trembling.
"Guess that's my invitation."
He flexed his fingers, the glow of Vythra fading but not disappearing — a lingering pulse beneath his veins, eager for more.
Without another word, Shojiro stepped onto the first bone of the staircase.
Each step echoed like a heartbeat — steady, deliberate — as the tower seemed to watch his ascent.
The first floor of the Tower of Flesh and Bone was conquered.
But above, the second floor waited — and something alive was already stirring.