Shojiro stepped onto the third floor. The air was thick, almost viscous, carrying a chill that pressed against his skin like invisible hands. Unlike the previous floors, there were no skeleton hordes, no chaotic flurry of enemies to shred him apart. Only a single figure stood in the distance.
A lich-like creature, tall and slender, shrouded in tattered robes, staff in hand, its eyes glowing with a cold maroon fire. It exuded calm menace, an aura that screamed calculation rather than chaos. Shojiro's pulse quickened, excitement sparking in his chest.
"Well, finally," he muttered to himself, flexing his fists, "a real opponent."
He lunged forward, Vythra coating his arms in crimson, his confidence brimming. But the lich lifted its staff lazily.
In an instant, hundreds of crimson portals snapped open behind Shojiro. Bone shards shot from each one like missiles, whistling through the air with lethal precision.
Shojiro froze for a moment. His stomach churned. He blinked, recognition dawning. Wait… weren't those the same bone shards that impaled me on the second floor?
"No matter," he gritted his teeth, "I'll find out your little gimmick."
He expanded the Vythra covering his entire body into a dense, crimson armor, raising his arms to block the incoming shards. They slammed against him with sickening clacks, some piercing the surface slightly but none doing lasting damage. Shojiro smirked.
"I've got you," he muttered, charging at the lich.
Then it hit him — pain, searing, clawing from inside his very body. His stomach twisted violently. Blood gushed upward, erupting from his mouth, staining his Vythra armor and dripping onto the floor. His vision blurred, red mist clouding everything.
"What the—" he croaked, staggering backward, clutching his chest.
Yggdrasil intervened. Slowly, deliberately, his blood healed, the crimson haze clearing from his eyes, but a lingering sting reminded him of the near-fatal blow. He tried to lunge again. Same result: a spike of pain from within, vomiting blood once more, Vythra armor flaring to compensate, and Yggdrasil patching him up.
Shojiro paused, breathing heavily. "Something's… different here."
He circled the lich, testing. Every time he raised his arms to block or tried to avoid a bone shard, a sharp, internal pain shot through him — as though the tower itself was punishing him for defensive maneuvers.
Trial and error became his teacher. He leapt sideways, letting shards pass harmlessly by his body. He rolled forward, crouched, twisted—but never tried to stop an attack by blocking it directly. Each movement avoided the punishment without fully shielding, letting him stay in the fight.
Sweat dripped down his face. "So… the rule here… never block. Got it," he muttered, breathing heavily. He tested it again: a shard shot straight at his torso. He refused to stop it, instead letting his body take the hit lightly, bracing without sealing it in Vythra. Pain surged briefly but didn't explode this time, Yggdrasil's healing stabilizing him immediately.
Shojiro's jaw set. His mind sharpened. This floor demanded endurance, timing, and precision—not defense. Blocking, no matter how instinctive, would destroy him. Now he had to rely on movement, instinct, and calculated strikes.
The lich raised its staff again, portals flaring, bone shards slicing through the air. Shojiro's eyes narrowed. He let the shards come, weaving and bracing but never shielding, his body learning the new rhythm of this trial.
Shojiro's legs dug into the floor, muscles taut, eyes burning crimson. The lich floated just out of reach, its staff crackling with green energy, portals snapping open behind it. Bone shards screamed toward him, slicing the air like knives. Every instinct screamed to coat his arms in Vythra and strike—but as soon as he did, a portal opened directly in front of the Vythra-coated limb.
Pain erupted inside him. Blood surged violently, spiking from his stomach, lungs, and throat. He gagged, vision swimming red, his heart hammering. The lich's eyes glimmered, cold and calculating. It wasn't just attacking—it was reading him, exploiting every reflex, every moment he tried to channel Vythra.
Shojiro staggered back, wiping blood from his lips, panting.
"…So that's the trick…" he muttered, voice ragged. "Anytime I coat something… it becomes a target."
He tried again. A tiny crimson glow appeared around his fist. In that instant, a portal flung open near his arm, bone shards bursting out from it, piercing him from the inside. The agony was instantaneous, every nerve screaming. He collapsed to one knee, clutching his torso as Yggdrasil's healing pulse surged, stabilizing him—but the pain left him gasping.
Again. And again. Each attempt to coat Vythra, each swing at the lich, ended the same: a tiny momentum shift, a portal, shards tearing at his body from within. Sweat and blood mixed, dripping to the floor, his hair plastered to his forehead. Yet still he pushed forward.
The lich hovered, almost amused, floating just beyond reach. Its intelligence was terrifying; it knew the tower's rules, it knew Shojiro's reflexes, and it exploited them like a predator. Each strike Shojiro attempted ended in internal agony, every misstep a lesson written in crimson pain.
Hours—or maybe seconds, time blurred here—passed. Shojiro's body ached. Every muscle screamed. Every breath burned. And yet, slowly, methodically, he began to understand: the portals were drawn to any sudden displacement of Vythra from his life point, any moment where he focused it on a single area. But the energy wasn't gone—it was still inside him, waiting.
Shojiro's heartbeat thundered. His life point started opening, expanding like a blooming sun within his chest. Crimson energy surged, spilling over the edges of his torso, radiating outward. His arms glowed, and he felt the Vythra flowing—infinite, unrestrained, amplified by everything he had endured.
He clenched his fists, pushing the energy outward, forcing it to extend beyond his body. The Vythra stacked and stacked, elongating, coalescing into a single, massive crimson hand—far larger than his own, pulsating with raw power.
Shojiro's breathing slowed. Every nerve focused on that one thought: the lich ends now.
The massive Vythra hand shot forward with the weight of his life, every ounce of energy, pain, and fury compressed into the strike. It grabbed the lich across the chest and, with a violent, unrelenting pull, ripped it clean in half. Blood, bone, and shattered staff fragments exploded outward as the creature disintegrated into nothingness.
The portals collapsed, the bone shards vanished, and the tower seemed to shudder in the aftermath. Shojiro staggered, the crimson hand dissipating back into his arms. His chest heaved; blood coated his lips, but internally he felt alive, victorious, and reborn.
The third-floor trial was over. The tower acknowledged his victory, the next stairway forming silently in front of him—bone-white, gleaming under the amber light of the cradle.
Shojiro's vision cleared. His heart slowed. And for the first time since entering the pocket dimension, he allowed himself a small, ragged breath.
"…Finally," he whispered. "…I'm done… with this floor."