The climb to the fourth floor felt longer than any before. Every step up the bone-like stairs made a faint squelch, like walking through a swamp of flesh. Shojiro's boots met the new floor—immediately, a wet, sticky pull clung to his soles. The air was thick, damp, and smelled faintly of iron.
He took one more step forward. The sound wasn't a step anymore. It was a drag.
"…The hell is this…" Shojiro muttered, looking down. The floor wasn't solid—it pulsed faintly, like the surface of something alive. A faint, blood-red sheen rippled across it.
Then his movement slowed. First his calves. Then his thighs. Then his arms, his chest, even his jaw. It was like the very air had hardened around him. His muscles strained, but his body refused to obey. His breathing turned shallow.
"Can't… move…?" he hissed through clenched teeth.
His heart pounded harder, pumping adrenaline that did nothing to his paralyzed form. Then, from the edges of the room, shapes began to emerge. Sluggish, translucent masses—slimes, but not ordinary ones. Their gel-like bodies glowed faintly crimson, veins of darker red pulsing through them. Some slithered down from the ceiling; others crawled up from the floor.
At first, they seemed harmless, brushing against his legs and torso like curious animals. Their touch was warm, almost ticklish.
Then—suddenly—his body twitched. The paralysis broke. The faintest movement.
And that's when they reacted.
The slimes snapped, their gentle probing shifting into violent hunger. Their forms thickened, bubbling with pressure. One latched onto Shojiro's right arm. There was no time to react—SSSHHKK!—his arm burst apart in an explosion of blood and sizzling flesh, the slime devouring his limb in an instant.
"AAAGHHH!!" His scream echoed off the chamber walls, guttural and raw. Blood sprayed across the red-lit room, his body trembling.
He roared, forcing Vythra down his remaining arm, trying to rip the creatures off his legs. His hand slammed into the slime—only to pass through it like smoke. The Vythra flared, but it had no effect. His grip couldn't find purchase. It was like trying to strangle mist.
The slime laughed. Not in sound—but in the way its body quivered, almost mockingly, before another lump detached from it and crawled up Shojiro's chest. The acidic touch burned through fabric, skin, and muscle, releasing thin trails of steam.
He gritted his teeth, every nerve on fire. "Immune to… physical attacks…?"
He tried again, channeling Vythra into a sweeping wave across his body—but the moment he moved again, even slightly, his muscles locked up. The rule triggered. His entire body froze, veins pulsing violently beneath his skin. His vision darkened.
And the slimes moved in.
They slithered up his shoulders, his neck, his legs—pressing into him, testing every vulnerable point. One brushed against his cheek; he could feel its acid stinging, ready to eat through bone the moment he flinched.
But Shojiro endured. Barely. His breath was shallow, eyes twitching, rage boiling behind stillness.
"...So I can't move, huh…" he whispered. "You've got to be kidding me."
The paralysis faded again. He gasped, sweat dripping down his face. The slimes rippled in response, sensing movement. They tensed, preparing to strike.
Shojiro stopped himself. Completely. Every muscle stilled. He stood like a statue, expression unreadable, as the slimes circled him uncertainly.
Slowly—very slowly—he began piecing it together.
The tower wasn't killing him for fighting. It was killing him for moving.
He didn't understand why yet—but the pattern was there. Every time his body acted, the punishment followed.
"...You want me to stop moving…" he muttered. "Alright then."
His heartbeat slowed. His rage didn't.
Shojiro stood frozen in the middle of the gelatinous floor, body tense but unmoving. The slimes, sensing no motion, began to lose interest. Their pulsating, vein-lit bodies slithered away sluggishly, dragging across the sticky surface like rivers of blood returning to a wound.
He watched them silently. Every movement they made left faint, glowing trails that pulsed for a few seconds before fading. The air was humid with iron and acid, the ground hissing softly with every inch they crawled.
"…So… if I don't move…" he whispered, his voice barely audible. "You stop caring, huh."
The slimes drifted farther. Their bodies rejoined in sluggish unity, forming thicker, bubbling masses. The tension in Shojiro's chest built to a suffocating pressure. He couldn't just stand there.
That's when a spark of memory hit him—
The Lich, the portals, the long-range grab.
He gritted his teeth, forcing calm through pain. "Alright… let's see if that works again."
His life point began to hum beneath his sternum, light bleeding through skin and fabric. Crimson energy swirled out, coalescing into a long, spectral arm that extended forward with a low, metallic hum. The Crimson Hand reached across the chamber, its fingers flickering like fire.
"Let's see you slip through this—"
The hand struck—
And passed straight through the slime.
No resistance. No impact. Just empty air.
"What—?!"
Before he could pull back, the slimes reacted. Every one of them shuddered at once, their bodies trembling violently like boiling water. Thin lines of light began forming across their bodies.
Then, Shojiro made his next mistake. He tried to step back.
Instantly, his muscles locked again. The paralysis rule activated, and his entire body froze mid-step. His pupils shrank.
"Not… again…"
The slimes' glowing veins turned blinding red. Their previously slow, deliberate crawl became rapid convulsions. The air grew hot. Shojiro realized too late what they were doing.
They were charging something.
"Shit—"
He couldn't move. Couldn't dodge. Couldn't even brace properly. So he did the only thing he could—he flooded his entire body with Vythra, coating himself in a desperate, crimson shell.
The slimes erupted.
BOOOOOOM!
Lines of glowing red across the ground—wherever their trails had touched—detonated in perfect synchronization. The explosions tore through the chamber like a chain reaction. A thousand microblasts erupted beneath Shojiro's feet and around his body, flaying him alive.
His body ignited with searing pain as chunks of molten skin peeled away, his armor-like Vythra layer cracking under the sheer force. His face twisted in agony, teeth clenched so hard his gums bled.
The smell of burnt flesh filled the air. Steam poured off him.
When the light faded, Shojiro collapsed to one knee, smoke rising from his scorched body. His skin was half-melted—muscles exposed in places, blood dripping onto the floor only to hiss and evaporate.
He panted heavily, trembling. "It's… like they're leaving traps behind…"
But before despair could sink its claws in, a faint, soothing warmth pulsed through him. Green threads of light—Yggdrasil's power—emerged from his chest and spread across his wounds, knitting skin and flesh back together. His charred body slowly began to heal.
"Yggdrasil…" he muttered, breathing ragged. "You're keeping me alive… even in this hell."
His eyes lifted, sharp and furious again, crimson glow igniting in their depths. The slimes were reforming from the scattered residue of their explosion, returning to shape with soft, gurgling noises.
Shojiro spat blood, rolled his neck, and glared at them.
"Alright…" he growled, voice low and cold. "You want me to stay still? Then I'll show you what happens when a statue starts fighting back."
Shojiro crouched among the quivering remains of the slimes, breathing hard, smoke rising off his skin where Yggdrasil's healing light was still stitching him back together. His mind replayed what had just happened—frame by frame. The exact instant his arm blew apart.
That wasn't an explosion from the ground… it came from inside me.
He clenched his fist. "Those bastards… planted something in me."
His crimson eyes sharpened. Vythra energy thrummed faintly beneath his sternum—his life point pulsing like a heartbeat trying to teach him something.
Implant… detonate…
If they could do it to him, maybe he could do it to them.
He raised his palm and extended the Crimson Hand, its long, translucent shape forming from condensed Vythra. A nearby slime pulsed dully, unaware of what was coming.
"Let's see if you like your own trick," he muttered.
The hand speared into the creature's gelatinous core. Inside, he guided a thread of Vythra—slowly, carefully—pushing it deeper until the slime began to vibrate. For a split second, he felt resistance. Then—
BOOM!
The slime burst apart, splattering the walls in sizzling gore.
Shojiro staggered back, eyes wide, lips curling into a grin despite the ringing in his ears.
"…It worked."
But his triumph was short-lived. The next slime lunged at him from behind, wrapping around his torso. He instinctively moved to shove it off—then froze, realizing too late he'd moved.
The paralysis hit him instantly. His entire body locked, and the slime started to seep into his chest wound, glowing red.
"Damn it—!"
A moment later, his upper body detonated, throwing chunks of burning slime and blood across the chamber.
He screamed through gritted teeth as Yggdrasil's regenerative aura caught him mid-explosion, dragging his half-destroyed form back from the brink. The healing hurt almost as much as the blast.
Still—he grinned.
"Alright… that's one for you…"
He re-summoned the Crimson Hand, now splitting it into two. Each one darted forward toward a new target.
Again, he forced his Vythra threads inside the slimes—overloading them until they began to tremble. Sometimes he went too far and got caught in the blast; other times the slime resisted and nearly consumed the energy back into him. Each failure left burns and acid marks across his arms, and each success painted the walls in glowing red paste.
Hours seemed to pass—or maybe minutes, time had no meaning here. All that mattered was the pattern, the rhythm.
Pulse. Insert. Overload. Detonate.
One by one, the slimes fell.
And with every explosion, Shojiro's control sharpened. His Crimson Hand grew steadier, the energy threads finer, faster, more precise. By the time only a handful of slimes remained, he didn't even need to move his hand anymore—the Vythra obeyed his intent.
He exhaled, focusing on the last cluster. "Your turn."
He extended both hands outward. From his life point, streams of crimson light erupted, threading through the air like veins seeking blood. Each stream found its mark.
A heartbeat later—
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
The chamber quaked. Molten slime rained down in chunks before evaporating into steam.
Shojiro stood alone again, body half-scorched, half-healed, but smiling through the agony.
"…Rule or not," he rasped, "you can't paralyze willpower."
Then, slowly, the floor began to tremble. The sticky surface beneath him hardened, turning from gelatin to polished bone. In the distance, the sound of chains echoed.
A new staircase began to rise.
The fifth and final floor awaited.