A week had passed since Kim Dokja slammed the heavy, iron-bound doors of the first floor shut, leaving the monocled nightmare of Amon and the roiling Sea of Ruins behind.
In that week, time had become a fluid, treacherous thing. Outside, the world was screaming; inside, the silence was punctuated only by the sound of Dokja's own breathing and the occasional, rhythmic thrumming of the Fourth Wall.
"How many floors are left?" Dokja whispered, his voice rasping against the stillness of the 49th-floor landing.
He leaned against a wall made of translucent parchment.
His gray coat was scorched, and his red armor was chipped, yet his eyes—now the eyes of a Sequence 7: Cryptologist—held a predatory, analytical glint.
The Tower of Miracle was the antithesis of the Tower of Wish.
While the latter was built on the verticality of human greed—the quintessence of what people wanted—this tower was a forge of Possibility. It didn't ask what you wanted; it asked what you were willing to become to achieve the impossible.
[Welcome to the 27th floor, 'Station of Infinite Departures'.]
'Tower seems to be obssesed with subways.'
Dokja found himself back at a subway station, but the signs didn't point to Oksu or Yaksu. They pointed to Ending 1 through Ending 40. Shadowy versions of himself boarded trains that disappeared into a white void. To pass, he had to identify the one train that wasn't moving—the train of the "Present."
[Welcome to the 33rd floor, 'Theater of the Forgotten Script'.]
Dokja walked into a grand opera house where the audience consisted of faceless shadows. On stage, he saw a reenactment of his life before the "Ways of Survival" became real—a life of flickering fluorescent lights and the soul-crushing weight of a corporate cubicle. The challenge was not to fight, but to [Interpret] the boredom without succumbing to the desire to simply let the story end there.
[You have acquired a new Story!]
[Story 'Denying the Scripted Boredom' greets its owner.]
Backstage he found one of the items that are worth mentioning.
Item Found: [Ink of Potential] – A consumable that temporarily increases the "Narrative Volume" of a chosen skill. Dokja wondered if he could use this on the skills that he got in Tower of Wish.
[Welcome to the 38th floor, 'The Labyrinth of the White Flag'.]
A massive open floor where a blizzard of shredded paper obscured everything. Dokja had to carry a white flag across a bridge made of thin glass. Every time he doubted his path, the glass cracked. He realized the bridge was made of his own "Promises."
'From now on, I hate flags.'
[Welcome to the 40th floor, 'Mirror of the Abyss'.]
This floor was a direct echo of the Lord of Mysteries logic that had begun to bleed into Dokja's soul. He faced a 'Mirror Person'—a version of himself that had accepted the Celestial Worthy's hand. The battle lasted three days. Dokja didn't win with a sword; he won by "Swindling" his own reflection, convincing the mirror-self that its existence was a logical error in a story that hadn't been written yet.
Item Found: [A Fragment of a Shattered Mirror] – A jagged glass shard that vibrates when a "Lie" is told nearby. Dokja tucked it into his pocket with a shudder.
[Welcome to the 45th floor, 'Gravity of Choice'.]
The environment was a void where the concepts of "Up" and "Down" were grafted onto the user's heartbeat. Dokja had to navigate a floating labyrinth while the gravity tried to crush his narrative core.
He quickly left that floor.
"How is he doing, I wonder? Is he alright?" Dokja murmured, his hand moving to his chest, feeling the cold surface of his armor.
[Welcome to the 46th floor: 'Amazon'.]
The Fourth Wall rumbled—a deep, tectonic vibration that felt almost like a purr.
[Fourth Wall says: He's stable.]
"I'll consider that a 'Yes,'" Dokja smiled.
During the brief rest at a relatively safe and tranquil 46th floor of jungles, Dokja had done the only thing a Reader could: he watched.
He pulled up the localized Biyoo's stream of the Demon Realm Gate. He had watched, his heart in his throat, as Yoo Joonghyuk and Hades combined their statuses to shatter the Monkey King's Ring. He had seen Yoo Joonghyuk...wielding a mop made of exorcism rugs..?
A sight so absurd it almost made him forget he was trapped in a mythic forge.
Dokja couldn't help but start laughing at the sight of Yoo Joonghyuk Monkey King... Janitor King? Anyways, fighting against first Devil, the final boss of Hajin's novel.
Suddenly, from the bushes appeared a small rabbit.
Dokja raised his gaze.
"Cutie you wanna watch how main character becomes humiliated, pu-pu, come here."
[A new Scenario has arrived!]
===
< Sub-scenario ???– Jungle Feast>
Category: Sub
Difficulty: A+
Clear Conditions: You have reached floor 'Amazon', protect the sacred animal from local fauna.
Time Limit: 28 hours.
Reward: A ticket to the next floor, 50,000 coins
Failure: Detention on the floor for a two weeks until the next sacred animal is born.
===
The scenario window with a countdown appeared before his eyes.
'You must be kidding me.'
He looked at the rabbit above whose head was a red arrow now, signaling it was the sacred animal.
From the bushes appeared a person?
His skin was covered in fish scales.
['Character List' is activated!]
===
[Name: Cristoff Alas]
[Stigma: ???]
[Affiliation: Mandated Punishers]
[Attribute: Beyonder (Tyrant Pathway)]
[Sponsor: ???]
*Currently afflicted by Abnormal Status Condition: 'Rampager/Lost Control'
...
===
His wild eyes scanned the area for the sacred animal.
The only thing he noticed was a gray pebble resting under the tree.
After he couldn't find anything or anyone, rampager disappeared in the darkness of forest.
Dokja sighed, holding the sacred animal.
[Story 'The Stone and I' likes the rabbit.]
'Thank you,' he thanked his story inwardly.
But the peace wasn't long he heard loud foot steps, so he had no choice but to run.
With the help of his story he could conceal himself effectively.
All he gotta do now, is play Hide and Seek with hundreds of Rampagers of this floor.
After two hours a blinding explosion of holographic messages appeared.
[A Great Achievement has been recognized by the Star Will!]
[You have participated in the 'Conclusion' of the Demon Realm Gate from a distance!]
[You have received a portion of the Giant Story 'Echo of the Unseen Abyss'!]
Dokja chuckled, wiping a stray drop of blood from his nose.
"I'm earning shares even while I'm stuck in a tower. I really am a Swindler."
[Welcome to the 50th floor, 'FarmLand']
As Dokja stepped onto the 50th floor, the entire Tower groaned.
It wasn't just the Tower. Throughout the Star Stream, across the streets of Earth, mountains of
It was the sound of reality losing its grip.
The ground beneath Dokja's feet buckled, and the sky of the Tower cracked, revealing not stone, but a layer of shimmering, geometric violet energy.
[Warning!]
[The 'Astral Barrier' has been destabilized!]
[The cumulative 'Status' of the battles has reached a critical mass!]
[The seal of Original Creator protecting Earth is fracturing!]
['Convergence' is entering its final, uncontrolled stage!]
The messages flooded Dokja's vision in a frantic, bleeding red.
The battle against Baal had thinned the walls so much that the "Gaze" of the universe was now pouring in without restriction.
"The barrier..." Dokja's eyes widened.
Suddenly, the 50th floor—a vast countryside began to glow with a blinding, white-gold light.
« Kim Dokja. »
The voice of the Fourth Wall was no longer mechanical. It was resonant, urgent, and filled with a strange, parental authority.
[The Fourth Wall is inviting you to enter the 'Library'.]
[The '???' of the Wall has sent you an invitation.]
Dokja froze.
He had never been invited by the entity itself.
"You can do that now?" Dokja asked the air, his hand reaching for the shimmering air in front of him.
A door manifested in the center of the 50th floor.
It wasn't made of wood or stone, but of flickering paragraphs and lines of Azure energy.
Beyond the threshold, he could see the silhouette of the teen in the fedora sitting atop a mountain of books, and beside him, a figure that looked remarkably like Gehrman Sparrow in a hat.
[The invitation is absolute.]
[Will you enter the 'Inner Core' of the Fourth Wall?]
Dokja looked at the door, then at the cracked sky of the Tower above.
"Fine," Dokja whispered, stepping toward the Azure door.