The world tilted.
Aaric fell backward, his heel sliding on a patch of blood-soaked leaves. For a moment, the sky above him blurred—branches twisting into dark, jagged shapes, shadows dancing in the edges of his vision. His heartbeat thundered in his ears, drowning out the forest, drowning out the monster's roar.
And then…
Everything went blank.
As if the Tower itself had pressed a cold hand over the world.
Aaric's mind went blank—Not peacefully.Not like drifting to sleep.
But violently.Like a candle being snuffed out in a storm.
The beast lunged toward him, red eye blazing, jaws stretched wide.
Aaric didn't scream.He didn't think.He didn't even breathe.
He only felt.
Inside that silent blankness, one memory rose like a burning coal.
Kael.
Standing on a cliff on the fifth floor, his silhouette wrapped in swirling shadows. Laughing at the storm. Holding Aaric's head gently in his palm.
Aaric's fingers curled.
Kael facing impossible odds.Kael pushing through wounds that should've ended him.Kael fighting, bleeding, daring the Tower to break him.
Even when he died…he hadn't given up.
Aaric's pulse hammered.Heat and cold clashed inside him like two raging currents.
And then—
Something snapped.
Not in the world.Inside him.
A soundless crack, rippling through the hollow void of his mind.
Shadows erupted.
Aaric didn't call them.He didn't guide them.They came like a living storm—writhing, spiraling, pouring from his skin, from his heartbeat, from the broken pieces of his fear.
Darkness bloomed around his right arm.A tendril lashed outward.Then another.And another—twisting, curling, forming shape.
A hilt.
Long. Cold. Carved from moving night.
The blade followed—A slow birth of obsidian light stretching into the air.Longer, sharper, darker than any weapon he had ever seen.
A 5-star weapon.
A black sword.
Its edges shimmered irregularly, as if the metal were alive… or hungry.
The monster struck.
But Aaric wasn't falling anymore.He was standing.Feet firmly planted.Eyes locked on the creature.
He didn't lift the sword.
The sword lifted him.
His body moved as though controlled by something ancient, something cold and sure. His arm swung upward with inhuman precision.
The blade cut through the air—No sound.Not even a hiss.
Just darkness cleaving darkness.
The beast's jaws missed him by inches.
Aaric stepped forward, not a wasted motion.Shadows coiled around his legs, propelling him faster, smoother.
The creature reared back, confused.Afraid.
Aaric didn't give it time.
His arm shot forward—A single thrust, elegant and merciless.
The blade pierced the creature's eye.
A crack echoed—Wet, sharp, final.
The monster convulsed once.Twice.Its claws scraped the soil, tearing trenches into the earth as it tried desperately to escape the agony that split through it.
Aaric remained still—expression empty, eyes cold, his hand buried up to the wrist in shadowy flesh.
Shadows writhed around the wound.They surged deeper into the beast, crawling under bone plates, slicing through tissue, devouring everything.
The creature's remaining eyes widened in horror.
And then…
Silence.
The hulking body collapsed, shaking the ground beneath Aaric's boots.
His arm slid free, dripping with a strange mixture of blood and darkness. The long black sword hummed faintly in his hand—a vibration that resonated with something inside him.
Aaric blinked.
His mind slammed back into his body like a returning tide.
He gasped.Stumbled.Fell to one knee.
Air rushed into his lungs in desperate gulps, burning his throat.
"W-What… what was that…?"
His thoughts tangled, knotted.He couldn't tell where the shadows ended and he began.
The sword dissolved—Fragments of darkness lifting like floating ash before fading into nothing.
Aaric watched, wide-eyed.
"Was that… Kael?" he whispered.
The shadow…the strength…the control…
It felt like his brother.But also…like something sleeping inside him had opened its eyes.
Shakily, Aaric turned toward the monster's corpse.
The forest was still.
Smoke-like essence rose from the beast—dark purple, swirling upward like a fog pulled by invisible strings.
And then—
It rushed toward him.
Aaric barely had time to open his mouth before it poured into him—a torrent of cold power flooding through his chest, his veins, his bones.
He gasped and fell backward.
The world twisted.The ground pulsed.His vision turned black, then white, then black again.
"Make it stop—"But the Tower didn't listen.
The essence swirled deeper, settling into him like molten ice. His muscles tightened painfully, then relaxed. His skin shivered violently.
When the last drop seeped inside him, Aaric collapsed onto the dirt, panting.
A faint glow appeared beside the corpse.
Something solid.Shimmering.Dark.
A reward.
Slowly, cautiously, Aaric pulled himself to his feet and approached it.
A breastplate lay in the grass.Black steel.Cold shadow etched into its surface like living patterns.
A 4-star armor.
Aaric reached out and touched it.
The armor pulsed—echoing the same cold rhythm as his heart.
He lifted it with trembling hands.
It wasn't heavy.Not for him.
Not anymore.
He slid the armor against his chest and fastened the straps. It latched onto him with a soft click, molding to his form as if it had been waiting for him all along.
Aaric stood there for a long moment—breathing slowly, listening to the hum of new power beneath his ribs.
He felt… different.
Not stronger.Not yet.
But awakened.
Something had shifted inside him.Something dark.Something ancient.Something that didn't belong to the weak boy who carried crates for Stainers.
He looked at his shadow on the ground.
It flickered.
Moved.
Almost… smiled.
Aaric closed his eyes.His heartbeat steadied.
Kael…Was this your gift?Or something the Tower wanted me to find?
He didn't know.
But he knew one thing with absolute certainty.
He couldn't go back to being ordinary.Not after this.
Aaric tightened the straps of his new armor, straightened his back, and turned toward the path leading deeper into the Third Floor.
The forest no longer felt suffocating.
The world no longer felt hopeless.
For the first time since Kael's death…
Aaric felt the weight of a future pressing into his palms.
And it wasn't crushing him.
It was calling him.