The cavern was ancient.
Not ancient in the way Floor 3 settlements were—hastily constructed from abandoned stone. This was ancient in the way of things predating human memory, carved by tools that no longer existed, shaped by a civilization whose name had been erased from every record.
Aaric could feel it in the air.
The stone itself seemed to hum with dormant essence, a frequency that made his shadow-sense tingle with recognition. Rydor had led them here through a series of tunnels that twisted downward for what felt like hours. When they emerged into the cavern's mouth, the group had gasped.
It was vast. A cathedral of stone, its ceiling lost in darkness, its walls carved with symbols that hurt to look at directly. And in the center, a pool of water so clear it looked like liquid glass, reflecting light that came from nowhere.
This was where they'd rest. Where they'd plan. Where Lynia would sleep—curled on a bundle of salvaged blankets, her breathing shallow but steady.
Aaric sat beside her as midnight approached, watching her fever-dreams flicker across her pale face.
Around him, the cavern hummed.
Rydor had organized the survivors into watches. Ariea was tending to wounds in a side chamber. Syl was cataloging supplies. Kess—the new arrival, the 3-star warrior who'd asked to join their impossible fight—was sharpening weapons by the pool's edge.
But Lynia stirred.
Her eyes opened slowly, but they didn't focus on Aaric. Instead, they rolled back, whites showing, and her body went rigid.
"Lynia!" Aaric grabbed her shoulders.
"Lynia, wake up!"
"She's not waking up anytime soon" a voice said behind him.
Aaric spun to find Rydor standing there, his scarred face grave. The captain knelt beside Lynia, studied her with the experienced eye of someone who'd seen many climbers lose themselves to essence-sickness.
"She's going deeper," Rydor murmured.
"Linking to something distant."
Lynia's mouth opened, and when she spoke, her voice was layered again—hers and something else. Something vast.
"The Tower is alive," she whispered.
The words coming not from her lungs but from somewhere deeper, somewhere primal.
"It has always been alive. Since before your kind climbed its floors, it was here, waiting, selecting."
Aaric felt his shadow rise in agitation.
"What is she saying?"
"The truth," Rydor replied quietly.
"Let her speak."
Lynia's body convulsed slightly, but her eyes—those doubled, impossible eyes—fixed on Aaric.
"Two hundred years ago, the first chosen one climbed," she continued in that echoing voice. "A flame-essence awakener from the Waking World. He reached Floor 89 before the Tower broke him. His essence was harvested. Studied. Found wanting."
"Harvested?" Aaric breathed.
"One hundred and fifty years ago, the second chosen one was selected. Void-essence wielder. Reached Floor 94 before the Tower's will overwhelmed hers. She, too, was found lacking."
Lynia's nose began to bleed—not from strain, but from the sheer volume of information flowing through her psychic link.
"Kael Vale was the seventh chosen one," she whispered. "He reached Floor 91. There, he confronted the Tower's true purpose. And he refused."
The cavern fell silent.
"Refused what?" Aaric demanded.
"To ascend further," Lynia said, and for a moment her own voice broke through—confused, terrified. "To dissolve into the Tower's consciousness. To become one with it so that it could continue to grow, to evolve, to eventually break through to the worlds beyond."
Aaric staggered backward.
"Kael was supposed to climb to Floor 100 and merge with the Tower's core," Lynia continued, her voice steadying into that eerie harmony again. "He was supposed to become the conduit through which the Tower could expand beyond its boundaries. But he refused. He clung to his identity. So the Tower trapped him. Sealed him. And has kept him imprisoned ever since—conscious, aware, but unable to escape."
"Why are you telling me this?"
Aaric demanded.
"Because you are the eighth chosen one," Lynia whispered.
"The Tower selected you the moment your brother died without completing the ascension. It has orchestrated everything—the beasts on Floor 3, the tainted crystals, the conspiracy, the guild fracture—all to force you up the floors. All to ensure you reach Floor 91 ready to do what Kael would not."
Rydor's hand came down on Aaric's shoulder, grounding him.
"There's more," the captain said quietly.
"Isn't there?"
Lynia nodded slowly, her eyes clearing slightly. "If Aaric fails to merge with the Tower like Kael did... if he also refuses..." She swallowed hard. "The psychic link binding him to me will kill me. Not quickly. Not painlessly. But inevitably. The Tower made sure of it when it poisoned my crystals. I am the leash. I am the guarantee."
Aaric felt something cold crystallize in his chest.
"No," he said flatly. "No. We'll find another way. We'll break the link. We'll—"
"You can't," Lynia said. her small hand reaching for his.
"Aaric, I've seen the Tower's design. There is no other way. Either you climb to Floor 91 and save Kael by defeating whatever imprisoned him, or you climb to Floor 100 and... and do what the Tower wants. Because if you do neither, if you stop climbing..."
"I'll come back and save her myself," Ariea's voice cut through the darkness.
Aaric turned to see the silver warrior emerge from the shadows, her expression hardened into something beautiful and terrible.
"I don't care what this Tower wants," Ariea continued, approaching Lynia and kneeling beside her. "You are not a bargaining chip. You are not a guarantee. You are a girl who deserves to live because she exists, not because some cosmic entity decided you were useful." She looked at Aaric directly. "We climb because we choose to. Because Kael deserves rescue. Because the Tower doesn't get to dictate terms."
Lynia's eyes welled with tears.
"You can't fight the Tower."
"No," Ariea agreed softly.
"But we can climb it. We can reach Floor 91. We can free Kael. And then we can figure out what comes next together."
Rydor stood, his scarred face set in grim determination. "The girl is right about one thing—we need to move faster. The Sovereigns Circle will expect us to hide, to scatter, to give up. Instead, we go to Floor 15. We enter the tournament. We recruit climbers who've been marginalized by the Circle's hierarchy. We build an army."
"An army?" one of the watching survivors asked, incredulous.
"Against the Sovereigns Circle? They control half the Tower."
"No," a new voice answered.
Aaric turned to see Kess step forward from the shadows by the pool. The 3-star flame-warrior's eyes were burning with something personal, something vindictive.
"They control the upper floors," Kess continued. her voice like grinding stone.
"But the lower floors? Floors 4 through 30? There are hundreds of climbers there who were refused entry to the Circle. Refused for being wrong essence type, wrong bloodline, wrong gender, wrong politics." She looked at Aaric.
"I was refused because I refused to execute unarmed prisoners on the Circle's orders. I'm not the only one."
"How many?" Rydor asked.
"Enough," Kess replied.
"Maybe two hundred climbers scattered across Floors 10-25. All of them strong. All of them angry. And all of them looking for a reason to stop playing by the Sovereigns Circle's rules."
Rydor nodded slowly.
"Then we recruit them. We gather them. We build something the Tower didn't anticipate."
He looked at Aaric.
"The Tower expects you to climb alone, desperate, driven by desperation and leashes. Instead, you climb surrounded by people who chose you. People who believe in you, not because you're useful, but because you matter."
Aaric felt something shift in his shadow-essence—a resonance, a harmony, as though his power was responding to the determination in the room.
Over the next three days, the cavern became a fortress of purpose.
Ariea trained Aaric in strategy, teaching him not just how to fight but how to lead. How to make decisions that affected dozens of lives. How to carry the weight of other people's faith.
"Your shadow-essence is powerful," she told him during one training session, her blade moving in precise arcs as he dodged and countered. "But it won't win wars. Planning wins wars. Allies win wars. Belief wins wars."
Syl negotiated with Nightveil Alliance couriers who moved through the tunnels—not for allegiance, but for intelligence. Routes to Floor 15. The names of climbers disillusioned with the Circle. Warning of hunters on their trail.
"They want something in return," Syl told Aaric and Rydor during a strategy meeting. "Information about the Tower's true nature. Whatever your sister learned."
Rydor exchanged a look with Aaric. "Tell them we'll trade—information for safe passage and introductions to the malcontents on Floors 15-20."
Kess spent her time with Lynia, and something unexpected happened.
The girl, who'd been withdrawn and haunted since her psychic link awakened, began to smile again. Kess told stories of her own climbs, her own failures, her own reasons for fighting the Circle. And Lynia, in turn, began to understand that her burden wasn't hers alone.
"If the Tower wants you to reach Floor 91 anyway," Lynia said to Aaric one evening, "then what does it matter if we do it on our terms instead of theirs? Either way, we climb. But with us, you climb strong."
By the morning of the fourth day, Rydor gathered the survivors.
There were fifty-two of them now—the original thirty Stanners refugees plus new recruits who'd found their way through the tunnels. Word had spread in the underground networks. Shadow-awakener. Hunted by the Sovereigns Circle. Fighting back.
"We have two goals," Rydor announced, his voice carrying the weight of command. "Short-term: reach Floor 15 safely. Enter the tournament. Prove that Aaric Vale is not a threat or a tool—he is a climber worthy of respect. Recruit allies."
He paused, letting his gaze sweep across the gathered faces.
"Long-term: climb. We reach higher than the Sovereigns Circle ever dreamed climbers could go. We free Kael Vale from his imprisonment. And we show the Tower that it doesn't get to decide our fate."
The cavern erupted in quiet determination.
As they prepared to depart, Lynia pulled Aaric aside.
"The Tower is still watching," she whispered. "I can feel it. Every time you use your shadow-essence, it notices. It's learning how you fight, how you think, how you move. By the time you reach Floor 91, it will know everything about you."
"Then we'll surprise it," Aaric replied, and he meant it.
They emerged from the ancient cavern into Floor 4's dim, industrial landscape.
Behind them, the entrance sealed itself—stone moving of its own accord, as though the ancient structure was hiding itself once more.
And high above, in the Tower's highest chambers, something vast and patient observed the shadow-essence awakener moving up its levels.
It did not seem concerned.
If anything, it seemed to be waiting.
Smiling.
Three weeks later, they stood at the base of Floor 15.
The tournament arena rose before them—a massive structure carved from white stone, its stands already filling with climbers from across the lower floors. This was where factions clashed. Where reputations were made or broken.
Where Aaric Vale would prove that the Sovereigns Circle did not own the future.
Rydor placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Ready?"
Aaric looked at Ariea, at Kess, at Syl, at Lynia's determined face.
At all the people who'd chosen to follow him not because the Tower compelled them, but because they believed.
"Ready," he said.
And somewhere deep in the Tower's core, Kael screamed—not in agony, but in recognition.
His brother was coming.
Finally, after fifteen years of imprisonment, his brother was coming.