The safe house was burning.
Aaric smelled the smoke before he saw the flames—acrid, bitter, laced with something chemical. Essence-accelerated fire. Not an accident. Not a natural disaster.
An assassination attempt.
"Move!" Rydor roared, already drawing his blade.
They'd returned to the safe house in the coliseum district to rest after the match, celebrate the victory, plan for the next round. Instead, they'd walked into a trap.
Sovereigns Circle assassins were waiting.
Eight of them, moving with coordinated precision, their weapons glowing with colored essence. A flame-user was torching the building from the inside—smoke pouring from windows, the wooden frame already beginning to collapse. Two void-essence users were sealing escape routes with spatial distortions.
It was professional. It was overkill. It was personal.
Rydor met the first assassin's strike head-on, his 4-star strength forcing the woman back. But there were too many, coming from too many angles.
"Get the girl!" Ariea shouted, already engaging two void-users with her silver essence blazing. Her kinetic energy sent one flying backward through a wall.
Aaric grabbed Lynia and ran.
Syl was already moving, pulling them toward the back courtyard where she'd apparently scouted escape routes earlier. Smart. Always smart. The thief had a survival instinct that bordered on supernatural.
"This way!" Syl hissed, vaulting over a burning fence.
Kess emerged from the smoke, her flame-essence burning away the advancing fire to create a temporary corridor. "Go! I'll hold them!"
They sprinted through the courtyard, through a narrow alley, into the twisted streets of the coliseum district. Behind them, the sounds of combat echoed—steel on steel, essence-clashes, the roar of the Tower itself seeming to shake the stone.
They didn't stop running until they reached the underground markets.
The black market district beneath Floor 15 was a maze of tunnels and hidden chambers, places where the legitimate tournament couldn't reach. Syl knew it well, moving through the darkness with the confidence of someone who'd lived in shadows longer than sunlight.
They collapsed in a hidden room—one of Syl's safehouses, apparently. Stone walls, no windows, essence-dampening runes carved into the frame to hide them from tracking.
"That was fast," Syl said, breathing hard. "Too fast. They knew exactly where we'd go."
"The safe house wasn't safe," Ariea replied grimly. She'd arrived moments after them, having escaped through a window while Rydor provided cover. "Someone sold our location."
Lynia was huddled in the corner, her eyes distant and afraid. Aaric knelt beside her, checking for injuries. "Are you hurt?"
"They're inside," she whispered. "The assassins. I can feel their essences. And I can feel something else. Something watching through them. The Tower. It's using them. Making them hunt you."
"The Tower?" Aaric repeated.
"It needs you alive," Lynia said, her voice trembling. "But it doesn't care if you're whole. It needs you to climb. To reach Floor 91. So it's testing you. Pushing you. Making sure you're strong enough for what comes next."
The door to the safehouse suddenly opened.
Everyone tensed, hands moving to weapons. But the figure that entered was alone, unarmed, and carried no hostile essence-signature.
She was young—maybe nineteen or twenty—with dark skin and dark hair braided in complex patterns. Her eyes were the color of deep void, literally absorbing light, and her presence carried the weight of someone who'd killed before and would again without hesitation.
Miraen. The Nightveil dark horse.
"You're in our territory now," she said calmly, stepping inside and closing the door behind her. "Sovereigns Circle can't follow here without violating the underground accords. You're safe."
Ariea's blade was instantly at Miraen's throat. "Nightveil doesn't save people out of kindness. What do you want?"
Miraen didn't flinch. "To make a deal." Her void-eyes locked on Aaric. "Shadow-walker. The Circle will keep hunting you as long as you're alone. But if you're aligned with a faction, if you have official backing, they have to work through politics instead of assassins."
"Why would Nightveil back him?" Rydor demanded, emerging from the corridor beyond, his armor dented but intact.
"Because," Miraen replied, "the Sovereigns Circle has gotten too comfortable. Too arrogant. Too certain they control the Tower's future." She gestured toward Aaric. "A shadow-essence climber they can't control? That's leverage. That's a weapon. That's exactly what we need to remind the Circle that their hierarchy isn't inevitable."
Syl snorted. "In other words, you want to use him to start a faction war."
"I want to create opportunity," Miraen corrected. "What factions do with that opportunity is their choice." She stepped closer to Aaric, her void-essence creating a subtle distortion in the air around her. "I'm competing in the Elite bracket. If we both win enough matches, we'll face each other eventually. When that happens, neither of us will hold back. But until then..." She smiled coldly. "We could be very useful to each other."
Aaric felt the weight of the decision pressing down on him.
Nightveil had helped them escape from Floor 3. Nightveil had provided intelligence. But aligning with them meant declaring war on the Sovereigns Circle officially. It meant accepting that this was no longer just about climbing to Floor 91—it was about destabilizing the entire power structure of the Tower.
"What happens if I refuse?" Aaric asked.
"You die," Miraen said simply. "The Circle will send more assassins. Better ones. Eventually, they'll overwhelm you." She tilted her head. "Unless you want to spend the rest of your life running, that's not a sustainable strategy."
Ariea's grip on her sword tightened, but Rydor held up a hand. "Give us time to discuss."
Miraen nodded and turned to leave. But at the door, she paused. "One more thing. There's a mage called Vex—worked for the conspiracy poisoning weak climbers. He's on Floor 15. The Circle is hiding him in their private compound, probably planning to extract him before the tournament ends. If you want leverage, if you want proof of their involvement..." She smiled. "He'd be worth capturing."
Then she was gone.
The silence in the safehouse was deafening.
"It's a trap," Ariea said flatly. "She's trying to push us into direct conflict with the Circle."
"Maybe," Rydor replied. "Or maybe she's being honest about the situation. Either way, our position hasn't changed. We're already hunted. At least with Nightveil's backing, the hunt follows different rules."
"Different rules that involve terrorist cells and black-market operations," Ariea snapped. "Nightveil isn't noble rebels. They're chaos merchants."
"So are we," Syl interjected quietly. "We're fugitives. We're hunted. We have no legitimate status. At least if we align with Nightveil, we get safe passage through the underground, access to intelligence networks, and protection from assassination attempts." She paused. "Plus, they know where Vex is. And Vex knows who's behind the conspiracy."
Lynia stirred in her corner, her eyes clearing slightly. "Kael says..." she whispered. "Kael says to accept. He says the Tower expects you to play by old rules. To climb alone. If you break those expectations, if you build power that the Tower didn't plan for..." She swallowed hard. "It disrupts the design."
Aaric looked at each of them in turn. Ariea, conflicted but loyal. Rydor, weighing tactics against morality. Kess, who'd risked everything and had nothing left to lose. Syl, who'd been living in shadows her entire life.
"Alright," Aaric said quietly. "We make the deal. But on our terms. We use Nightveil's protection, their intelligence, their access. But we don't become their tools. When we have what we need, we walk away."
Ariea's expression hardened. "That's not how faction alliances work."
"Then we'll rewrite the rules," Aaric replied.
The next tournament match came two days later.
Aaric's second opponent was a 2-star flame-essence warrior—a significant step up from Torv, but not the leap it should have been. The tournament's bracket structure was designed to gradually increase difficulty, but beating a 3-star in round one had skewed expectations.
Miraen was in the stands, watching with those void-eyes that seemed to catalog every movement, every technique.
The match itself was brutal.
Flame-essence was aggressive, designed for raw damage output and offensive pressure. Aaric's opponent—a lean woman named Kess... no, not Kess. Kalei. A different fighter entirely, trained by Ironflame, hungry to prove herself.
She came at him like wildfire.
Aaric's shadow-defenses held, but barely. He was forced to adapt constantly, shifting between mist-shields and shadow-tendrils, never having time to execute the sophisticated feints that had beaten Torv. This was raw power against raw power, though filtered through technique.
But somewhere around minute fifteen, Aaric realized something.
Kalei's flame-patterns were repeating. She had favorite combinations, responses, defensive patterns. She was strong, but predictable. And predictability was a weakness a shadow-essence fighter could exploit.
Aaric stopped defending.
Instead, he began moving into Kalei's attacks, using them as momentum, letting her own force carry him to better positions. Each time she struck, he was somewhere else—not because he was faster, but because he was surrendering to her aggression and redirecting it.
By the time Kalei realized what he was doing, she'd exhausted herself.
Aaric's final shadow-construct wrapped around her leg, pulled her off-balance, and as she fell, he moved in with a shadow-blade pressed against her throat.
Kalei yielded instantly.
The crowd went even wilder than the first match. Not because the victory was unexpected—Aaric was clearly talented—but because his technique was evolving. First match was strategy. Second match was adaptation. What would the third be?
As Aaric walked out of the arena, he passed Miraen in the stands.
Their eyes met for just a moment.
The void-essence warrior smiled, and it was a expression of pure predatory respect.
That night, in a different safehouse in a different district, Rydor brought news.
"We have a location on Vex," he said, spreading a hand-drawn map on the table. "He's being held in the Sovereigns Circle's private compound on the north edge of the coliseum district. Light guards—the Circle doesn't want this public—but definitely protected by senior climbers."
"How did Miraen get this information?" Ariea demanded.
"Does it matter?" Syl asked. "We have it now. And Lynia's right—Vex is the key. He knows who ordered the tainted crystals. He knows the conspiracy structure."
"Extracting him will be a direct assault on the Sovereigns Circle," Ariea pointed out. "There's no deniability. No plausible explanation. It's an act of war."
"We're already at war," Rydor replied. "We just haven't formally declared it. At least this way, we're choosing the terms."
Lynia stirred from where she'd been resting. Her color was still pale, but better than the first day. The tainted essence in her system was slowly being purged by Ariea's constant care and Aaric's periodic shadow-healings.
"The Tower wants this," she whispered. "I can feel it. It's... pleased. Something about conflict between factions keeps it satisfied."
"The Tower is a parasite," Kess said flatly. "It feeds on struggle. Violence. Ambition. That's why it keeps climbers climbing. That's why it invented the tournament. That's why it lets factions war with each other."
"Then we use that," Aaric said quietly. "We understand the Tower's hunger. We feed it what it expects while pursuing our own agenda."
Rydor nodded slowly. "Vex extraction happens in three days. After your third tournament match. By then, you'll be in the top thirty-two, publicly proven, valuable enough that the Circle won't risk killing you outright."
"And we'll have Nightveil's support," Miraen's voice came from the shadows.
The void-essence warrior stepped into view, having apparently been present the entire conversation. Ariea's hand moved to her sword, but Miraen raised her hands in mock surrender.
"I was already here when you arrived," Miraen explained calmly. "Been in the walls for an hour, listening. Nightveil doesn't make deals without understanding who they're dealing with." Her void-eyes fixed on Aaric. "You're not what I expected. Not ambitious enough. Not power-hungry enough. You climb because you have to, not because you want to rule."
"Is that a problem?" Aaric asked.
"No," Miraen replied. "It's actually perfect. It means you're not trying to replace the Sovereigns Circle. You're trying to break their system. That's what Nightveil needs." She smiled that predatory smile again. "Your third match is against a 2-star kinetic warrior named Jorn. He's good, but vulnerable to shadow-essence. You'll win. And when you do, you'll be seeded directly into the round of thirty-two. By then, the Sovereigns Circle will be desperate enough to try something direct."
"And that's when we strike," Rydor confirmed.
Three days later, Aaric stood in the North Arena for the third time.
His opponent, Jorn, was exactly as Miraen had described—a talented kinetic fighter, fast and precise, but lacking the raw durability that stone-essence offered or the aggression that flame-essence provided.
The match lasted eight minutes.
Aaric's shadow-constructs were faster than Jorn's kinetic reflexes. By the time the warrior realized he was outmatched, Aaric had already wrapped shadow-tendrils around both of his arms, immobilizing him.
Simple. Clean. Devastating.
As Aaric walked out of the arena, Lynia was waiting in the corridor—something that shouldn't have been possible. The tournament had strict security protocols.
But Miraen was with her, and apparently Nightveil could breach security when it mattered.
"We're moving tonight," Lynia whispered. "Kael is screaming. Not in pain. In... anticipation. Like he knows something's about to change."
"What?" Aaric demanded.
"The Tower's showing me fragments," Lynia said, her eyes distant. "Vex isn't just a processor. He's connected to something deeper. Something in the Sovereigns Circle that reaches up to the highest levels. When you capture him, when you make him talk, it's going to expose conspiracies that go all the way to..." She swallowed hard. "To the Tower's highest chambers. To the people who've been orchestrating everything since Kael's disappearance."
Aaric felt a chill run down his spine.
"How high?" he asked quietly.
"Higher than you know," Lynia replied. "Higher than the Circle's public face. There are people on Floors 80+, pulling strings, making decisions for the entire Tower. And they've been expecting you. Grooming you. Setting up everything that's happened to you since that beast attacked on Floor 3."
Miraen's void-eyes studied Aaric with something like sympathy. "The Tower doesn't have random victims, shadow-walker. It has scripts. And you're reading from one that's been written for your entire life."
That night, as Aaric prepared for the assault on the Sovereigns Circle compound, he felt his shadow-essence pulse with something darker.
Not hunger. Not aggression.
But recognition.
The Tower was watching him move toward his destiny. And it was patient. It had always been patient.
Because no matter what Aaric did, no matter how much he struggled and fought and climbed, he was still climbing its floors, toward its purpose.
The only question left was whether he'd reach Floor 91 and merge with the core like the Tower wanted...
Or whether he'd burn it all down and choose his own path.