A sound.Small.Barely there.
Yet in the immense stillness of the chamber, it crashed like a falling stone.
Blue torches burned along the circular walls, their flames flickering without warmth, casting ripples of cold light across the smooth black stone. The room stretched upward like the hollow interior of a giant tower, vanishing into darkness far above. No doors. No windows. Only a single platform twenty meters higher, clinging to the inner wall like an unreachable balcony.
And below it lay a pit.
A pit filled with bodies.
Human bodies.Naked.Stacked on top of one another in a depth the light could not reach.Limbs tangled.Heads tilted.Torsos pressed together, unmoving.
Their skin was black — not the color of flesh, but of polished obsidian, smooth and cold like stone carved by ancient hands.
And covering every face…a porcelain mask.White.Featureless.Silent.
Thousands of them.An ocean of stillness.
Except one moved.
Somewhere deep in that mountain of bodies, something shifted. A faint slide of stone-like skin against another. A hand dragging itself upward. A body forcing its way through the dead weight above it.
A hand emerged.Black. Smooth. Trembling.
Fingers clawed for purchase.Found a shoulder.Pulled.
An arm surfaced next. A neck. A head.
The mask that rose into the torchlight was identical to the others, perfectly blank and human-shaped. But a thin crack—delicate as a thread of glass—ran from the forehead down to where the right eye should have been.
Inside that crack… a faint blue glow pulsed.
Weak. Uncertain. Alive.
The figure paused, almost as if surprised to exist. Its chest rose with a shaky breath it did not know how to take. Its limbs trembled with the effort of climbing.
It didn't know how long it had crawled.Time had no meaning in the dark.Minutes, hours, centuries… the climb felt endless.
But eventually, it reached the surface.
He stood on unsteady legs atop the mass of bodies beneath him. The sight stretched endlessly downward, a graveyard spiraling into the earth.
He looked at himself.
At his arms.At his chest.At the black surface of his skin, smooth like polished stone, faintly reflective in the blue light.
Then he touched the mask covering his face.Cold. Hard.Like something not meant to be removed.
A sound escaped him.
"Wh… where…?"
His own voice startled him.Soft.Trembling.As if unsure it belonged to him.
"I… can speak…?"
The words wobbled, clumsy but present, as if language itself had been waiting inside him all along.
He lifted his head.
The walls of the tower stretched upward, curving into an abyss of darkness. And above him, far above, a platform circled the tower interior. Twenty meters away. The first level.
A way out. Maybe. The only one.
He stared up at it, the distance dizzying.He felt something move inside his chest — not fear, not hope, just a strange, unfamiliar pull.
Below him…the pit plunged down for what seemed like hundreds of meters.Bodies upon bodies, identical, unmoving, silent.
"Why… am I the only one…?"
The question vanished into the cold air.
He took a step.His first step.
The stone floor was icy underfoot, but solid. Real.He steadied himself, tested his weight, learned his balance in silence.
He looked up again.
Twenty meters.
A climb impossible for someone who had only just learned to stand.
Yet his body leaned forward.Moved.Continued.
One step. Then another. Drawn by instinct, curiosity, something nameless whispering inside him.
And the towering black chamber seemed to hold its breathas the first living figure in an eternity began to walk.
***
He approached the wall slowly.
The black stone reflected the faint blue torchlight, smooth as glass. He pressed his palm against it. Cold. Flat. Unyielding. No cracks. No dents. Nowhere to grip.
Still, he tried.
His fingers dragged over the surface, searching desperately for even the smallest hold. He pushed, pulled, lifted his weight—only to slide back down immediately, landing on his feet with a soft thud that echoed through the chamber.
"I… can't climb this."
His own voice startled him.Soft. Fragile. Quivering with uncertainty.
He lifted his head toward the ledge twenty meters above.So far.So high.So impossible.
A tightness wrapped around his chest, small and sharp, like panic trying to form.
"How am I supposed to reach that…?"
He looked around. At the wall. At the blue flames.Then slowly… down.
Down to the sea of bodies below.
Thousands of stone-black figures lay beneath him, motionless under their white porcelain masks. Cold limbs twisted together. Empty chests. Lifeless hands.
A thought surfaced. Slow. Uneasy. Unwanted.
If I can't climb the wall… maybe I can climb them.
He froze, unsure.The idea felt wrong.Strange.Yet the logic was undeniable. The bodies had lifted him from the depths already. They could lift him higher.
He exhaled quietly.
"I… could use them…"
His voice trembled—hesitation, not disgust.
"It's not like they'll… mind… right…?"
He reached for a body near his feet.He gripped a cold shoulder and pulled.
The corpse rolled with a hollow thump.Another slid after it.And another.
He began dragging them one by one, stacking them against the wall. Sometimes a limb bent awkwardly, forcing him to adjust. Sometimes an entire body shifted out of place, sending several others sliding down. He stumbled. Slipped. Caught himself.
There was no smell. No warmth. No decay.
Only the heavy sound of lifeless weights colliding.
Time dissolved.He didn't know how long he worked—minutes, hours… it all blended into motion and silence.
At last, the pile stood tall enough.A crude staircase of bodies, unstable but usable.
He stood before it, hands resting on his knees, trying to calm the strange burn in his chest.
"This should… work. I hope."
He placed one foot on the first corpse.
It rolled slightly.His balance wavered.He sucked in a breath.
"No… steady… steady… don't fall…"
He climbed.One body at a time.One step after another.His heart thudded loudly, echoing in his ears.
When he reached the top of the mound, the upper level lay just a few meters above him.
He stretched his arm.His fingers brushed the stone.Cold.Smooth.Real.
He pushed upward with everything he had, gripping the edge with trembling hands. His legs kicked clumsily as he pulled himself up. His chest hit the floor, knocking the air out of him in a shallow gasp.
"A-ah—"
A violent shiver ran down his spine.The stone felt like winter itself.
But he didn't let go.
He dragged himself up, rolled onto his back, and lay there for a moment, breathing softly, staring into the endless darkness above.
He had climbed.He had survived.He had acted on his own.
He didn't know who he was…but he knew this moment mattered.
Slowly, he pushed himself up and looked around.
The upper floor was wider, cleaner, lit by torches burning with a steadier, brighter blue flame. Their light danced across the walls like tiny spirits trapped inside a frozen world.
Then he saw it.
A staircase.Carved into the stone.Spiraling upward along the inner wall.
His chest tightened with a strange blend of fear and hope.
He stepped closer.Every footfall echoed softly, as if the tower were listening.
"I don't know… what I'll find above…"
He swallowed.
"But staying here isn't an option."
He placed his foot on the first step.The cold seeped through him.
One breath.One heartbeat.
And he climbed.
***
The staircase climbed without end, winding upward along the inner wall like a serpent carved from stone. Each step whispered beneath his feet, swallowed almost instantly by the vast, cold silence of the tower. He could not measure the passing of time. All he knew was the sensation of ascent, a slow rising pressure in his chest, as if something inside him was waking with every meter gained.
Eventually, an opening appeared.
A simple arch in the wall.No door.No mark.Only a dark passage waiting patiently for him to notice it.
He paused, then turned toward it with the caution of a creature stepping into an unfamiliar world.
He crossed the threshold.
The sight froze him.
A vast circular chamber opened before him, bathed in a soft blue radiance that seemed to seep from the air itself. The walls were adorned with statues of pure alabaster, carved with such precision that each figure looked moments away from breathing.
Men and women of impossible grace.Their faces serene.Their poses elegant.Their forms perfect.
He did not know the word for what he felt.Yet it rose inside him, instinctive, inevitable.
"Beauty…"
The sculptures surrounded him like silent witnesses of another age. Their stillness seemed almost alive, filled with expectation, as if they had been waiting for something to enter this sacred space.
His gaze drifted toward the center of the chamber.
There stood a large white table.
It was smooth, polished, flawless, as if untouched by time. At its center lay a circular recess incised with black symbols. The patterns twisted together in a labyrinth of lines and angles, too complex for his new mind to follow. They seemed to shift if he looked at them too long, as though they breathed.
Beside the recess rested two tools.
A massive white hammer that looked heavier than a mountain fragment.And a long pale bone needle, slender and deceptively delicate.
He approached, drawn by something he could not name.
"What… is this…?"
The question escaped his lips before he realized he had spoken.
He reached for the hammer first. His fingers wrapped around the handle. He tightened his grip. Pulled.
Nothing.
He pulled harder. His entire arm tensed.
Still nothing.The hammer did not budge in the slightest. It felt more like a part of the world than an object that could be lifted.
He let out a confused whisper.
"I cannot move it…"
He released the hammer and turned his attention to the bone needle.
Lighter. Smaller. Harmless.
Or so it appeared.
He hesitated.Then reached out.
His fingertips brushed the pale surface.
The bone shattered into light.
A burst of white radiance exploded across his vision as thousands of tiny fragments dissolved into luminous dust and rushed into his skin. His hand absorbed them. His arm. His chest.
Then the pain came.
"Aaaaah…!"
His knees hit the floor. His spine arched. His fingers clawed at the stone.
The light was moving inside him.
No. Not moving. Creating.
He felt it. He felt everything.
A structure forcing itself into existence beneath his stone-like flesh. Growing. Expanding. Pushing. Breaking him from the inside out.
The first cracks resonated within his arm.
Something solid was forming. Something sharp. Something white.
Bone.
It spread through him in a storm of fire.
His forearm filled with two long rigid bars. His wrist locked into place. His hand trembled violently as new shapes grew inside it.
Then his torso convulsed.
Ribs burst outward in lines of pure torment, each one forcing its way into alignment around his chest. His voice broke as he tried to scream.
"Stop… stop… it hurts…!"
His back quivered as a blazing line ran down the center. A spine. Vertebra by vertebra. A complete column assembling itself in a brutal rhythm under his skin.
His legs bent, shaking violently as femurs, tibias, and joints formed in a single relentless surge. His feet twisted, reshaped by the invasion of new matter they had never been meant to contain.
His skull vibrated.
The inside of his head echoed with a hollow thunder as bone plates formed and fused behind the mask. His jaw clenched involuntarily. He could not scream anymore. His voice was buried under waves of pure torment.
The remnants of the bone needle pulsed once.
A final spark of white light dove into his chest, settling deep inside him like an anchor. Another flash of pain followed, sharp enough to blind everything but its own existence.
Then silence.
He lay on the ground, trembling, staring at nothing as his breath rose and fell in fragile waves. His limbs felt heavier, structured, real in a new and terrifying way.
Something stirred in the darkness of his mind.
A voice without sound. A whisper made of light. A system older than memory.
Words appeared inside him, forming with a quiet authority he could not resist.
[ First Foundations Awakened, acquisition of the Primordial Frame.]
He stared blankly, breath shallow.
"Primordial… frame…?"
He lifted a trembling hand to his chest and felt the ridges beneath his skin. Ribs. True ribs. Bone where there had been nothing.
He swallowed, the sensation new and strangely grounding.
"I… I am different now…"
He pushed himself upright, still shaking, every movement echoing through the new architecture of his body.
The alabaster statues watched him in silence, as if acknowledging what he had gained.
He had been stone. Empty. Undefined.
Now he carried a framework inside him.A beginning. A foundation. A secret written into his existence.
He was no longer the being who had climbed from the pit of the dead.
He was something new. And the tower knew it.