I realized I was in a completely different place. I kept glancing around, my mind racing as I tried to make sense of it. There were twenty of us, all huddled together around a strange, metallic box.
A floating panel hovered in front of me. I could tell by the looks on the others' faces that I wasn't the only one seeing it. Everyone was paralyzed with terror; nobody had any idea how to get out.
Suddenly, a strange humanoid appeared. He stood before us with an eerie calm, ready to announce our fate.
"Hello, Players. Let me introduce myself. I am GERION-1-356. Don't be bothered by the numbers—it's just a code. Anyway, I'm here to introduce you to the tow—no, let me call it the INFINITE TOWER!"
Infinite Tower? The words chilled me. "Are you saying there's no end!?"
The air in the room grew heavy, vibrating with a low hum that made my teeth ache. Gerion-1-356 waved a slender, grey hand, and the box in the center of our group hissed open, releasing a cloud of cold vapor.
Suddenly, twenty holographic screens snapped into existence, hovering inches from our faces.
[WELCOME TO THE TUTORIAL]
Please select your path. Your performance determines your worth. Your worth determines your survival.
"Choose quickly, Players," Gerion chirped, his voice sounding more like a machine than a person. "The Tower does not like to wait."
I looked at the options glowing in front of me. The screen was divided into three distinct sections:
1. Difficulty Selection
The words pulsed with different colors, ranging from a calm blue to a bloody, flickering crimson.
Easy | Normal | Hard | Nightmare
[DEATH MODE] – Note: Selection is permanent. Survival rate: 0.01%.
2. Class Selection
Icons flickered beneath the difficulty. I saw symbols for swords, staves, and shields, but also stranger things—shadows and gears.
Each class contains a Unique Trait and an Initial Skill.
3. The Warning
At the bottom of the screen, a message scrolled in bold, golden text:
RULE OF SIX: Synergy is the key to the Infinite Tower. You may form a party of up to six members. Choose your allies wisely. A party without balance is an invitation to the Grave.
The room erupted into chaos.
"Six people?" a man shouted, looking around frantically. "There are twenty of us! That's three teams and... and two people left over!"
The realization hit us like a physical blow. Two people would be left without a full team. Two people would likely be the first to die.
I looked back at my screen. My finger hovered over [DEATH MODE]. It was suicide, but in an infinite tower, maybe 'Normal' just meant a slower death.
"Hey!" A tall, muscular man grabbed my shoulder. "You look like you can hold your own. You're with us. We've already got five. You're the sixth. We're picking 'Normal' and getting through this together."
He was offering me safety. He was offering me a full party. But then, I looked at Gerion. The humanoid was staring at me—only me—with a strange, flickering light in his eyes.
The moment the man's hand gripped my shoulder, the world froze.
The frantic shouting of the other nineteen players turned into a muffled, underwater drone. The flickering holographic screens paused mid-glitch. Even Gerion-1-356 stood perfectly still, a statue of grey flesh and glowing eyes.
A new screen manifested. It wasn't the blue or red of the System; this one was a blinding, celestial gold that smelled of ozone and ancient dust.
[A TRANSGRESSOR HAS OBSERVED YOUR POTENTIAL]
A single, brilliant star appeared at the top of the panel. Then another. And another. They began to line up like a crown of fire.
The sixth star flickered into existence, vibrating with enough power to make my vision blur. I waited for it to stop, but the air cracked with a sound like a breaking mountain. A seventh star slammed into place.
[7\bigstar — THE PRIMORDIAL ARCHITECT IS WATCHING YOU]
A voice, deeper than the ocean, resonated not in my ears, but inside my very bones:
"Twenty souls to fill three circles. Two left to rot in the dark. Do you wish to be the sixth man in a circle of sheep, or will you build a tower that reaches me?"
The Muscular Man's hand was still on my shoulder, but he felt like a ghost. The 7\bigstar God was offering something that the "Normal" difficulty players couldn't even imagine.
[DIVINE CONTRACT OFFERED: THE ARCHITECT'S FOUNDATION]
Requirement: Select [DEATH MODE].
Penalty: You cannot join a party of six. You must remain a 'Solo' or 'Leader' of the Leftovers.
Reward: Hidden Class — [THE RUIN-BREAKER].
The screen turned a violent, abyssal black as the System tried to reconcile the God's interference with the Tutorial rules.
[WARNING: DEATH MODE survival rate is 0.01%. With a 7\bigstar Contract, the System cannot guarantee your sanity.]
Gerion's eyes suddenly twitched. Time was about to restart. I had seconds to choose: the safety of the group of six, or the lonely, suicidal path of a God's plaything.
I reached out and tapped the flickering crimson button.
[SELECTION CONFIRMED: DEATH MODE]
[CONTRACT ACCEPTED: THE SEVENTH STAR HAS CLAIMED YOU]
Time slammed back into motion.
"Hey! Are you listening?" the muscular man yelled, shaking me. "I said we're picking Normal. Let's go!"
I looked at him, but his name tag had changed in my vision. He was highlighted in dull grey. I looked at my own hands, which were now glowing with a faint, terrifying golden light.
"I'm not joining your party," I said, my voice sounding colder than I intended.
The room went silent. Gerion let out a high-pitched, distorted laugh. "Oh... we have a True Player among the cattle!"
The moment the words left my lips, the golden light from my hands pulsed outward, clashing with the red glow of the [DEATH MODE] selection.
Gerion-1-356 clapped his hands together with a sound like a gunshot. "Selection period is OVER! Please proceed to your designated starting zones. And remember... the higher you climb, the thinner the air!"
The floor beneath us didn't just open; it disintegrated.
"Wait! What about the groups—!" The muscular man's scream was cut short as a shimmering blue barrier slammed into place, physically pushing the 'Normal' and 'Easy' players into a central elevator shaft.
They were bundled together, safe and shielded, as they began a controlled descent into the lower floors.
I, however, didn't fall down. I fell out.
The walls of the room peeled back like scorched paper, revealing the true scale of the Infinite Tower. We were thousands of feet in the air. While the other eighteen players were lowered safely in their blue bubbles, the floor beneath me and one other person turned into a dark, swirling vortex of ash.
[TRIAL 0: THE FALL OF THE UNCLAIMED]
Difficulty: DEATH MODE
Objective: Reach the "Foundation Pillar" before the gravity-well crushes your internal organs.
Time Limit: 02:00 Minutes
"Aaaaaah!"
A scream pierced the wind. I looked over and saw a girl—the 20th player—plummeting beside me. She hadn't chosen Death Mode; she had simply been too slow, or too terrified, to pick a team. The System had defaulted her into the "Leftover" category.
As we broke the sound barrier, my new Class finally flickered to life in my peripheral vision.
[CLASS: RUIN-BREAKER (HIDDEN/LEGENDARY)]
Active Skill unlocked: Structural Collapse – Direct kinetic energy into the weakest point of any object or field.
Trait unlocked: Architect's Eye – See the 'fault lines' in reality.
The air around me was screaming. Below us, a massive, jagged pillar of obsidian jutted out from the side of the tower. It was too far to jump to, and we were falling too fast to survive the impact.
The fault lines, I thought, squinting through the rushing wind.
Suddenly, the world turned into a blueprint. I saw glowing white cracks running through the very air—pockets of high and low pressure. I saw a glowing red dot on the side of the obsidian pillar.
"Grab my hand!" I roared at the girl.
She reached out, her face pale with terror, and snatched my forearm. I didn't aim for the top of the pillar. I aimed for the red dot on its side.
"What are you doing!?" she shrieked.
"Breaking the fall!"
I pulled back my fist. The 7\bigstar mark on the back of my hand flared with blinding light. I wasn't just going to land; I was going to shatter the physics of the trial.
I didn't wait for an answer. I tightened my grip on the girl's arm, pulling her into my chest to shield her from the friction. My vision was swimming, the G-force pulling the skin tight against my skull.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: STRUCTURAL COLLAPSE]
The Architect's Eye showed me the "fault line" in the air—a dense pocket of atmospheric pressure just fifty feet above the obsidian pillar. If I hit that pocket with enough force, the kinetic energy wouldn't just dissipate; it would push back.
"Hold your breath!" I snarled.
I didn't punch the pillar. I punched the empty air.
CRACK.
The sound was louder than a lightning strike. My fist collided with the invisible "point" in the atmosphere, and for a split second, the air hardened into concrete. The shockwave exploded outward, instantly cancelling our terminal velocity.
The deceleration was violent. I felt my humerus snap—a sickening pop that echoed in my ears even over the wind.
"AGH!"
We jerked upward, the force of the "collapse" acting like a physical parachute. We hit the obsidian pillar not at two hundred miles per hour, but with a heavy, bone-jarring thud. We tumbled across the jagged stone, sliding toward the edge before my boots finally found purchase.
Silence followed, broken only by the whistling wind and my own ragged, agonizing breaths.
[TRIAL 0: COMPLETE]
Rating: SSS (First ever atmospheric collapse recorded in Tutorial)
Reward: +10 Strength, +5 Endurance.
Healing factor initiated (Minor).
The girl scrambled away from me, gasping for air, her eyes wide as she looked at my dangling, useless left arm. "You... you broke the air. You broke your own arm to save us."
I looked down at my limb. It was twisted at an unnatural angle, bruised a deep purple. But beneath the skin, I could see a faint golden glow—the 7\bigstar God's "grace" stitching the bone back together, albeit slowly.
[MESSAGE FROM THE PRIMORDIAL ARCHITECT]
"A crude foundation, but a sturdy one. A builder must know how to destroy the old to make room for the new."
A new screen appeared between me and the girl.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
A party of TWO has been detected in a DEATH MODE zone.
WARNING: Scaling difficulty to 'DUO-CATASTROPHE'.
First Quest: The Obsidian Hive is now awakening.
The ground beneath our feet began to vibrate. The "fault lines" I saw earlier started to turn a poisonous green.