The door hissed open, exhaling dust and silence.
Kael stepped through with the Gauntlet still pulsing on his arm, Riven close behind. The air changed instantly. No more cold stone or whispers — this time, it was heat. Dry, biting wind. The smell of ash. Gunpowder.
He blinked. The chamber around them wasn't a room.
It was a warzone.
Endless red dunes stretched out beneath a blackened sky. Charred bones poked from the sand like twisted roots. Far in the distance, shattered iron bunkers loomed half-buried, and lightning crackled across the heavens with every distant boom.
Kael turned slowly, heart pounding. "What the hell is this?"
"The Forgotten War," Riven said, already scanning the horizon. "Not a floor. A memory. The Tower traps echoes of lost timelines — makes us live them."
"Why?"
"Because it's a sadistic bitch," Riven muttered. "And because this is how it tests your will."
Suddenly, a crack split the air — not thunder.
A sniper round.
Kael ducked instinctively as the sand beside him exploded, the bullet barely missing.
Riven didn't flinch. "We're live."
Kael swore and dove behind a rusted-out truck husk. "There's someone shooting at us already?! We just walked in!"
Riven crouched beside him, smirking. "Welcome to the battlefield."
---
Ten minutes later, they'd moved under cover of darkness — moonlight casting a grim glow on the ruined battlefield. The Tower hadn't just simulated war. It had preserved it.
Every trench, every bullet casing, every ruined helmet half-buried in the sand — real.
Too real.
"Any idea who's fighting?" Kael asked, keeping low.
"Climbers from another age," Riven said. "Or maybe the Tower's own soldiers. No one knows. But if you die here, it's permanent. No illusion trial. No reset. Just gone."
Kael wiped sweat from his brow. "Great. What now?"
"We make it to the Command Node," Riven said. "It's the only safe zone. And it resets the floor timer."
Kael paused. "Timer?"
Riven pointed up.
A ghostly hourglass had appeared above them in the sky — huge, slowly bleeding silver sand from top to bottom.
"You've got one hour to reach the node," Riven said. "Or the Tower wipes the floor. Everything on it, alive or dead."
Kael's gut dropped. "Then let's fucking move."
---
They sprinted.
Bullets zipped by. Something howled in the dunes behind them. Once, Kael saw a ghostly tank slide sideways across the battlefield, manned by faceless soldiers. When one turned toward him, it didn't have a face — just a swirling vortex of screaming mouths.
They didn't stop.
Not when the storm of red ash rose. Not when a pack of armor-clad beasts charged them from the ruins.
Kael was learning to fight on instinct now — Gauntlet pulses letting him see half a second ahead. Dodge before the claw. Strike before the gun. Freeze time long enough to rip a grenade out of a phantom's hand and toss it back.
He was bleeding, bruised, and exhausted.
But he was surviving.
---
With ten minutes left on the hourglass, they reached the hilltop.
The Command Node was there — a crumbling stone bunker with a silver obelisk in its center, radiating power. Around it, dozens of corpses — real ones. Climbers who didn't make it.
Kael's voice was hoarse. "Tell me there's not a boss."
Riven's blades were already drawn.
"There's always a boss."
And right on cue, the ground rumbled.
The sand cracked open like a dry wound. From it crawled something massive — fifteen feet tall, plated in rusted metal and charred bone. A war construct, its chest glowing with silver light. Its face was a helmet full of broken time.
And on its chest:
Tower Echo: General Sarn, Epoch Executioner
Kael swore. "This Tower really knows how to name its nightmares."
Riven didn't reply. He was already moving.
And Kael, exhausted and nearly spent, followed — not because he wanted to.
But because he couldn't stop now.
---
The monster roared.
It didn't sound like a man. It sounded like a clock tower screaming. Gears ground against bone, pistons slammed in sequence, and each step of General Sarn cracked the stone beneath him.
Kael's mind went blank.
Too big. Too fast. Too strong.
Then he heard Riven shout: "MOVE!"
The Executioner's fist slammed down where Kael had been standing a second ago. Stone exploded, and shockwaves knocked him flat.
Riven dashed past, blades glinting, dancing in and out of the thing's range like a ghost.
Kael rolled to his feet and ran for cover behind a fallen turret. His lungs burned. His legs screamed. He wasn't ready for this shit.
"I'm gonna die," he muttered. "I'm actually gonna die."
The Gauntlet pulsed. One steady, slow heartbeat.
Not yet.
The monster turned, that blinding furnace in its chest glowing brighter. Runes scrawled across its plated arms lit up like flares.
"Kael!" Riven's voice cracked across the chaos. "Hit the runes! Disrupt the cycle before it casts!"
"HOW?!" Kael shouted.
"WITH TIME!"
He gritted his teeth, peeked from cover — and saw it. A split-second window. One exposed rune flickering red before the metal plates shifted to cover it again.
He focused. The Gauntlet vibrated. Time pulled like a hook through his nerves.
Now.
Kael pushed. A ripple surged from his palm, freezing the moment for just a blink — and he moved, diving out, fist-first, and smashed the rune on the monster's leg.
The metal shuddered. The light inside the rune died.
The Executioner staggered.
Kael didn't wait. "One down!"
Riven leapt in, slashing across the exposed joint in the monster's arm, sparks flying. But Sarn recovered fast — too fast. It backhanded Riven with a piston-powered swing, hurling him across the battlefield into a shattered wall.
"Riven!" Kael yelled.
No response.
'Shit. I'm alone.'
The Executioner turned back toward him, now visibly slower on its damaged leg. Its remaining runes burned brighter.
Kael backed away, mind racing.
'I can't kill this thing. Not head-on. But maybe… I can outthink it.'
He dove toward the obelisk in the Command Node's center. Silver light shimmered off it in waves — it was pulsing with Tower energy, reacting to the battle.
And then it clicked.
The battlefield wasn't just scenery. It was part of the trial.
"This isn't a boss fight," Kael whispered. "It's a damn puzzle."
---
Kael reached the obelisk and slammed his palm onto it. The sigil on his wrist flared, and a burst of data hit his brain like a virus:
Epoch Trigger Detected. Syncing Initiated.
Around him, time fractured.
Three versions of the battlefield appeared at once — like ghostly echoes:
One where the Executioner was destroyed.
One where Kael had already died.
One where Riven fought alone.
Kael's mind almost snapped — too much, too fast.
But the Gauntlet steadied him.
A whisper in his mind, not a voice but a presence:
Choose your thread. Rewrite fate.
Kael grabbed the version where Sarn was on its knees, runes shattered, smoke pouring from its core.
The obelisk surged. Reality snapped.
---
He was back.
Same place — but different. The battlefield was scorched, and the Executioner was already damaged, weakened, hunched and sparking.
Kael gasped. "I just... jumped timelines."
The monster lunged again — slower now, desperate. Kael focused, aimed his Gauntlet at the creature's chest, and pulled.
Time fractured again — this time only around the Executioner. Its movements slowed to a crawl.
He dashed forward, screaming as he drove his entire weight into one final, time-fueled punch.
The core shattered.
Silver fire erupted from the wound, swallowing the battlefield in light.
Kael hit the ground as the Executioner disintegrated.
Silence.
---
Minutes passed.
Then a groan.
Riven staggered to his feet, clutching his side. "Damn. You actually killed it."
Kael lay flat on his back, chest heaving. "No. I rewrote the script."
The obelisk hummed behind them. The silver flame at its top turned blue — and then the hourglass above the sky shattered.
FLOOR 2: COMPLETE
A new doorway emerged in the ruins ahead.
Kael sat up slowly. "How many more floors are there?"
Riven offered a bloody grin. "Enough to break gods."
Kael grinned back — teeth bloodied, eyes wild.
"Then let's go crack some thrones."