"Some monsters are made. Others are carved into the bones of the world."
---
Pain had a shape.
Jin walked in it.
Each floor bled differently. Some screamed, some whispered, some begged. But Floor 9 didn't speak—it simply died.
---
Tower Floor 9 – The Arena of Bonds
It was meant to test unity. Strength in numbers. Shared suffering.
Entrants were grouped randomly with strangers, tasked with surviving a wave of evolved beasts—each group bound by a shared lifeline. If one member died, all died.
Camaraderie. Trust. Teamwork.
But when Jin arrived, everything changed.
> [System Alert: Grouping Failed]
> [User Identified as Unlinkable Entity]
> [Override Engaged – Solo Pathway Created]
The Tower rewrote the rules around him.
A horde of mutated creatures emerged—ogres with mouths on their palms, wolves made of broken glass, centipedes wearing human faces. They howled, sensing something worse than prey.
Jin stood in silence.
Then moved.
---
Forty Minutes Later
The arena was soaked in crimson rot.
Not a battlefield.
A slaughterhouse.
Limbs hung from tower spires. Skin flapped from bone stakes. Blood congealed in ankle-deep puddles, black and slick.
> [Skill Activated – Black Bloom]
Charred petals exploded inside enemy skulls. Their brains erupted outward in red-gray showers. Screams distorted into melodic wails—Jin's corruption rewired even their agony into weaponry.
> [Skill Activated – Hollow Feast]
A new mouth opened in Jin's shadow, devouring corpses and converting them into raw energy. Tendons slurped like noodles. Eyeballs rolled in like pearls.
> [Beast Kill Count: 192]
> [System Behavior: Critical Anomaly Detected – Floor Integrity 27%]
Only one creature remained—a six-headed amalgam of fallen Chosen, sewn together by divine hands.
It spoke in cracked human voices:
> "Why do you kill everything? What are you?"
Jin dragged a spine behind him, the broken tail of a serpent godling.
> "I am the answer to every silence the gods ever gave me."
He ran forward—not fast, just inevitable.
His hand plunged into the nearest head. Bones crunched, cartilage split.
He ripped it off like tearing rotten fruit.
Viscera painted his chest in thick globs. The remaining heads shrieked, vomiting acidic bile that Jin walked through.
He bashed one head with the severed one. Again. Again. Until jawbone shattered. Until the skin peeled from the force.
He tore through its chest next.
No hesitation. No magic.
Just violence.
He crushed its heart between his fingers.
> [Unique Trait – Mercy Threshold: Irrelevant]
> [Entity Eradicated]
The Tower shook.
> [Solo Clear Achieved]
> [Title Progress – "Godslayer"]: 27% → 31%]
> [Trait Update – Soul Apex: Intermediate to Greater]
> [Corruption: +19]
---
Elsewhere – Divine Observers
In the divine observatory, Chosen-in-training gathered around shimmering scry mirrors.
The moment Floor 9 began broadcasting, they screamed.
What they saw wasn't a challenge.
It was genocide.
One girl passed out, her eyes bleeding.
A boy vomited blood and still couldn't look away.
Then—Hollow turned to the mirror.
Somehow.
He looked at them.
Directly.
> "He sees us."
> "HE SEES US—"
One student's mirror imploded, shoving shards into his eyes.
Another's skin began to bubble as if scorched by invisible fire.
The gods tried to sever the transmission.
It didn't work.
He kept looking.
The mask… smiled.
Then everything went black.
---
Tower Floor 9 – Exit Gate
Jin stepped over a field of corpses.
Some still twitched.
He crushed a living skull beneath his heel.
The survivor gurgled something like a plea.
> "P-Please… don't…"
Jin leaned down, grabbed the man's throat, and whispered:
> "Did they listen to mine?"
He twisted.
The man's spine snapped like dry wood.
Jin didn't watch him die.
He just kept walking.
The silver gate opened.
Floor 10 awaited.
> "Every floor is another altar."
> "And I will drown them in sacrifice."
---