This thread introduces Wang Ling's future enemies — not just monsters or illusions, but half-dead godlings, echoes of Tower Conquerors that almost succeeded… and still remember the climb.
📍 [Location: Floor 10 – Subzone: Tomb of Stone-Willed]
Entity ID: ASCENDER #7891 – "Thalor the Iron Heart"
Status: Deceased (Phase-persistent memory echo remains)
Vitality: 3%
Cognitive Integrity: Fragmented
Waiting time: 3,201 years
The corpse sat upright.
Not rotten.
Not fully dead.
Just… paused.
Held in suspension by Tower logic — not buried, not dismissed.
The Tower never discards power.
It repurposes it.
Thalor had once been a champion of war, a man who cleaved gods on Floor 70 of his world. He had climbed alone. Like Wang Ling.
He had reached the Gate.
And the Gate had said:
"Not yet."
So it had shattered his heart, pulled his memories into crystal, and placed his body here — beneath a thousand candles that never melted.
Now, he waited.
In silence.
He remembered pieces.
Not names.
Not faces.
Just weight.
Pain. Flame. Betrayal.
A thousand deaths.
And one moment of absolute truth:
"They did not let me open it."
"Because I still wanted something."
"Hope. Mercy. Salvation."
"But the one who comes now…"
"He wants nothing."
"And that… is what the Tower was made to find."
His broken jaw cracked open.
Dust spilled from his chest cavity.
But his thoughts whispered upward through the floor.
Not as words.
But as warning.
"He is not like us."
"He does not climb to claim."
"He climbs to remove."
"When he walks into this graveyard…"
"We will remember what dying really means."
High above the Grave of the Ascenders, Floor 10 stirred.
Frost cracked.
Candles flickered.
And the sealed spirits of the Tower's forgotten champions—
began to wake.