The Floor Above
Zero and Arven stepped through the spiral gate and were immediately struck by silence—pure, crushing silence.No wind. No hum. No sound at all.
The floor was an endless plain of pale stone, perfectly smooth, with no horizon and no visible structures. Above, the sky was a blank white void. Even their footsteps made no noise.
Arven frowned. "...It's like the world stopped existing."
Zero's eyes narrowed. No sound, no echo… the Tower's sensory deprivation test.
Every previous floor had used chaos—light, energy, flame, shadow—to test their reaction and clarity. But here, the Tower stripped them of their greatest asset: awareness through sound.
The First Distortion
The air warped. The stone beneath their feet rippled, sending faint tremors through the ground. Suddenly, fragments of light bent and twisted, forming humanoid shapes—faceless, translucent reflections of Zero and Arven.
Each moved perfectly in silence, mirroring every stance, every breath.
Arven drew his blade, the movement silent. "They're… us?"
Zero nodded once. "Not reflections—simulations. Copies that adapt."
They lunged forward together.The clash should have been deafening—but there was only silence. Sparks flew without sound, impact rippled without echo. Every motion felt unreal, as though they were fighting inside a dream.
Zero's mind raced. No sound means no rhythm, no feedback, no coordination. The Tower wants to break tempo—to shatter instinct.
Adaptation
As the battle continued, their simulacra began to adapt faster, anticipating strikes that had not yet begun. Zero shifted tactics—abandoning predictable combat flow and turning movement into chaos. His attacks no longer followed pattern or rhythm.
He broke logic itself.
Each strike flowed into the next with no tell, no stance, no precursor.The simulacra faltered.
Arven watched in awe. "You're fighting without sequence…"
Zero's expression was calm. "The moment pattern exists, you lose control."
One by one, the silent copies dissolved into motes of gray light.
The Silent Pulse
But the Tower was not done.
The ground vibrated.A vast circle of glyphs ignited beneath their feet—bright crimson and white, spinning faster with each pulse. A new form began to take shape, towering above them: a spectral entity made of fractured stone and void-light.
It moved impossibly fast, its limbs disjointed and erratic, each movement bending the space around it.
Zero felt the distortion ripple through his senses—sight fractured, time stuttered. He couldn't rely on speed or sound.
He had to rely on clarity alone.
Zero closed his eyes.
The world went black.
And then—he moved.
Each step was measured not by sound or vision, but by intuition, the subtle vibration of energy through his body, the faint disturbance in the Tower's pressure field.
The entity struck with a bladed arm of crystalized light—Zero sidestepped by a single inch, blade arcing upward in one clean motion.
The silence broke—not with sound, but with a pulse of light that cracked the horizon.
The Entity Falls
Zero's blade pierced through the entity's core. It shattered into shards of white energy, dispersing like fog in the morning sun.
As the fragments dissolved, faint whispers echoed for the first time—ancient, overlapping voices of those who had once failed this floor.
"Clarity is not sight.Clarity is not sound.Clarity is the truth beyond perception."
The Tower's voice followed, resonant and absolute:
"You have conquered the Eleventh Floor—The Silent Convergence. Few comprehend awareness beyond sensory limitation. Proceed upward, where perception and existence intertwine."
Aftermath
Zero exhaled slowly. "Every floor strips something away. Soon, there will be nothing left to rely on but will itself."
Arven wiped his blade clean, the faintest smirk crossing his face. "Then we'll rely on will until even that breaks."
Zero looked toward the staircase ahead, spiraling into a faint blue light.
He stepped forward without hesitation.
Clarity guides all. Even through silence.
And as they ascended, the world below vanished into stillness once more.