"The Tower Breathes"
The air was no longer still.
It pulsed — slow, deep, and alive. Each beat of the soundless heart echoed through the dark, reverberating beneath their feet like the groan of something colossal buried beneath miles of stone.
Zero and Arven descended in silence. The staircase wound downward now, not upward — spiraling through blackness that swallowed light and sound alike. Only the faint glow of Zero's eyes and the weak shimmer of Arven's blade illuminated their path.
After what felt like hours, the stairs ended abruptly.
They stepped onto a plain of obsidian soil. The ground was warm to the touch, faintly trembling beneath their boots, as though veins of magma or something worse slumbered below.
Above them, roots — impossibly vast — hung like skeletal tendrils, pulsing with dull crimson light.
Arven whispered, "This… this isn't a floor. It's something's body."
Zero's voice was calm but low. "The Tower grows from it. The Root."
He didn't say how he knew that. The knowledge simply existed in his mind — waiting, remembered before being learned.
The Silent Grove
They advanced slowly through a forest of pillars, each one made of fused stone and bone, twisting upward like petrified trees. Faces were embedded in the bark — half-formed, half-screaming — their mouths sealed by black resin.
Arven averted his eyes. "Those are climbers, aren't they?"
Zero didn't answer.
The silence between them grew heavier. With every step, the air thickened, carrying a faint metallic tang — the scent of old blood, soaked into the earth for centuries.
Something shifted ahead. A whisper, too faint to be words, brushed past Zero's ear.
"You shouldn't have come back."
He froze, scanning the shadows. Nothing moved — yet the voice came again, closer this time, overlapping, hundreds of whispers layered into one:
"You killed us once. You'll kill us again."
The pillars began to tremble. Cracks split across their surfaces, releasing streams of black mist that coiled through the air like smoke given thought.
Arven raised his blade. "We've got company."
The mist condensed — shaping into forms. Not demons. Not shadows. People.
Climbers.
Dozens of them, their faces pale and hollow, eyes glowing faintly red. Armor corroded, weapons fused to their skeletal hands. Each step they took left trails of black ichor on the ground.
Arven cursed under his breath. "The dead remember you, Zero."
Zero drew his blade, its faint hum rising through the stillness. "Let them try to remind me."
Battle in the Roots
The first revenant lunged — a blur of cracked armor and burning eyes. Zero's blade moved faster. One clean arc, and the thing fell, its body disintegrating into ash before it hit the ground.
But for each that fell, two more emerged from the shadows.
Arven fought beside him, his strikes raw and furious, cutting through waves of ghostly soldiers that refused to die quietly. Sparks lit the gloom like fireflies in a storm.
Zero moved like water — each motion precise, efficient, without hesitation. His sword traced a pattern of silver across the darkness, cutting through revenants that seemed endless.
But as the battle raged, something was wrong.
The ashes didn't vanish. They flowed together — drawn toward the ground, pooling into dark streams that pulsed like veins.
Arven noticed first. "Zero— the ground's—!"
Before he could finish, the earth cracked open.
A massive form rose from beneath — a figure built from the bodies of the dead, fused into a grotesque shape that towered over them. Hundreds of arms stretched outward, each holding a broken weapon, each mouth whispering in agony.
The Root Guardian.
The Guardian's Judgment
The creature's voice was a chorus — thousands speaking as one.
"You were the first to climb. You were the first to fall.You made us part of your Tower."
It moved. Slowly, but with the weight of mountains.
Zero's instincts screamed. He darted sideways as a massive arm crashed down, splintering the ground and sending shockwaves through the field. Arven rolled clear, breath ragged.
"Tell me you've got a plan!"
Zero said nothing — his gaze locked on the monster's core, a glowing orb pulsing within its chest.
He sprinted forward, cutting through a wall of reaching arms, each strike clean, merciless, fluid. But every wound he dealt closed instantly — the Guardian feeding on the very roots of the Tower.
Arven saw it too. "It's regenerating! You can't kill it like that!"
Zero stopped mid-stride, eyes narrowing. "Then we burn the roots."
He drove his sword into the ground. The air around him changed — the faint hum deepening into a resonant vibration that made the entire floor tremble. The soil began to glow, silver cracks spreading outward in fractal lines.
Arven's eyes widened. "Zero, what are you—"
"Ending the memory."
The ground erupted in light.
The Fire Beneath
A roar filled the chamber as silver fire consumed the obsidian soil, racing along the veins of corruption that fed the Guardian. The creature screamed, its body unraveling, turning to smoke as it tried to retreat into the earth.
But Zero pressed forward, eyes blazing, channeling everything he had into the blade still buried in the ground.
Arven shielded his face from the blinding light. "You'll bring the whole floor down!"
Zero's voice was cold, steady. "Then let it fall."
The Guardian let out one final scream — not of pain, but recognition.
"You are not the Tower. You are its wound."
And then it was gone.
The fire dimmed, leaving the plain silent once more. The roots above had stopped pulsing. For the first time, the Tower was still.
Arven stared at the smoking ruin. "You just killed a floor."
Zero pulled his sword free, its edge still glowing faintly. "No. I cut the chain."
The Way Forward
In the distance, a faint light appeared — a doorway, not carved but grown from the living walls, waiting.
Arven exhaled shakily. "If this is the Root… what's below it?"
Zero's gaze lingered on the light. His expression was unreadable. "The Core."
As they walked toward it, the whispering began again — not hostile now, but mournful.
"Remember what you were, Zero.""Remember what you chose to forget."
He didn't answer.
When they reached the doorway, it opened on its own, releasing a gust of wind that smelled like rain and old memories.
Zero stepped through first.
The Tower shuddered — not in anger, but in fear.