The manual was warm.
It pulsed faintly in Kael's hands like a restrained heartbeat which was steady, controlled, undeniably alive. The black-gold surface no longer reflected light so much as it absorbed it, the edges blurring whenever Kael tried to focus too hard as though reality itself refused to fully define it.
Kael stood in silence.
The ruined city of Floor 6 stretched around him which had collapsed buildings, fractured streets, frozen echoes of a calamity that should have never existed. And yet for the first time since stepping onto this cursed floor the air felt… light.
The pressure was gone.
The suffocating sense of being watched, tested, corrected it had vanished.
Slowly Kael lowered his gaze to the manual.
"…Master?" he said again quietly this time.
The book responded immediately.
The cover rippled but it did not seem to open or shift its presence, it simply acknowledged its and Kael's presence.
I am here.
Kael's shoulders loosened for the first time in what felt like forever.
"You're… inside this?" he asked.
Not inside the voice corrected gently.
But my soul has been attached to this manual.
Kael frowned. "Attached…?"
The Tower does not permit remnants
Tower Only functions, rewards or correct errors. I was none of those.
A pause.
So I became something it could not classify.
Kael swallowed.
"A correction."
The manual warmed further.
Exactly.
Kael exhaled slowly then sat down on a broken slab of concrete placing the manual carefully on his lap as though it were something fragile despite knowing it was likely the most dangerous object in the Tower.
"…Why me?" he asked.
Like this situation was bitter and Kael did not feel angry or anything, but tired of most of these situations happening.
The answer did not come immediately.
When it did it was softer than he expected.
Because you draw lines instinctively
And you never once asked permission from heaven to do it.
Kael let out a small, breathless laugh. "That sounds like a bad habit."
It is Master agreed calmly.
That is why it works.
Silence settled again.
This one was comfortable.
Then…
"Kael."
He looked up.
Shen Yao stood a short distance away arms crossed gaze fixed not on Kael but on the space around him. For the first time since Kael had met him Shen Yao's posture was relaxed. The faint tension that had always clung to him like a shadow was gone.
"…It's over" Shen Yao said.
Kael nodded. "Yeah."
Shen Yao took a step forward then stopped.
"The Tower released me."
Kael's eyes flicked up sharply. "Wow that's great"
Shen Yao smiled faintly.
"Floor authority has been revoked. The spell which was Binding me to this floor it has been corrected." He let out a quiet breath. "I'm free."
There was no celebration in his voice.
Just… acceptance.
"You stayed here for centuries," Kael said. "And my question is it just lets you go this easily?"
Shen Yao's gaze drifted to the ruined skyline.
"It didn't let me go" he said. "It no longer had a reason to keep me."
He looked back at Kael eyes sharp again.
"You were that reason."
Kael clenched his jaw.
"I didn't mean to you know"
"I know" Shen Yao interrupted. Then after a pause he added "That's what makes it worse for the Tower."
A low sound rippled through the floor.
The sky of Floor 6 once fractured and unstable began to smooth out the unnatural distortions sealing themselves like healed scars.
Shen Yao straightened.
"There's a gate forming ahead" he said. "Let's go to the Exit portal."
Kael followed his gaze.
At the far end of the ruined city space itself was folding inward forming a vertical seam of pale light. It wasn't violent or dramatic. Just… inevitable.
Kael stood.
"So, this is it" he murmured.
Shen Yao glanced at him. "For me, yes."
Kael turned sharply. "What do you mean for you?"
Shen Yao smiled this time genuinely.
"I said I'm free from this floor" he said. "Not from you."
Kael froze.
"…You don't have to" he said slowly. "You're no longer bound. You can leave the Tower. Live your own life."
Shen Yao considered that.
Then shrugged.
"No issues" he said casually. "I've already spent too long correcting one mistake. Might as well see this one through."
Kael stared at him.
"You're serious."
Shen Yao's eyes glinted. "Till the end."
For a moment Kael was so emotional, like he never met his father but Master looks like father to him now.
So he simply nodded.
Together they began walking toward the gate.
Meanwhile Outside the Tower
The world did not notice at first.
The Tower had always been an anomaly an immovable constant in a chaotic age. People were used to players disappearing inside it, used to deaths, failures, incomplete records.
What they were not used to was players being expelled.
It began with one.
Then three.
Then dozens.
Players appeared outside the Tower's perimeter all over the world collapsing onto the ground, coughing, disoriented, status panels flickering wildly. News drones caught the first footage within minutes.
"This is confirmed" a reporter said breathlessly. "Multiple high-level players have exited the Tower simultaneously all over the world of Solaris claiming to have been on Floor 6 and suddenly drastically seems to change and they were pulled in by huge amounts of force and something did happen where suddenly they were repelled by some force and expelled out from the tower"
The footage cut to a woman shaking uncontrollably.
"It changed" she kept repeating. "The floor broke. Then it ended."
Governments mobilized.
Guilds demanded answers.
Scholars argued.
The Tower as always said nothing.
Investigations followed deep scans, resonance mapping, historical cross-checks. Records didn't align. Timelines contradicted each other. Floor 6 had no consistent history anymore.
And then
Players began reappearing inside the Tower.
New entrants.
Old veterans.
All assigned to Floor 6.
Only this time
It wasn't the same floor.
When they came back to Floor 6 it was reconstructed
The city was gone.
In its place stood a vast open terrain, structured zones, stabilized skies, defined boundaries. No distortions.
The missions appeared immediately.
This time Clear and Simple.
[Main Mission: Survive and stabilize the zone]
[Side Missions: Resource acquisition, elite suppression]
[Hidden Missions: None Detected]
Players frowned.
Confusion spread.
"Has this floor been cleared before?"
"Yes."
"Then why…"
The answer came quietly.
Floor 6 had been cleared.
But what had been cleared was not meant to exist again.
The Tower had rewritten it.
Removed the mistake.
And with it removed the hidden path forever.
After some time in Floor 7
Kael stepped through the gate.
The sensation was different this time.
This time he didn't feel any pressure and some evaluation and it was just movement.
When his vision cleared, he stood on solid ground beneath a sky that shined faintly layered with countless intersecting lines like a blueprint too vast to comprehend.
A new floor.
A new beginning.
The system popped up.
[Entering Floor 7]
Kael exhaled.
Behind him Shen Yao stepped through expression unreadable.
The manual in Kael's hand pulsed once and he kept the manual inside his inventory, but it does not stop Shen Yao to come out of the manual.
This is where the Tower starts watching you properly the voice said calmly.
Kael's lips curved into a faint smile.
"Good" he replied. "It's about time."
"I feel very strong and profound. And I feel like I can clear floor faster than ever"
"Lets Speed Run some floors"