Floor 7 did not announce itself with hostility.
There was no suffocating pressure no distorted skyline, no unstable authority clawing at Kael's senses. When his vision cleared he stood on solid stone ground beneath a pale layered sky, the air was cool and unnervingly calm.
It felt… ordinary.
That alone told Kael everything.
Ordinary floors were the most dangerous to unprepared players.
But Kael was no longer one of them.
He exhaled slowly and opened his status window out of habit rather than necessity. The numbers had already crossed into a realm that would have been considered absurd just a few weeks ago.
[STATUS WINDOW
NAME: KAEL ARDENT
LEVEL: 35
EXP: 1500/50,000
CLASS: MARTIAL BOUNDARY SOVEREIGN (Unrecorded)
ROLE: ARCHITECTS CHOSEN
Talents:
1) Absolute Boundary Definition (Authority) (SSS Rank)
2) Erase Existence (Authority) (SSS Rank)
Sub skills:
1) Truth Appraisal (Authority) (SSS Rank) – Passive
2) Delimited Edge SSS Rank - Active
HEALTH: 7000/7000
MANA: 10000/10000
STAMINA: 2000/2000
Attributes:
Strength: 234
Agility: 300
Endurance: 250
Magic: 500
Control: 899
Titles:
1….
2...
3????? (Sealed)]
Level had climbed steadily through Floor 6's chaos. Attributes had followed. Skills and talents once mocked as trash now existed in a category the Tower itself struggled to define.
SSS Rank.
Authority Tier.
Even reading those words still felt unreal.
Kael closed the window.
"No point staring at it" he muttered. "It won't get weaker if I look away."
The manual rested calmly inside his inventory silent for now. Shen Yao had said little since they entered the new floor remaining present but distant as if deliberately stepping back to allow Kael to walk forward on his own.
Kael didn't question it.
He rolled his shoulders once and began walking.
[Floor 7 – Main Mission]
[Eliminate hostile entities and reach the exit zone]
Simple, Too simple.
The first monsters appeared less than five minutes in.
They crawled out from broken stone arches lining the road ahead humanoid figures wrapped in fractured armour, joints clicking unnaturally as they moved. Their eyes glowed faint blue mana leaking out like mist.
[Stone bound Revenants
Level: 38–42]
In another timeline another version of Kael might have slowed, assessed, prepared.
This Kael did none of that.
He walked forward.
The space around him subtly shifted.
It wasn't visible. There was no glow, no pressure wave. Just a quiet adjustment like reality acknowledging a superior definition.
The first revenant raised its weapon.
It never swung.
A thin line appeared across its torso not drawn by Kael's hand, not accompanied by motion.
It simply existed.
The monster split cleanly in half its form dissolving before it hit the ground.
The second revenant took a step back.
Then ceased to exist.
Kael didn't stop walking.
System messages appeared, delayed as if the Tower itself needed a moment to catch up.
[Stone bound Revenant defeated]
[EXP gained]
Kael barely noticed.
What surprised him wasn't how easily they died.
It was how quiet it felt.
This time he did not feel anything like recoil and resistance even from the monsters who were higher level than him.
This wasn't combat.
It was just removing the monsters with his authority and Aura itself
By the time Kael reached the central zone of Floor 7 the bodies had stopped appearing altogether. The remaining monsters sensed it. Whatever instinct governed them recognized a boundary they could not cross.
The exit gate shimmered into existence ahead.
Kael stepped through without slowing.
[Floor 8 – The Fractured Domain]
Floor 8 was louder.
Wind howled across jagged terrain broken landmasses floating at varying heights connected by unstable bridges of condensed mana. Lightning cracked constantly overhead illuminating shapes moving in the clouds.
Flying-type monsters.
Kael stepped onto the first platform and felt the pull immediately.
Gravity was inconsistent here.
A bad match for most players.
A meaningless factor for him.
The first attack came from above.
A massive winged beast dove talons extended wind pressure roaring as it descended.
Kael tilted his head slightly.
The beast froze mid-dive.
It felt something was wrong.
Its momentum vanished its trajectory erased. It hung in the air for a fraction of a second confused by the sudden absence of continuation.
Then the space it occupied rejected it.
The monster imploded silently folding inward like paper crushed by an invisible hand.
Kael continued forward.
This floor tried harder.
Elemental entities emerged from storm clouds. Long-range attacks rained down. Terrain shifted, bridges collapsing behind him, platforms rotating to throw him off balance.
None of it mattered.
Kael didn't attack most of the time.
He walked.
Where his foot landed the ground stabilized.
Where he passed, hostile phenomena resolved themselves storms weakening, mana dispersing, unstable zones smoothing out as though corrected by an unseen editor.
The Tower kept awarding rewards.
[Elite Monster Defeated]
[Rare Chest Acquired]
[Level Up]
At one point Kael stopped before a floating chest embedded in midair its surface shinning gold.
Gold-tier.
He opened it without using his hands, but it looked way casual than it looks.
The chest opened.
Items spilled out rare enough to cause bidding wars outside the Tower.
Kael stored them without a second glance.
By the time he reached the exit Floor 8's storm had calmed entirely.
The sky cleared.
[Floor 9 – The Trial of Persistence]
Floor 9 was designed to exhaust players.
Endless corridors.
Layered ambushes.
Regenerating enemies.
A test of endurance.
Kael recognized it instantly.
"Old design like in the RPG Games" he said quietly. "Back when the Tower still thought attrition mattered."
The monsters here were faster, more numerous. Swarms of shadow constructs poured from walls, ceilings even the ground itself.
Kael stopped walking.
He stood still.
For the first time since entering Floor 7 he raised his hand.
This time it was not aggressive but deliberately a line appeared.
Just enough to be long and wide. The corridor ended.
Not just collapsed but it ended.
Everything beyond that line ceased to be part of the floor.
Monsters vanished mid-motion. Structures dissolved. The endless path compressed violently, snapping into a single short hallway that ended at the exit gate.
Kael lowered his hand.
The system lagged.
Then….
[Mass Anomaly Detected]
[Correction Accepted]
[Floor Completion Accelerated]
Kael blinked.
"…Accepted?"
That was new.
He stepped forward.
As he reached the gate, a notification appeared unexpected.
[Hidden Condition Fulfilled]
[Title Acquired: Unyielding Progression]
Kael sighed softly.
"So even now it's still trying to reward me."
The gate opened.
[Approaching Floor 10]
The transition felt heavier.
This time he felt it but not hostile but a very heavy air. Like something waited ahead that was defined.
Kael stood before the gate to Floor 10 and paused for the first time since leaving Floor 6.
His instincts didn't scream.
They warned.
Floor 10 was a milestone.
A boss floor.
The kind that separated casual climbers from serious players.
He could clear it.
He knew that.
The certainty was absolute.
And that was exactly why he stopped.
Kael looked down at his hands.
They were steady.
Too steady.
If he continued like this if he kept clearing the floors as if they were mistakes to be erased he would outpace the world outside the Tower completely.
Power without grounding didn't scare him.
Isolation did.
He opened his menu.
Not the system.
The exit.
[Return to Outside World Available]
Kael hesitated only a moment.
"…Yeah" he said quietly. "It's time."
He selected it.
Kael Exited Outside the Tower
The transition was abrupt.
One moment layered skies and stone corridors.
The next open air, city noise, distant sirens, and the unmistakable sound of the real world.
Kael stood just outside the Tower's perimeter.
People stared at him
People didn't recognize him.
Most didn't.
He didn't care.
For the first time since stepping into the Tower, Kael felt something simple and grounding.
This time he felt Hunger, fatigue and normality.
He exhaled slowly and started walking.
Floor 10 could wait.
The Tower wasn't going anywhere.
And neither was he.