[...Initializing Sisyphus System...Error. Subject already possesses a passive skill...]

The cold voice that announced Nash's death rang inside his head once more, pulling him out of his lethargy.

'...So I'm dead. Strange,' Nash couldn't help but frown, well, try to. His senses seemed...gone. He couldn't see, hear, or even feel his brows rising in confusion.

'...I sure hope I won't be conscient the whole time or I might just become crazy...How did I die again?' Nash concentrated, the last few minutes preceding his death blurry. His memories were seemingly covered in a veil of confusion, the only thing he could decrypt from the blur being a song chanting the same inspiring words, "The last soul standing,". Nash felt a hint of annoyance as he tried to pierce through the veil, the blur pushing him off violently.

'Those are my memories. Give them back!' He angrily protested, the blur unwillingly letting itself get pierced.

[...Error...Basic Memory Alteration has been dispelled by a Mental Resistance skill...Analysis of the problem...]

Had Nash been able to wince, he would have done so without waiting, his whole soul being tortured at the sound of the cold robotic voice. The more he closed on his sealed memories, the worse the pain got, but Nash couldn't stop. These memories were his! By what right are they trying to take them away?!?

[...Solution found. Warning, mental corruption expected. Unsealing all memories...]

Nash suddenly felt things again.

And this was a horrible change.

"ARGH!!!!" The young man's eyes bulged as he felt dozens of teeth working on his flesh, nails digging into his skin for the precious organs sealed within him. His memories came back like an unstoppable tsunami of suffering, the sound of being eaten alive echoing in his ears, the zombies taking one bite after another of his arms, his legs, his face, his eyes being ripped out of their sockets while his guts served as the finest food for the creatures.

[...Mind corruption detected...Applying Patch...Error, a Mental Resistance skill is blocking the Patch.]

The cold robotic voice was practically drowned under the hellish grunts and gnawing sounds.

"GAHHH!!!" Nash screamed, the pain never-ending. Suddenly, he managed to see despite his eyes being long gone, already starting to get digested inside a lucky undead stomach. He glanced around himself, forcing himself to not look away from the zombies who were working on getting as much as they could from his body with an insatiable voracity. The more Nash looked at himself as if his body wasn't his, the lesser the pain became. Nash soon realized that what he felt, saw, and all of this suffering, were illusions played on his mind by his memories.

The instant he understood that he was able to watch his death from an outsider's perspective. He found himself floating around the scene, watching the remains of himself being ripped apart, each strand of meat greedily chewed and swallowed, each drop of his blood drank and digested.

'This is...' Nash frowned in his non-physical state, unable to get his eyes to leave the horrific scene. It was so strange to see himself like that...dead.

[...Analysis...Mind corruption eliminated...Adapting [Indomitable Will of the Fallen World's Soldier - Unrankable] into a skill suited for Tower usage...]

The young man heard the cold robotic voice state something, but he couldn't listen to it. The sight of his body transitioning from a corpse to a pile of flesh and then bones was mesmerizing, but strangely enough, even though it was his body, it just felt so...foreign.

'...It's my body that had been reduced to nothing right there, and yet...' Nash drew a deep illusory breath, '...I couldn't care less.'

[...A mental Safeguard has been safely installed...Skill [Indomitable Will - Innate] has been generated. Sisyphus System initialization resuming...84%...]

'Just what is this voice?' Nash looked away from his corpse, discarding the memory like the worthless piece of trash it was. He had no use for something that would bring him nothing. Yes, he couldn't accept this... 'System' that tried to seal his memories away. But, if he had a choice between keeping the traumatic scenes and getting rid of them, he'd rather choose the latter. He couldn't have anything pull him back.

He had to continue without stopping.

Even if that meant defying death itself.

[Subject's condition: DEAD]

'...I kind of doubt that. My soul, my existence is still alive, even though my body is gone. That means I'm not truly dead. After all, the System is still talking to me,' Nash thought as he tried to move in the darkness that made his surroundings. Without the memories of his death to disturb him, he realized that there truly was...nothing.

'...That makes me think...If the System can still talk to me even though I do not have a body left, does that mean it's connected to the soul?' Nash felt an illusory shiver run down his non-existing spine.

'This is a somehow very loathsome idea. I'd rather not think about it, but ignoring the problem won't solve it...' Nash kept on pondering relentlessly, undisturbed by the fact that everything that proved his existence in the material world had disappeared. He glanced around, realizing the futility of the act since he was still in the space where nothing was real, palpable, or visible.

It was just a lot of emptiness. It wasn't darkness, it was just...nothing.

'...There has to be some kind of logic behind this space. Perhaps it's a waiting space? Maybe the 'System' needs to tailor-fit something for me, since I lost my body...'

[Sisyphus System successfully installed. Initializing Floor_Code_0001...]

Nash pinched his illusory lips, confused. What was all that about the Sisyphus System? And what did it mean by floor code or whatever?

'I should have paid more attention to the System's voice instead of mourning my dead body. I might have missed some important information there...]

As the young man worriedly readied himself for whatever was to come, the dark space twisted and became illuminated with light. The pressure of air on his skin, the moisture at his fingertips, and the hunger in his belly all indicated that he was back in a breathing, living body. Nash coughed as he struggled to breathe, his lungs not functioning the way they were supposed to. He grabbed his throat as he forcefully breathed in a mouthful of rancid air, the smell of piss mixed with blood and shit making him want to puke. His body's instincts took over and his struggles to breathe disappeared, replaced by the horrible feeling of having a drill piercing his skull.

Nash grunted and pushed himself from the mossy ground, his whole body unfamiliar. It felt like he was in someone else's body, everything in different spots that they should usually be in.

'I...I need to get my shit together.' Nash gritted his teeth, and while helping himself with a nearby wall, he managed to pull himself off the ground. He blinked as he adapted to not being in the void anymore, his heart racing madly in his chest.

[First Floor - Difficulty : #?Die & Retry?#]

The accursed, cold robotic voice rang once again in Glenn's mind as he came to his senses, a blue window opening in front of his eyes to display the words it was telling him.

[Challenger: Nash Dularfull]

[Class: No_Class]

[Passive Skill(s) : Indomitable Will(Innate)]

[Active Skills: - ]

[Proficiency: Revolver Proficiency - Unranked // Machete Proficiency - Unranked ]

[Curse(s): SYSTEM_LOCK]

[SCENARIO: ESCAPE FROM THE CITADEL ALIVE]

[T-MINUS 58 SECONDS UNTIL INITIALIZATION]

Nash frowned, rubbing the moss of his hands on his pants, his eyes stuck on the blue window. There were way too many confusing things on it, but the most pressing one certainly was the counter at the bottom. It started at 90 seconds, but he had lost precious seconds when he woke up and regained his composure. It was now 48 seconds, which meant that Nash had to hurry up before whatever was going to happen, happened.

The second thing that caught his attention, due to its ominous wording, was the Curse. Whatever this System lock was, it looked strange compared to the rest of the window, the letters glitching slightly as if it was part of an unfinished code. The difficulty of the Floor was even worse and looked bad for him.

'Even though I already experienced death once, I certainly don't want to repeat the experience. Shit, what the hell is Die & Retry supposed to mean?!?' Nash gritted his teeth and finished reading the window just as it disappeared into oblivion. He wiped off a mucky substance on his forehead, letting out a long sigh, the young man relieved that he had managed to read the whole thing. A minute and a half certainly was a short amount of time, and extremely stressful. Whatever this interface was, it wasn't user-friendly.

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With that, Nash finally took the time to observe his surroundings. He was standing in a dark cell, with a floor and ceiling built out of stone, so old and damn that thick patches of moss were growing over them. The ground under his feet was humid and cold, making him realize that he wasn't wearing any shoes. Nash looked back to himself, having the strange sensation that he had lost some muscles, becoming slightly scrawnier. His clothes were plain but still foreign, a simple lin tunic that didn't warm him up the slightest, alongside brown pants holding on his meager waist with a used rope. Nash frowned and lifted his shirt, finding severe signs of malnutrition on his body, his ribs showing while all the muscles he had built in his life had melted away, leaving only the skin hanging on his bones.

'...Is this the new body the System gave me?' Nash shook his head, the following second making him regret this foolish decision. He fell on his knees and grabbed his head between both of his hands, a torturing pain ringing through his skull, even worse than when he first woke up. The young man gritted his teeth and waited for the pain to pass before concentrating once more on his surroundings. At his back was a stone wall, as to his right and left, while in front of him, metal bars separated him from a dark corridor lit by the faint flames of a few torches hanging from the wall.

Nash approached the metal bars with stumbling steps, still struggling to adapt to the horrible body he was placed in.

'It's still better than being dead...' The young man relativized, shivering when he thought back to the few minutes he had spent in the great emptiness. Unless it had been hours, perhaps days? He couldn't tell, his sole hint of how time passed being the occasional words from the cold robotic voice and his overly noisy thoughts. Back then, it didn't bother him that much, but now that he thought back to it... Nash grabbed the metal bars and passed his head through it, barely fitting thanks to his scrawny build. The rest of his body wouldn't follow, ruining his hopes for an easy escape. Nash only knew one thing about his situation, and that was that he needed to 'escape the Citadel alive'.

'The Citadel sounds like the name of a city in a fantasy story, or at least a medieval one, which would work with my current environment. The Tower mentioned a Scenario, is that what it meant? Am I in some kind of story? But what for?' Nash looked left and right, noticing a few notable things. First, his cell wasn't the only one, there were rows and rows of them on both sides of his own. Secondly, he was also not the only one peeking out of the cell. There were dozens of heads looking curiously through the metal bars, most sharing the same common point. Dark bags under their eyes, thin cheeks, and skeletal arms...Everything pointed to malnutrition, and sadly for Nash, he also seemed to be a victim of this ailment. His stomach grumbled weakly, begging for food, which Nash hurriedly searched for in his cell, which led him to discover that there was nothing.

There was no bed, not even planks to sleep on. It was similarly bare in terms of sanitary, as there was not even a bucket to relieve oneself in. From the small disgusting mound in the corner of the room, Nash quickly guessed where he was supposed to take care of his needs.

'...Great. Fucking great...' Nash grimaced, sitting as far as he could from the filthy corner, his head leaning against the damp stone wall. He lost himself in his thoughts, enjoying the silence to try and put some order in his mind, when he realized the oddity.

'Silence? I doubt the other prisoners wouldn't want to discuss it with each other. Unless we're forbidden from making any noises?' Nash rubbed his meager chin, his fingers filthy and thin. He thought back to the other prisoners hanging out of their cells and hesitantly passed his head through the metal bars once again. The cells right next to him seemed to bore no curiosity, but the next one to the left had a hobo with a large unkempt black beard and long, messy hair that hid his eyes away. Nash moistened his lips, his tongue dry and his throat sore. The more time he spent in this accursed body, the more he realized how bad of a condition he was in.

The hobo was tapping on the metal bar softly with his finger, the taps set with the regularity of a clock counting down the seconds. His head was turned in a very specific spot of the corridor, making Nash curious about what could be there that caught the hobo's attention. He squinted, barely apperceiving a figure leaning against the wall in the comfort of darkness, at the exact, furthest point between two torches. Whoever the figure was, the only thing Nash could see from him were the dark gloves of tanned leather and the brown, pointed boots. The figure was still, standing silently without a single movement, making Nash doubt he was even real.

"...Cough!" A small noise came from the cell at Nash's direct left, echoing in the prison's silence. Nash turned his head just in time to see the hobo hurriedly pulling his head back into his cell, scrambling to get as far as possible from the bars. Nash followed his example but remained next to the bars to see what was going on. The still figure leaning against the wall suddenly moved, stepping into the light with heavy, ominous steps. Nash felt a cold bead of sweat pearl down his back, a sentiment of dread shaking him to the core. He almost fled to the furthest corner of his cell, terrified, when he remembered.

He had already died once.

He indeed didn't want this experience to repeat, due to how... disagreeable it was, sure... But knowing what came after death simply made it much less... impressive.

So, why would he fear a jailer when he had already met the Grim Reaper before?

Nash gritted his teeth and shook off the dreadful feeling, observing the jailer's face. Even though every single one of his instincts was telling him to flee, it wasn't enough to make him stop looking. The jailer approached the cell silently, the sounds of his boots echoing darkly. He was massive, with a bulging stomach that seemed six months pregnant, and arms as thick as logs. The bag hiding his head wasn't enough to stop one from understanding how thick of a head the jailer had. Alongside the cloth bag, he was wearing a bloodstained leather apron on his naked chest, his legs covered with dark pants sticking to his skin, threatening to crack open at any movement.

The young man watched frozen as the Jailer approached the cell of the person who coughed and took a key from under his apron. He silently fitted the key inside the keyhole, the metal creaking as he opened the door leading inside the cell.

"Cough, wait, no...no, no! NOOO!!!" The person who coughed screamed in terror as the sound of a belt unclipping echoed in the prison.

"No, please, cough, no! Don't do that—mgnh!!!" The man's voice, since it seemed to be a man's was suddenly muffled, heavy grunts echoing in the cell. Nash felt all colors drain from his face as he weakly let go of the metal bars, the horrible sounds coming from the cell next to his enough to let him guess what was going on. The young man listened despite himself with wide-opened eyes, unable to blink as the Jailer did his business.

'...What...What kind of hell did I fall into...?' Nash couldn't help but ask himself, feeling an intense need to puke. He covered his mouth with both hands, biting down on his tongue until it bled as he contained the vomit in his mouth, swallowing it back with tears in the corner of his eyes. However horrible this was, this certainly was a better fate than what was going on in the neighboring cell. Nash almost gasped for air but kept his hands pressed against his mouth, breathing slowly through his nose.

After an excruciating long time filled with the sound of flesh hitting flesh, the Jailer finally left the cell, the sound of him locking it sounding the time to take a breath of relief.

Nash felt relieved he wasn't the one in the neighboring cell. Death was certainly a better choice than...this.

The young man sat in silence for a few minutes, struggling to calm his racing heart, when a noise echoed in the prison once again. Nash paled and hurried to the metal bards, breathing out in relief when he saw that it wasn't a prisoner that made the noise, but a group of people approaching from the far end of the prison's left side. Nash rubbed his eyes, still struggling to get his emotional state back on track, and concentrated on the newcomers. The first thing he noticed about them was the glint of metal. Similar to historical movies or documentaries, four soldiers with metal helmets had a round-skulled appearance with a slit for the eyes. The most obvious feature was that the rear of the helmet was drawn into a long tail, covering the back of the neck.

As they approached Nash's cell, he was able to draw their appearances better. They held spears in their hands, moving in a synchronized motion. They wore a tunic adorned with the sigil of a black, twisted tree with gnarled branches against a blood-red background. The metal glint under their tunics hinted at the presence of a chain mail, a presence that was soon confirmed by the sound their steps made, the rustling of metal under their clothes hard to hide.

Nash held his breath, wondering where the soldiers were headed, when they walked in front of him. Suddenly, with almost a robotic-like movement, they stopped in front of his cell, facing him and pointing at the lock. The Jailer ran over with heavy steps, taking the key out of his apron half-heartedly and opening the cell. The soldiers lowered their spears, aiming at Nash, the young man gulping at the sight of the four spikes aimed at his chest.

'...This doesn't look good.'

"OUT!" One of the soldiers shouted, Nash jumping to his feet and approaching the threateningly sharp spears. He held his hands above his head, walking slowly as the soldiers pushed him with the tip of their spears to be in front of them.

"WALK!" The soldier who first shouted screamed again, pushing him back the way they came from. Nash happily obliged, walking slowly. He glanced to the side as he passed his neighbor's cell, a man rolled in a ball with his pants ripped to the side trembling on the ground, traces of big, bloody hands imprinted on his body. The young man averted his eyes, focusing on the direction he was heading in.

'Don't feel sorry, you wouldn't gain anything from helping him...' Nash thought coldly, well, forced himself to. He couldn't help but clench his teeth together with hate as he looked at the jailer standing in the darkness.

'If I have the choice, I'll kill the fuck out of you...' He thought spitefully, stumbling forward into the corridor. He passed in front of a few dozen of cells, some prisoners staring with a jealous look, others with a pitying one, and the rest not staring at all. Nash ignored them all, his mind racing as he tried to find a way to escape. There was one thing that seemed strange, and that was that he hadn't seen any chains, handcuffs, or any other tools meant to restrain prisoners.

The soldiers were threatening him with their spears, but they didn't do anything to stop him from running away. They were all behind him, pushing him in a direction. Technically, he was free to run for his life and hope to find some way out, but Nash decided against it. If the soldiers were acting that way, it had to be for a reason.

'I can't even begin to guess as to why I'm so 'free', as sarcastic as that sounds...' Nash pondered, flinching when one of the sharp spears poked him threateningly in the back. He almost opened his mouth to say something, but the spectacle that happened previously with his neighbor dissuaded him from doing so. Even though he doubted the Jailer would do anything to him now that he was being taken away by the soldiers, he couldn't help it. He soon reached a large staircase wide enough to let five people side by side climb it, leading to a lower floor.

"GET GOING!!" One of the soldiers behind him ordered violently, pushing him down the stairs. Nash caught himself in extremis, the stone under his feet slippery with moss and humidity. He continued down the stairs without saying a word, his teeth clenched as he climbed down one step after another.

He arrived in another corridor and continued at the same pace without waiting for the soldiers to scream at him. He arrived in front of a large double wooden door that seemed to have been made for giants, reinforced with intricate steel bars. Two soldiers were standing guard with their spears pointed toward the ceiling on each side of the doors. They nodded at the ones pushing Nash forward and opened the door for them, Nash closing his eyes in surprise at the light. A gust of wind pushed against him, making his tunic and his pants flap loudly.

The wind was cold, chilling him to the bone. Nash stepped out with wide-opened eyes, his jaw hanging from the shock. The sun was shining high in the sky, a sky that seemed eerily close.

"CONTINUE, SCUM!!!" One of the soldiers kicked him in the back, projecting him against the cold stone bricks. Nash hurriedly pushed himself up, looking around with a shocked expression. He was standing on a stone bridge that led to a castle-like structure, cold winds pushing from side to side.

But what shocked him was that the bridge was opened on each side, without any rails to stop him from falling, letting him see a sight that most men could only dream of seeing. This was a white, misty sea that seemed to reach beyond the horizon, the winds apparent as they pushed toward Nash.

And that was when it hit him.

He was in a prison in the sky.

A prison so high it stood over the fucking clouds.