Jin inspected the weapon with mixed feelings. He was extremely happy that he managed to create a three-starred weapon which he didn’t even know was possible. The best weapon he had ever had was a one-starred bow which he couldn’t even use because he lacked the skills for it. On the other hand he was extremely mad that the weapon was only usable against constellations. This meant that he wouldn’t even have a decent weapon for when the tower started. A slight thread of panic flashed by in his mind, but he stayed calm.
Jin looked around him and noticed that the moon was already high in the night sky, and so he decided to go to bed. Nightmares taunted him again, they had been there since the day he walked into the tower. they chased him like wolves do for their preys. Every time he fell asleep it was guaranteed that a vision would come in his mind. Some of them were from his past, the times he lost his allies for example. The other times it’s a vision of the near future about how he could avoid his death the next day. Jin had talked about the visions and dreams with other climbers before but each one of them had said that they didn’t have them. Today it was worse than the usual cases, this time he would faze the recreation of his worst memory, it happened every full moon. There were rare cases where he could actually feel inside his dream world, those were the worst ones.
Jin got up from his wheelchair that was on a cold block of ice in the middle of an endless frozen world. Ice spikes were visible in the distance with bones inside of them piercing the clouds. It looked like someone drew on a canvas with only white and blue paint. For the first time Jin could actually feel his legs in his new body. A sensational feeling that made him feel more accustomed to it. He got up and noticed that the body was pretty tall and close to being skinny. The white hospital clothing with his white hairs which tops hung in front of his eyes blended in with the environment making him close to invisible. It felt like he was in his real body and that everything around him was normal. The freezing that was present didn’t even bother Jin at all. The water particles in the air were frozen and icy winds made the nearby snow swirl around in circles.
Jin loved the cold, he was at peace and comfortable in freezing like inside this dream. He started to walk around the place without any purpose or goals. On his way to an unknown destination he spotted a Japanese castle made out of stone on a mountain in the distance. With boredom filling his mind he walked towards the landmark. The closer the wandering man got, the better he could see the stone palace. It had countless towers and walls and stretched out over all the mountain peaks. The massive building was made out of black stone bricks. When Jin reached the front gate he noticed the amount of details the building had, it was masterfully crafted.
In every brick there was something engraved. Some had texts in a language he couldn’t read others had drawings of fighting scenes carved in them. The door had a beautiful engraving made from light-blue sapphires. Jin grabbed one of the two circular handles on the entrance door and pulled it open. It didn’t take him a lot of strength as the door smoothly opened towards him. Jin walked inside the castle without even thinking about it. The spacious foyer made was heavily decorated. It had a carpet on the ground, paintings on the walls and a grand chandelier with hundreds of little candles on it. Two staircases, one on each side, both came together on a double door that was in front of the entrance to the second floor. As Jin walked upstairs he noticed that there wasn’t a single spot of dirt or dust on the ground.
Behind the door a long hallway with thousands of doors on the sides was leading towards the heart of the palace. He walked through the hallway looking at the walls where paintings and heads were hanging. The heads all belonged to the monsters who resided in the tower. Each of the paintings seemed to be so familiar with Jin, as if he was the one who had painted them. When he reached one of the last paintings of the hallway he realized why they seemed so familiar. Every painting he had passed by was recreation in third perspective of a battle he had fought. The frames were numbered from one to a hundred and all of them were Jin fighting the boss of the designated floor. Jin, who wasn’t in his right mind because he was dreaming, thought it was all pretty normal. He reached the end of the hallway which was marked by an elevator. He pressed the button and waited until it arrived. The electric lift opened and was as modern as it could be. The thing completely didn’t blend in with the interior of the Japanese castle and only had two buttons: [GF] for the floor Jin was on and [-75].
Without a lot of choice Jin pressed his only option. The doors closed and it started descending at a rapid speed. A soft song made by violins and flutes made the waiting a bit less boring. The melody felt as if a soft and cozy breeze gently confronted him. Once the door opened, a dim lighted cave uncovered itself. Jin who had just taken his first step out of the lift was caught off guard. LUBDUB. An ear-destroying heartbeat cursed through the cave wall. Lines of energy resembling veins started to glow with whitish blue light. The light that coursed through the cave walls were in sync with the beat. LUBDUB. The sound kept on repeating and Jin got accumulated to it. He walked through the cavern’s halls, searching for the source of the loud heart-like pulses. The closer he got, the louder the sounds and how brighter the glowing veins on the wall. The dreaming boy walked around the last corner and was confronted with the most absurd scene.
A colossal heart was frozen into a crystal wall in front of him. It stood at a size that most houses weren’t even close to reaching. The white heart was beating with grand force and releasing astronomical amounts of mana each beat which made the walls around it light up. Jin was barely able to stand under the insane pressure. A voice spoke to him, it sounded like it was a person’s who’s vocal cords were ripped out. The echo of the voice was that of a ghost, as if multiple layers of the same voice spoke at once.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“So you’re the one who has been chosen worthy of me? Is that even possible?! YOU obtained my heart? A dragon’s heart belonging to YOU? In THAT pathetic body of yours?! I might’ve lost my sight and all the other parts of my body but I still sense nothing coming from you except for your measly presence! Weren’t you supposed to be a great conqueror of the tower? A beginning constellation? I heard that you cleared over 70 floors by yourself but that seems to be only a rumor. At least you have some constricting energy. Are you truly the one I heard about?” Jin didn’t answer, he wasn’t able to. He had never felt this much power opposing him. Even the constellations he had met before were nothing compared to this. The voice continued: “I see that you can’t talk, pathetic. I’ll just look in your memories to see your story. This might hurt so shut up while you’re going through it you weak bastard.”
Tentacles of light charged at him with comprehensible speed, they wrapped around him and started to pierce his head. Unlike the voice had said it didn’t hurt at all, it actually felt refreshing. Jin opened his eyes which he didn’t even know he had closed and found himself in a place he never wanted to see again. Of every moment they could’ve showed Jin it had to be the one he feared most. The moment he had lost his soul, the place where he lost every last bit of his hope. The entrance gate on the 74th floor of the first tower. There was nothing there he could do but look at the scene. He was only a specter watching a memory from the fourth perspective, the ghost form. He didn’t have a body and no one in the memory could see him. It was as if he was watching a story where he already knew what would happen. The doors slowly opened and uncovered the garden of the Furn flower, the 74th floor. A middle-aged man walked inside with dark expression. He wore a strong armor made from a black metal and decorated with a pattern from gold. The man held two moon-shaped blades that had a faint glow to them.
The garden was in the peak of autumn, leaves in bright colors were dwindling from the trees. The altar of the flower which resided at the top of the hill was reflecting the sunlight upon the surroundings. He walked towards it and placed a flower on top of it. A CLICK could be heard throughout the entire floor. The ground seemed to fall away and a hidden door was discovered when the stone altar busted into splinters. The man walked down the staircase and was greeted by a cold breeze that had a rotten smell to it. His expression darkened and he continued down the marble staircase. He reached the bottom stair and looked up, a disgusting smell marked the presence of dead bodies.
The underground lounge was covered in moss and plant roots. Red lights made the shadows look alive. The plants that should’ve been green were painted red in blood. Crimson was everywhere, there wasn’t even a single spot where blood was absent. Twenty-seven people stood in front of him. The man finally spotted the group and his face lit up. “You guys are alive. I knew a single floor would be able to annihilate all of you. I’m glad that all of you are fine. Why did you guys write a letter though? It said all of you would have died by the time I read it.”
No response. One of the people let out a long and deep sigh. “Dear guild leader, you really have a problem reading the room don’t you?” A woman stepped out of the shadow with a blank expression. “Father, you found almost all of us on the first ten floors, you raised us to survive and kept us safe. But we think the United Counsel is right. You’re becoming to old-fashioned for this, your vision is to broad.” The man looked at the group, they were all acting pretty weird, but he didn’t see what was wrong. He had raised these teenagers for the last six years as if he was their actual father. “What do you mean?” He asked. The woman continued with a voice that didn’t have any emotions. “Father, we think you should stop climbing the tower and retire. We all thought about it for a very long time and concluded that we don’t share our goals. Tell me, why would we actually clear the tower? Why don’t we use it? Those were the thoughts the United Counsel had and told you about. We could get everything we want; money, power, fame but you STILL declined the offer. For some reason the only thing you care about is freeing humans from their doomed fate. Isn’t that just a ridiculous goal? Isn’t it childish when you have so many easier and more useful ways to do it. That’s why we’re here today, to get you out of our way. You’ve hindered our plans for to long father. Now please die here. We’re tired of you.” The man who was struck by confusion looked at his family members.
To his despise he saw the worst possible scenario, they had taken the sealed item which should’ve been inside his bureau. It was a trophy he had gained from the fiftieth floor, a sealed demon. They all started chanting the spell and summoned the sealed creature. The man wanted to scold them, but he wasn’t able to, he couldn’t get himself to say anything to them. He was disappointed in them but moreover in himself. Two arms pulled itself upwards from the ground and slowly climbed its way up the group. One of the boys started counting with a lot of excitement when the head started to come up “One, two, three. What? Even a fourth horn… Wait is that a fifth? WOW we’re sooo lucky, I didn’t even know it went above three horns…. Is that… Is that a s-sixth?! Isn’t six a bit too much to handle? We had trouble taking down a three-horned demon and now we’ve summoned a six-horned one?”
The boy’s excitement turned into fear “Camilla… are you sure this is safe?” The woman who had talked before and who the boy had called Camilla looked at the demon with a terrified expression. “What the fuck is a constellation doing inside the tower? No, this shouldn’t be possible! Quick, everybody run! Restraint the guild master before leaving. We’ll just wait until the contract ends in a few days”. The man looked at them with tears in his eyes. He had failed as their guardian. The demon who was now completely summoned looked around and started his reckless attack. He stomped the ground with his feet and a shock wave of fire started to flow over the ground.
“NOOOO!” The man screamed but he was too late. The wave reached the group’s back while they were trying to run away. The flames started their feast. One by one they turned to ashes. Their screams echoing through the cavern. Some of them survived for several minutes while their organs and limbs started to implode slowly until they died. The man stood there, helpless. A piece of his soul had just been stolen.