Pitch black, with a thick mist surrounding the world. A thin layer of water reflected the only two sources of light that were present. Inside the room, there was a middle-aged man, holding two moon shaped blades. He had forged them years ago with the heart of a demon. The two weapons both emitted a faint light-blue glow in the endless darkness surrounding him. His reflection on the water was not what it should be. Instead of reflecting the man himself, who had white hair and blue eyes, it reflected something sinister. It wasn’t something that could be described, a horror was the only thing that fit it’s appearance. In front of the man, an enormous door with the number 100 on it slowly opened. Two enormous purple pupils appeared from behind it, looking as if they were watching right into the man’s soul.

A godly pressure, two forces bound to clash, even the air was holding its breath in anticipation. the being in front of the man wasn’t normal. No, it was Bamuth, the final entity of the tower that appeared seven years ago. A strong force that was said to control millions of undead. The man knew there was a big chance he’d die, yet it didn’t bother him. The last few years, he had struggled to much to survive the drastic changes in the world had known. A sky-piercing tower had emerged from the earth’s surface around seven years ago in England. It had summoned random people inside who became it’s “contestants”. Those people had to fight monsters and defeat bosses just to survive. Most of them had died before ending the tutorial which lasted on the first ten floors. Only when completing the first ten parts of the tower the “contestants” or players were allowed to leave. This wasn’t a solution though. If the tower’s highest floor available wasn’t cleared within 50 days it would send out monsters to the normal world to wrack havoc.

The man had enough of it, enough of the never ending lies and fights, he wanted it to end, he wanted to stop. Year after year since the tower appeared he was used by others, sometimes for money, other times for power. The man had tolerated most of it, but lately the last layer of his patience had broken. His entire guild had been cremated and he was left alone. “Aren’t you tired of waiting for a visitor, let’s end our misery Bamuth, leviathan of death.” The two eyes were still shining a purple light. A loud growling sound affirmed the impatience of the being in front of the man. Its true size was not visible to the eye as it was clouded in dark mists, but the man knew it was as big as a mountain.

As if someone had announced the start of the fight, both forces started attacking at the same time. The man whispered a few words in the language that didn’t have sound, and immediately millions of ice spikes started to form behind him, floating above the ground. Every single one of these shards were as big as a car, and glowed in the same way the man’s weapons did. The leviathan had also finished chanting his seal. Thousands of portals as big as skyscrapers opened up. Out of every portal, undead began to storm out, forming an army that couldn’t die. The monster in the man’s reflection sat down with a smile on his face.

The clash lasted for exactly one week without anyone coming out victorious until the very last day. The man had used his all, trying to finish the beast but the more he wounded his opponent the heavier its attacks became. Every day the fight’s intensity doubled, each force gathering all their strength, desperately trying to win. There was only one thing that decided the final winner, hope. The boss monster only wanted to survive another day while the man had way bigger things supporting him. An entire planet depended on this very battle, one mistake and all life on it would probably vanquish. On the last day, the man finally received a lethal attack. The leviathan had distracted him with his minions and then attacked with its massive tail that was invisible because of the thick mist. The man couldn’t dodge and flew against the border of the small dimension they were in. Little waves of nothingness marked his impact on the border. the man knew he was about to die, but couldn’t bring himself to accept it.

He thought he had left all his adhesion to earth behind when he entered the final floor of the tower but he was proven wrong. The man still hungered for those days of peace, those days where for some reason you’re positive about everything. He longed for the long summer days and the moments of joy when someone loved you. Now that he looked back upon his life he realized how miserable it had been. If there was any way he could start over he’d do it.

The man didn’t think anymore and gave in to the monster in his reflection. He was sucked into the floor and was replaced with the devious monster. A long laughter echoed. With his remaining life essence, he started to chant a spell. “This looks fun, HEHEHE, time for a delicious self-destruction.” The man and monster knew that chanting this spell would rip apart their body and soul which he wouldn’t be able to join his beloved ones and the constellations in the place above, but he did not care. He felt hate, he wanted to end his misery and rest in the void. The man had given up his humanity and common sense years ago when he planted his first godly seed in his body. He finished chanting the seal, thirty-eight pillars of light appeared around the leviathan of death. Each pillar resembled a demon or god he had slain in this tower.

The beast let out a cry of fear that made every living thing shiver. Chains started binding the thing and started pouring an insane amount of divine energy in the thing. At last the beast exploded because its heart couldn’t handle it. As the colossal beast fell to the ground, the man sat down. The man who was already starting to fade from existence received a message, the familiar kind of message he had seen too many times since entering the tower. He was covered in blood and was ready to die.

“You have defeated the leviathan of death on the 100th floor.

Here are your protestations:

* First of your race to achieve this. (SSS)

* Completed the tower in 7 years and 243 days (S)

* Cleared 74 floors by yourself (SSS)

* Defeated 38 higher beings (EX)

* Completed the tower on difficulty: easy (C)

Error… you have achievements that are too high for the tower level.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

Rewards (choose one):

* Heart of the Dragon (EX) amount: 1x (EX)

* Elixir of life (B) amount: 9999x (EX)

* Signal of the constellations (?) amount: ? (?)

* Sword of the victor (EX) amount: 1x (EX)”

The man didn’t even bother looking at the names and chose the first option, the system thanked him as he was on the verge of being erased. All of a sudden, he started losing consciousness and a red light appeared on his chest. Excruciating pain took over, slowly his chest started to open up. It was as if multiple invisible knives were trying to cut him open. The man tried to resist, but he realized that would be futile. The self making wounds were now at the last layer of his muscles. He grinned and screamed into the void: “Bye fucking dickheads, I hope all of you get killed.” After saying those words, his existence was completely gone. It was as if a heavy storm had calmed down. The sole climber who didn’t receive help from any god or constellation, the sole being that saved his race. Or so he had thought, the moment that the man had killed the leviathan every human received the same message:

“Congratulations humans, your race has completed the tower. We’re deeply disappointed though, only sending in 1 human to do everything. Because we’re not satisfied yet we’ll take matters in our own hands. Remember to always be respectful towards your savior even though he’s gone.

Note: the next tower will be on the difficulty level: impossible.

Reason: this is the punishment for slacking off, only a few of your race put in their all, rewards will be granted to those people or their family if they’ve passed away on their climb. We’re all disappointed in the amount of effort you all put in, so we’ll punish you for it. Blame yourself for it. In honor of your hero Jin-Kah we’ll give you 100 years to raise a generation worthy of the tower.

We’ll see you then.”

Panic erupted quickly, people started thinking that it would be the end of their world. The so-called awakened, the people chosen by a constellation who receive the power to climb the tower, lost their powers. It took a few months before the humans realized that they should start preparing and create opportunities instead of panicking. They prepared for when their 100-year preparation time would run out. They started doing research and developed all kinds of things like medicine that healed instantly called potions. Others started to study martial arts, as they wouldn’t be able to use any technology inside the tower. After 70 years they started opening schools to prepare the children starting from age 16. They trained them in martial arts and survival skills. The only possible way to see if a kid would be worth the investment was by measuring their mana capacity with a device they developed. A hierarchy amongst humans started to develop as some children were treated as kings while others were shoved to the side. People could feel the tension, even though they still had time.

90 years into the preparation time, a miracle happened. A boy named after the great hero was about to head to the great Imperial Academy in London, the place where the tower appeared, when his plane crashed. The boy called Jin Gelida was lucky enough to have survived but was found in a coma and when he woke up he had lost his memory. Or so they thought.

He opened his eyes and looked around in confusion? “Have I gone mad?” Jin asked himself. The boy shouted in happiness. “So it worked! Fucking hell, that took me too long. Creating an artificial soul really takes a lot of effort, especially when you don’t exist. How much time has passed on earth? I think I was in the void for around 500 years, yet this hospital room still seems pretty normal.” The door swung open, and a doctor walked inside, he noticed that Jin was awake and dropped the papers he was holding. “Wow, you already woke up from the coma? You kids nowadays really might give us a chance against the tower”. Jin, in his turn, looked at him in confusion. He could see that things were different from how he expected them to be. “Didn’t the tower disappear in 2035? I thought Jin-Kah defeated the final boss on the 100th floor?” It felt weird to talk about himself.

The doctor laughed before his expression darkened. “I see that most of your knowledge has faded from the plane crash, the savior indeed defeated the tower, but the constellations weren’t satisfied. They called us lazy and punished our race by creating the second tower, they placed the difficulty on maximum and gave us 100 years to prepare. They told us they’d normally not give us any time, but because they were impressed by the savior, they granted us that. At last, they stripped all awakened from their power and told us that we would be able to start from scratch when the tower appeared.” Jin looked at the man with mixed feelings. He felt defeated because his efforts almost didn’t have any effect, yet happy because he would get a new chance to kill the constellations. In his previous body, he had defeated 38 constellations of the lowest class, who weren’t even worthy of their name. They were just some lucky entities who completed the tower with pure luck on the lowest difficulty.

The doctor went away after running some tests on him to see if he was healing. A bit later a nurse walked in with his files and started explaining his situation and who he was because they thought he had just lost his memory. After her long explanation Jin started to understand the basics of what was to come and in what kind of situation he was in. It turned out that the body he saved after his soul died belonged to a boy from a very wealthy and influential family in Sweden. He had three brothers and three sisters with him being the youngest. The boy had always lived in the shadows of his siblings as they were all extremely talented individuals. He had mixed genetics from Sweden and South-Korea and just turned 16. There was still 10 years until the so-called “Doomsday” which made it easier for Jin to recover his power.

At the moment he was inside the academy’s hospital because of the plane crash and unfortunately both his legs were broken and they would take a month to heal completely. He also got to know that he came to this pristine school through the backdoor with average grades, the nurse made that very clear, with disgust in her undertone. Tomorrow would be the opening day for the other students who were all prodigies from their countries. A total of 500 students were allowed this year, 501 if they included him. Most students belonged to rich families or ones with a high status like royalty. This was because they had way more opportunity for the education that was needed for the entrance exam. Jin, who was still processing most things, was put in a deep sleep with the help of narcotics because they had to remove splinters of metal that were still inside his leg from the crash.