Chapter 92: The Golden Pulse Against the Upper Tower
Danny stepped into Floor 700, and the Celestial Tower shivered as if a second heartbeat had joined its own.
Not resistance.
Not defiance.
Recognition.
The air thickened—not with pressure or threat, but with anticipation.
Every stone trembled, every rune hummed. The entire tower felt like it was waiting for something—waiting for him.
Danny's golden aura was quiet, settled deep beneath his skin like a warm ocean locked behind bone and will. But the tower sensed every layer of it. Creation flame was not like other energies. It didn't burn. It didn't distort. It aligned.
Danny inhaled.
The floor responded.
A ripple of shimmering white light ran across the wide stone arena of Floor 700, illuminating silver rails, floating platforms, and a web of ancient runic lines that crackled with potential.
This floor was usually a gauntlet—speed challenges, shifting walls, mid-tier guardians, traps that forced fighters to adapt or fall.
But it paused.
As if hesitant to execute routines meant for normal climbers.
Danny stepped forward.
"Let's keep moving," he murmured.
The floor obeyed.
Floor 700: The Silent Machinery
The ground opened beneath him, shifting seamlessly into a massive clockwork chamber—a dizzying space of turning gears, spinning platforms, and rotating pathways. Any fighter below top-tier would be crushed instantly without precision movement.
Danny walked onto a spinning gear.
The gear slowed.
He stepped onto a tilting platform.
The tilt corrected itself.
He vaulted lightly onto a turning wheel.
It steadied.
Not because he forced these things to obey him—
but because creation energy harmonized with anything trying to follow a defined pattern.
Danny wasn't commanding the floor.
He was repairing it as he moved.
Three guardian constructs rose up—a trio of floating mechanical birds with metallic wings sharp enough to slice steel. Their glowing eyes tracked him with predatory calculation.
Danny offered them a small smile.
"You don't need to fight me. I'm not here to break anything."
The birds screeched and darted toward him, programmed to attack anything that showed confidence.
Danny flicked his wrist.
A golden filament stretched outward from his fingertips—thin as a hair, bright as a star.
It touched each bird once.
The first froze, wings folding gently.
The second spiraled downward, not crashing but settling softly.
The third landed on a platform and bowed its head.
Danny nodded.
"Good."
The tower made a noise so old and faint he might have imagined it—
the creaking of ancient gears, the sigh of an old library opening its doors.
Permission granted.
The gate appeared.
Danny leapt through it in a golden streak.
Floors 701–725: The Storm Corridors
The next stretch was mechanical chaos incarnate.
Wind tunnels blasted from every direction, turning corridors into aerodynamic nightmares. Thunder crackled across floating bridges. Runes released spiraling cyclones meant to drag fighters into the abyss.
Danny landed lightly in the first corridor, hair moving only slightly with the turbulent wind.
A cyclone the size of a house barreled toward him.
He raised one hand, palm flat.
The cyclone crumpled in on itself, collapsing into harmless mist before it reached him.
He stepped forward.
Lightning forks launched from the ceiling—forks fast enough to char a fighter before they blinked.
Danny walked through them, golden aura flickering softly.
The lightning bent away from him like respectful serpents.
A gust of wind slammed down from above with the force of a meteor.
Danny brushed his fingers through the air.
The wind dispersed, reforming behind him as a calm tailwind that carried him forward through the storm.
The tower evaluated his speed for the hundredth time.
Impossible.
Beyond calculated parameters.
Beyond the Wolf King.
Beyond any champion ever recorded.
Danny wasn't running.
He was flowing.
By Floor 710 he was moving so fast that the tower had to recreate the corridors ahead of him faster than it had ever done before.
Platforms appeared in his path moments before his foot touched them.
Bridges solidified as he passed.
He wasn't just surpassing the Wolf King.
He was outpacing the tower's ability to exist around him.
Floor 725 reacted with panic, unleashing its last resort: the Storm Crown—an arena-spanning tornado of pure mana.
Danny stepped into it calmly.
He reached the storm's eye.
Soft golden light drained its rage.
The tornado collapsed like a tent falling inward.
Danny emerged unscathed.
"Thank you," he whispered to the dying storm. "But I have to keep going."
The gate shimmered open.
Floors 726–750: The Labyrinth of Time
The tower tried something new next.
A maze of mirrors.
Hallways that bent space.
Rooms where time slowed or accelerated without warning.
The first mirror Danny passed tried to grab his reflection. Most fighters found themselves stuck fighting mirror-doubles.
Danny's reflection smiled at him.
Then stepped out of the mirror—warm, glowing, not hostile.
A creation echo.
Danny touched the echo's shoulder.
It dissolved into a shower of golden sparks that seeped into the floor.
The tower swallowed the energy gratefully.
Next came the corridors where time warped.
Some slowed Danny's movement.
Some accelerated his heartbeat.
Others dragged his steps across seconds like hours.
Danny blinked once.
He let his aura settle.
Time stabilized around him.
He passed through each pocket without resistance.
In a chamber where gravity flipped upside-down, sideways, and backward, Danny simply walked up the walls without breaking stride.
A guardian forged from time fractals attacked him, stretching its arm into twelve simultaneous strike patterns.
Danny stepped between them.
Not dodging.
Guiding.
He redirected the fractal guardian's arm with a single finger.
The guardian collapsed into itself, dissolving quietly.
The tower learned.
Stop testing him like a fighter.
Start testing him like a concept.
Floors 747–750 were pure white emptiness—arenas with no visible features, no guardians, no rules—meant to probe the intentions of the climber.
Danny walked across the blank canvas, leaving faint golden footprints.
Creation spread through the void like ink.
The floors changed with him, forming pathways, symbols, formations.
The void painted itself in gold.
When he reached the exit of Floor 750, the tower whispered through its runes:
Golden one.
You carry what we lost.
Danny bowed his head.
"And I'll use it well."
Floors 751–780: The Gauntlet of Eternals
Now the true danger began.
These floors were not meant to be beaten alone.
They were meant for legendary teams—fighters who combined their abilities, supported each other, and strategized every breath.
Danny walked in alone.
And the tower sent its greatest guardians:
Eternal Guardians.
Statues of obsidian and silver, animated by ancient souls.
Constructs with weapons forged from reality tears.
Beings of pure mana wrapped in armor of glowing fractals.
A spear-wielding guardian dashed forward, its thrust generating a shockwave that shattered three pillars.
Danny pivoted lightly.
The spear passed through where he'd been standing.
He exhaled, palms glowing.
Golden arcs flowed from his hands, touching the guardian's core.
Its armor cracked—and the ancient soul trapped inside flickered before ascending like a freed candle flame.
Danny touched his forehead.
"Be free."
Two more guardians descended from above.
One wielded blades of infinite extension—edges that could grow infinitely long.
The other wielded a hammer that bent gravity.
Danny raised his arms.
Light flared.
He moved.
Not with aggression, not with overwhelming force.
With precision.
He sidestepped the infinite blade, tapping it once, guiding its impossible length into a spiral.
He ducked under the hammer, lifting one knee and guiding the weapon's momentum past him.
The gravity distorted, but his aura corrected the field around him.
Then he stepped onto the hammer itself, launched upward with its momentum, and tapped both guardians on their brow plates.
Their cores dimmed.
Their souls rose.
Danny landed softly.
"Thank you," he whispered.
The tower felt something strange.
It wasn't supposed to feel gratitude.
But it did.
Floors 781–799: The Ascension Spiral
The final stretch before Floor 800 opened into a massive spiral tower stretching upward into star-filled void.
Platforms rotated in chaotic patterns.
Guardians spawned infinitely until the climber reached the top.
Gravity shifted every few seconds.
Danny looked up, exhaling softly.
"Alright."
He crouched slightly.
Golden light glowed under his feet.
Then he took one step.
And vanished.
The spiral blurred.
Platforms cracked under his wind.
Guardians dissolved from aura pressure alone.
Gravity fields collapsed as he rose faster than they could recalculate.
He wasn't running.
He was ascending.
A heartbeat passed.
Danny reached the top.
One.
Single.
Step.
The tower sent a shockwave across the entire structure—
not out of fear,
but as a signal:
The golden one has reached the apex of the middle floors.
Danny stood at the top platform, looking down at the spiral below, then up toward Floor 800 and the final ascent.
He placed one hand on the glowing gate.
Creation hummed in his palm.
"Let's go higher," he whispered.
The gate opened.
The tower trembled.