Danny stepped through the trembling gate into Floor 905, and for the first time since beginning his ascent, he felt the tower hesitate.
Not resist—
hesitate,
like a wounded animal deciding whether to run or bite.
A deep rumble rolled through the walls.
Runes flickered like sick candles.
The air tasted metallic, wrong, tinged with the faint acidic bite of Bones' corruption.
Danny placed a hand gently on the nearest wall.
"Hold on," he whispered. "I'm here."
The tower's pulse steadied—but only for a moment.
Then the floor shifted violently beneath him.
The Maze of Breaking Paths
Floor 905 transformed in an instant.
The straight entry hallway twisted into a spiraling labyrinth.
Floors buckled and rearranged like panic-stricken machinery trying to solve itself.
Ceilings dropped, walls opened, passages folded into one another.
This wasn't a test floor.
It was a seizure.
Bones' corruption had reached this high already—faster than expected.
Danny stepped forward.
The floor under his foot crumbled into a black void.
He didn't fall.
Golden light flickered around his heel, supporting his weight like invisible scaffolding.
He lifted his gaze.
The labyrinth shifted again—
walls turning into dripping shadow,
floors bubbling like boiling tar,
runes sparking and dying mid-syllable.
"Bones' agent is close," Danny murmured.
"Too close."
The First Trap
A corridor warped open before him—jagged, twitching, pulsing like a living throat.
Danny walked into it.
The walls closed instantly, sealing him in darkness.
Violet cracks crawled across the stone like veins.
Whispers echoed, distant and broken.
"…creation… cannot… calm…
…break…
…break…
…BREAK…"
Danny exhaled slowly.
Golden light opened around him like a lantern.
The walls convulsed.
The whispers shrieked.
Shadowy tendrils lashed outward—
—and evaporated the moment they touched his aura.
Danny pressed his palm to the wall again.
"I'm not your enemy," he whispered. "Let me through."
The wall shuddered… then cracked.
A narrow slit opened, revealing a staircase spiraling upward like a corkscrew of wounded stone.
Danny climbed.
Corrupted Guardians
A massive chamber opened before him—
the usual guardian hall of Floor 905.
But the guardians were wrong.
They dangled from the ceiling like puppets with cut strings, their once-silver frames dripping in violet tar.
Their masks were split and twisted into hollow grins.
Their glowing cores flickered like dying stars.
One lifted its head suddenly.
Its jaw cracked open at an impossible angle.
"Go…lden…"
Danny's chest tightened.
"You're not meant to speak."
The guardian twitched violently.
"BRO…KEN…"
Then all twenty dropped from the ceiling.
They didn't attack.
They crawled, dragging themselves like broken beasts, their movements glitching and snapping.
Danny stepped forward, sorrow in his eyes.
"I'm sorry."
He raised his hand.
Golden light burst outward—not violent, not destructive.
A wave of stillness.
A wave of mercy.
The corrupted guardians fell silent.
One by one, they dissolved—not into dust, but into tiny motes of light that drifted upward, purified.
Danny bowed his head.
"Rest."
But the tower trembled harder now.
Bones' agent had anchored corruption deep beneath this floor.
Danny needed to reach it—or the tower would collapse under its own twisted code.
The Voice in the Walls
The next corridor rippled like water disturbed by a predator.
A voice oozed from every direction:
"You… chase me…
Golden flame…
Tiny light…
I break towers…
I eat worlds…
You cannot mend… what I unmake."
The walls constricted, squeezing inward.
Danny widened his stance.
"No," he said gently. "You don't eat worlds. Bones does. You're only a shadow of him."
A low, fractured growl rolled through the stones.
"Shadow… enough… to darken you."
Violet cracks surged outward in a web, rushing for Danny's boots.
He stepped once.
Golden flames blossomed in a ring around him, the cracks halting as if hitting a divine boundary.
"You can't touch creation," Danny said quietly.
He touched the floor with his fingertips.
The cracks withdrew like recoiling snakes.
Bones' agent snarled within the walls.
"You fix floors…
I break foundations."
And the entire chamber tilted, collapsing sideways.
Danny slid toward a pit of shadow—
—then stopped himself with a breath, creation energy anchoring his feet.
He walked forward on the tilted ground as if it were level.
"You're hurting the tower," Danny said.
"You don't have to."
"I DO!" the agent screamed.
"Bones WILLS IT!"
The chamber split apart.
Black void swallowed everything.
Danny fell—
—and his creation flame ignited.
Golden wings of energy formed for a moment behind him, slowing his descent.
He landed gently in the next chamber.
Floor 906 — The Silent Workshop
This floor was normally mechanical: gears, test chambers, puzzle rooms.
Now everything was dark.
Danny walked through what felt like the corpse of a floor.
Shattered gears.
Melted walls.
Ripped cables twitching like nervous system leftovers.
Constructs lying still, lights dim.
Danny knelt beside a broken guardian.
Its cracked mask flickered faintly.
"…help…"
Danny placed his palm against its core.
Warmth flowed.
The guardian stilled…
and then its mask lifted slowly to meet Danny's gaze.
"Th… thank…"
It dissolved into light.
Danny stood.
"Bones," he whispered. "You're trying to make the tower itself despair."
The corruption pulsed through the floor.
The agent's voice hissed:
"The tower trusted creation…
Creation left it.
Creation died."
Danny frowned.
"What do you mean?"
Silence.
Then:
"Ask the Phoenix."
A chill ran down Danny's spine.
Kael'ar had brought him to the last flame of creation.
The phoenix clan knew truths older than the tower itself.
Before he could pursue the thought, the walls shattered, revealing the next gate.
He stepped through.
Floor 907 — Shadows of the Past
This floor wasn't physical at all.
It was memory.
Not his memory.
The tower's.
Danny found himself walking through the ghost of an ancient battlefield where dragons of golden light fought shadow beasts with violet eyes.
Creation vs. Destruction.
Age-old war.
He stood among ruins burned by dragonfire and shrouded in corruption mist.
Then a massive golden dragon appeared—
not real, but memory—
roaring at the sky as it fell beneath a wave of violet destruction.
Danny froze.
He recognized the dragon.
Not by name.
Not by face.
By resonance.
The same resonance inside him.
His chest tightened as the memory dissolved.
A whisper slid against his ear.
"Creation… fails."
Danny clenched his fists.
"No," he whispered.
"It gets back up."
Floor 908 — The First Confrontation
The chamber was a void.
Bones' agent waited at its center.
Now fully formed—
obsidian shards orbiting a core of violet flame.
A humanoid silhouette, but jagged, unstable, like a broken mirror trying to hold a shape.
The agent's voice echoed, layered, agonized:
"You… free guardians… mmm… mend floors…
But you break me."
Danny stepped forward calmly.
"I don't want to break you."
Golden light rose around him like morning.
"You're not destruction. You're suffering."
The agent flinched, shards rattling.
Danny extended a hand.
"I can help you."
Silence.
Then—
pure rage.
"NOO!"
The chamber exploded with shadow.
Tendrils lashed out with the force of hurricanes.
Violet fire poured over Danny like a tidal wave.
He didn't dodge.
He raised his palm.
Golden fire met violet corruption.
The collision cracked the floor, shook the tower, rippled up dozens of floors where fighters paused mid-battle.
The agent screamed in pain.
Danny whispered:
"I'm sorry."
His light expanded—
and the shadows dissolved.
When the smoke cleared, the agent was crouched on its knees, shards falling away, flame flickering weakly.
But it was not dead.
Not broken.
Just… smaller.
Wounded.
Danny knelt in front of it.
"You're free to stop," he whispered.
The agent looked up with flickering violet eyes.
"Bones… will… devour…"
Then vanished in a burst of shadow—
escaping upward.
Toward higher floors.
Toward more damage.
Toward more chaos.
Danny stood.
"Then I'll climb faster," he said softly.
Floor 909 opened ahead of him, trembling.
He stepped forward.
And the tower followed him like a wounded animal chasing its healer.