As soon as their eyes regained the ability to see, everyone froze in place.
Darkness surrounded them from every direction. There was no sky to see and no ground to feel—only a dense black void that pressed on their chests and filled their souls with a suffocating sense of danger. They looked around in confusion, fear quickly spreading across their faces as they tried to understand where they were.
In the middle of this chaos, Louis and Johan remained calm, unlike the others, and tried to evaluate the situation. As for the other five, they did not last long. Their voices exploded all at once.
"What is this cursed place?!"
"The darkness… what is this?! Where are we?!"
Then, without any agreement between them, their gazes turned in one direction.
Louis.
"You!" one of them shouted, pointing at him with a trembling hand.
"This is your fault, isn't it?! You did something!"
Louis listened to them for a moment, then laughed with clear mockery and said in a sharp tone,
"Oh? And am I also the reason the system went crazy? For its constant screaming of the word 'Error' as if it lost its mind?"
They fell silent for a moment, but the confusion did not disappear from their faces.
Despite his outward sarcasm, Louis felt genuine confusion inside. The reason was not the situation itself, but the fact that this place felt familiar to him—terrifyingly familiar. It was here, in this dark void, that he had last met the Shadow Monarch, Ashborn.
As if his thoughts had summoned him.
After only a few seconds, the darkness began to move. A massive black figure formed in front of them, releasing a terrifying aura. The pressure was so overwhelming that even the air felt heavier. With Ashborn's appearance, almost everyone collapsed. Their strength left them completely, and they fell to the ground without exception, their bodies shaking violently from absolute terror, unable even to scream.
Ashborn looked at the five lying on the ground without a trace of sympathy. Then he shifted his gaze toward Johan and Louis—the only two who managed to endure his aura—before finally focusing solely on Louis.
He spoke in a deep voice that shook their very souls.
"I told you not to underestimate the plans of the Monarchs."
In the next moment, a terrifying pressure descended, forcing both Louis and Johan onto their knees, as if they were made to kneel before an absolute ruler whose will could not be resisted.
Johan gritted his teeth as he tried to endure it, then shouted angrily at Louis,
"Damn it! Are you finally going to tell us what is happening here?!"
Louis ignored him completely and raised his gaze with difficulty toward Ashborn.
The Shadow Monarch spoke calmly, in a chilling tone.
"Even though my ability to intervene in this world is currently limited, planting one of my shadow soldiers inside your shadow and monitoring your movements was not difficult."
Then he continued coldly,
"Now answer me. What is this 'stage' you were talking about? Who are the players? What is the real world? And finally… what is the Tower?"
At that moment, both Louis and Johan realized the horrifying truth.
This was the reason the system panicked.
Revealing the secrets of the Tower and its stages to the Tower's characters was an absolute taboo. Any player who did so would be eliminated—or even have their soul completely erased.
Fear flooded Johan's soul like a violent wave. He turned toward Louis and shouted in furious anger,
"Damn you! Why didn't you warn us that you were involved with an enemy like this?! Now that everything is exposed, what will we do if the Tower decides to erase our souls?! This isn't a stage failure—this is total annihilation!"
Louis raised his head with difficulty and spoke in a heavy, calm voice.
"This… is not our fault."
Johan froze.
"What?"
Louis looked directly at Ashborn and said,
"As I said, I underestimated the plans of the Monarchs. But what happened was not intentional on our part. The mistake was our failure to notice anything abnormal. This error can be attributed to the Tower itself, as its precautions were clearly not as complete as it believed."
The moment he finished speaking, it felt as if time itself had stopped.
Then the system's voice echoed inside everyone's minds once more, colder than ever before:
[ Error detected!! ]
[ The truth of this world has been unintentionally revealed by the players!! ]
[ The stage will be forcibly terminated at this point!! ]
[ All players will be considered successful in clearing this stage. ]
[ The system accepts responsibility for failing to predict this outcome. ]
[ As compensation, the final rating of all players will be increased by one level. ]
[ Error correction in progress!! ]
Without giving them any chance to object or understand, everyone was suddenly pulled away and forcibly returned to the waiting room.
At the same moment, the system's announcement echoed throughout the real world and spread across the entire Tower, through countless stages and worlds:
[ Congratulations to player A** for receiving a Good S rating in the Solo Leveling world stage.]
[ Congratulations to player B** for receiving a Good S rating in the Solo Leveling world stage.]
[ Congratulations to player C** for receiving a Good S rating in the Solo Leveling world stage.]
[ Congratulations to player L.K for receiving an Excellent SS rating in the Solo Leveling world stage.]
[ Congratulations to player Johan Albert for receiving an Excellent SS rating in the Solo Leveling world stage.]
A global silence followed for a single moment… then everything exploded.
"Five S-rank or higher ratings at the same time, in the same stage?!"
"An S rating was already rare enough to appear only once every few years, and an SS rating was practically a legend!"
"Three S ratings and two SS ratings?! Has the Tower lost its mind?!"
"Wait… isn't that the new rising player L.K? He got an SS again!"
"And isn't that Johan… Johan Albert?! The third son of the Sword Duke?! As expected of a genius of the new human generation!"
"But those other three… I know them! They're ordinary people! None of them ever even got a B rating before! How did they suddenly get S?!"
"Did they all cooperate together?"
"Cooperation between geniuses like L.K and Johan makes sense, but how did the others join them?"
Then some remembered something else.
"With Johan getting an SS rating, won't he receive a free summoning card from the Solo Leveling world?"
"He definitely won't rush it… he'll return to his family to choose someone suitable for House Albert."
Larger whispers began to rise.
"Could this event… be the beginning of the human race's revival at last?"
The player community was ignited with tension and curiosity, and the shockwaves reached the highest levels. Even the emperor who ruled the human empire urgently summoned his aides and ordered an immediate envoy to be sent to Duke Albert, to take advantage of the free summoning opportunity and strengthen human power.
And in the shadows, many forces began calling for emergency meetings.
Everyone understood one thing clearly:
What happened today… was not just a glitch.
It was the beginning of a change that would shake the entire Tower.