The atmosphere thickened—not like fog, but like gravity itself had multiplied. Each breath felt like inhaling fire wrapped in ash, scorching the lungs with invisible embers.
The very air trembled, heavy and distorted, pressing against skin, stone, and soul alike.
Even the cracked, uneven floor beneath Jack didn't quake from movement—it vibrated from the sheer pressure of his presence.
He didn't move.
He didn't blink.
He simply existed—and that alone made the world strain to hold itself together.
His snow-white hair floated around his face, weightless, untouched by any breeze, as if gravity had chosen to avoid him. His expression was carved from something inhumanly perfect—not beautiful, not cold, just... beyond. A face stripped of warmth, void of hatred—only dominance remained.
But it was his eyes—those unstable, radiant crystal orbs swirling with blackened violet light—that delivered the true warning.
They didn't glow.
They watched.
Alive. Aware. Sentient.
From the black veil ahead, they came.
Dozens at first. Then hundreds.
Crawling, slithering, staggering grotesque beasts—creatures warped by darkness, with limbs bent in impossible directions, their obsidian-fused skin glowing with cracks of infernal heat.
Eyes like burning coals stared hungrily, and claws dragged sparks from the stone.
But none attacked.
None moved.
Because at first...
they didn't even perceive him.
Jack's aura distorted the senses.
He wasn't invisible—he was inconceivable.
Too immense, too unnatural.
Like a god wearing a poorly disguised human skin.
Then, slowly—deliberately—he began to descend.
No theatrics. No flare.
Just silence.
His boots touched the fractured stone without a sound.
Hands slid calmly into his pockets.
Still... silence.
Only then did the beasts register him.
One by one, their heads turned in jerky, unnatural motions, like marionettes sensing the pull of an unseen puppeteer.
Their snarls faltered, twisted into something quieter... not submission, but uncertainty. A primal hesitation.
Jack didn't move.
He simply tilted his head, ever so slightly, as the firelight licked across his skin, sharpening the perfect, inhuman angles of his face.
His white lashes cast faint shadows over eyes that burned with an ancient light. Then, his lips curved—not in joy, but in cold, biting disdain.
"Were you blind?" he said, voice smooth and low... but it vibrated through the stone, like the cave itself had heard a command. "Or are your senses too primitive to detect superiority?"
A single beast roared, its instincts overriding its fear. It lunged—a blur of claws and teeth, shrieking through the air. The floor cracked from its speed.
Jack didn't flinch.
No flicker. No flash.
BOOM.
A shockwave burst outward.
The creature's torso disintegrated mid-leap, vaporized before it even neared him. Blood sprayed the ceiling in a wide arc, a violent, crimson fan.
Jack was already behind it.
Hands still in his pockets. Face still unreadable. Not a scratch. Not a stain. Just silence.
The rest of them snapped. No more hesitation.
Only rage. Hunger. Madness.
They charged—dozens of them, a grotesque flood of limbs and open maws, the floor trembling beneath their weight.
Jack took a single step forward.
And the entire cave responded.
The ground cracked outward like a ripple.
The air pulsed.
Even the shadows pulled back.
He hadn't unleashed anything yet.
But his presence alone bent the space around him.
The stone beneath Jack's feet fractured — not like breaking rock, but like a truth denied too long finally shattering.
Each crack echoed with a sound that didn't belong in this world, like the floor itself was trying to escape him.
Purple-black flames erupted from the very seams of reality, twisting upward like serpents. But they didn't burn. They consumed. Erased. Annihilated.
The creatures didn't fall by blade or blast. They were unmade simply by being near him. Their grotesque forms withered, screams warping into something less than sound — terror that couldn't be voiced.
Flesh twisted. Bones folded inward. No violence. Just oblivion.
Jack remained still, the chaos unfolding around him like a storm that knew its master. His expression didn't change. His eyes were calm, cold. Distant.
Then he tilted his head slightly, as though disappointed. "You charge like beasts," he said quietly, each word layered with disdain, "but die like insects."
A monstrous alpha snarled, resisting the decay.
Its body pulsed, regenerating rapidly, bones snapping back into place. With a defiant roar, it lunged, claws outstretched in desperation.
Jack's eyes flickered.
He vanished.
CRACK. A deafening thud as the beast was hurled into a wall with impossible force, its body twisted mid-air. Stone exploded on impact. The creature's form dropped in pieces.
Jack hovered above the remains, arms still folded, the wind from his aura whipping his hair upward. He looked down with a slight smirk. Not joy. Not cruelty. Just... indifference.
"This is all the floor could summon?" he asked, to no one in particular, his voice echoing into the now-empty silence. "Tch. As always..."
A pause. He closed his eyes briefly. "What a shame. I was hoping for something real."
Silence blanketed the room. The heat faded. The ash settled. No corpses. No remains. Just the memory of fear.
Then—the portal appeared.
But unlike before, it didn't open. It twitched. Convulsed. As though the realm of the floor itself was stalling. As if it knew what was coming.
Jack looked up slowly. His eyes glowed like a dying star collapsing on itself. And then... he laughed. Quietly. Darkly.
"On to the next disappointment."
He stepped forward. And vanished into the trembling rift.
The realm was hollow — void of life, lightless, and ancient beyond understanding. The very air was still, thick with an invisible weight. Jagged obsidian spires jutted from the ground like the remains of a devoured world, sharp and cruel.
Above, a blackened sky pulsed with silent red lightning, veins of rage cutting through the darkness without a sound.
Nothing moved. No creatures. No wind. No breath. It was as if the entire floor... was holding itself still.
Jack hovered just above the fractured terrain, the tattered ends of his sleek black outfit fluttering weakly, still scarred by previous wars.
His snow-white hair—perfect, ethereal—swayed as though underwater.
His eyes, that unstable fusion of crystal violet and abyssal black, narrowed with subtle intensity. No fear. Just quiet anticipation.
Then came his voice—low, smooth, laced with arrogance like velvet wrapped around a blade.
"C'mon... are you afraid?"
WHOOM.
A flash. Not sound. Not light. Just movement—too fast, too violent for the human mind to track.
Jack's body snapped sideways, launched like a missile. He smashed through obsidian pillars, the ground erupting in his wake. CRASH!
A wall of rock exploded as his body slammed into it, detonating with thunderous force.
Cracks spiderwebbed outward from the impact point, splitting the floor for meters. Dust and debris poured down like ash.
From the stillness stepped the attacker—a towering entity, humanoid in shape, but warped, evolved.
Its body was sleek, cloaked in armor that looked forged from the void itself, black-violet and fluid, shifting like living metal.
Its limbs were long, jointed in unnatural ways, and its eyes—those burning red-violet stars—locked onto Jack with cold judgment.
"Weak."
The voice was alien. Distorted. Echoing not just in the air, but inside the space, as if the world itself had spoken.
Jack rose slowly from the rubble, brushing dust from his shoulder. Blood trailed from the corner of his mouth, dark against pale skin. But his smirk returned. That dangerous, reckless grin.
"You're... stronger than I thought."
BOOM
In a blink, he vanished.
Mid-air, they collided—force against force, like titans clashing in the heavens.
The impact screamed across the landscape, sending shockwaves that shattered anything too close. Pillars cracked. The ground split.
The creature struck first—arms shifting, claws slicing, its movements a blur of brutality and precision. Its limbs bent the wrong way, folding like insects, striking like thunder.
Jack weaved between them, barely—his body rotating, limbs snapping into counter-motion. His heel came up—whip-fast, a spiraling kick aimed at the creature's temple.
It caught the blow.
BOOM. The block alone shattered the mountain behind them.
Clash.
Dash.
Strike.
Dodge.
Break.
Repeat.
The battlefield became a blur of movement, a storm of godlike violence—and neither of them was holding back.
The two clashed at speeds no human eye could follow—flashes of motion, bursts of force. Every impact shattered the land itself. Rock formations exploded like glass under a sledgehammer.
Jack dropped low, sweeping the creature's legs out from under it with a brutal spin, then followed up with a palm strike that cracked its jaw with seismic force.
The creature didn't flinch.
With a snarl, it retaliated point-blank—a sphere of raw energy detonating between them.
Jack was blasted backward, his body tearing through a massive stone arch like paper. Dust swirled in the aftermath. From within, he emerged—blood at the edge of his lips, breath heavier. Still, he grinned.
"You hit hard. Good."
The creature roared. Its form expanded slightly, muscles pulsing, red-black aura blazing like an infernal sun.
It blurred forward, grabbed Jack by the torso—and slammed him through a cliffside. Then again. Then again.
BOOM. CRACK. CRASH.
Each impact shattered layers of ancient stone, the floor trembling under their godlike collision.
Jack coughed blood, crimson trailing down his chin, but his posture never broke.
"Alright... fine. Let's dance properly."
His aura ignited—purple-black flames erupting like a living storm, distorting the very air. He moved—no longer elegant, but savage. Each punch split the sky.
His fists landed like meteor strikes, miniature craters exploding around every blow.
The creature met him step for step—claws, kicks, bladed limbs, and blasts of burning aura.
They moved like titans—gods in human form. The entire battlefield became a warzone of shockwaves and collapsing stone.
Then—a shift.
The creature surged with sudden power. A blade of energy pierced clean through Jack's shoulder.
*/Blood sprayed.
Jack's body jerked. Eyes wide. For a breathless second—he didn't move. Didn't speak.
The creature leaned in, voice a twisted echo.
"Too weak."
Jack's head dipped.
Then came the chuckle.
Low. Bitter. Rising. "You talk too much."
His aura detonated outward—deep, violent purple-black flames devouring the sky. The ground rippled. The very sky cracked. Time stuttered.
His eyes glowed—darker, brighter, deeper than ever before.
"Let me show you... why I can't stop evolving."
The real fight began.
Jack blurred—a blur within a blur, moving between layers of space, twisting reality itself with each step.
A punch shattered the air—reality splintered. He kneed the creature so hard it cratered into the ground, a shockwave ripping across the realm like a scream.
The creature howled, launching black spears of energy.
Jack walked through them.
No effort. No fear.
Final strike.
He soared high—energy spiraling around his fists like imploding stars. Above all. Divine. Absolute.
"Vanish."
He came down like a meteor.
FIST—MEETS—CHEST.
The impact consumed the beast entirely—form disintegrating, flesh peeling into ash, screams fading into particles swept by invisible wind.
Silence.
Jack stood at the heart of the crater. Torn. Bloodied. Breathing hard. His shirt was shredded, blood pouring from his mouth.
And then—
He laughed.
Soft at first. Then louder. A hollow, bitter laugh.
"Heh... heh-heh... Damn..."
He dropped to one knee, blood dripping onto scorched stone.
And still—he smiled.
Eyes glowing that unstoppable purple-black.
"I was lucky enough... not to get killed."
Above him, the portal shivered—warping open like it feared what it would let in.
Jack looked up at it.
And rose to his feet again.
Unbroken.
Still evolving.
99th Floor.
There were no stars. No sky. No ground. Just wrongness.
The world was a collapsed concept—twisted arches of obsidian stone floated like the fossilized ribs of dead gods. The air reeked of cold iron and ancient decay. Tendrils of black mist slithered through the void, brushing against broken physics.
Islands of chained bone drifted through space, temples hung upside-down in the distance, and mountains wept blood from monolithic eyes embedded deep in their sides.
Reality didn't belong here. It trembled just to remain intact.
And at the center of it all... stood It.
Not a guardian. Not a monster. Not a god.
No name. No presence. No aura.
Because what radiated from its form wasn't power—
It was finality.
The echo of endings. The concept of "last."
It stood tall. Lithe. Wrongly symmetrical. Its skin, pale ash-grey, stretched tight over a dense frame laced with glowing crimson veins that pulsed like the heartbeat of the abyss. Its face... was not a face.
Just a smooth, shifting mask. Featureless, cracked. A single void where one eye should be—a black hole staring back at existence.
It didn't breathe. It didn't blink. It didn't move.
It just was.
Jack landed in the space like a falling ember, his torn cloak trailing behind him. He hovered for a moment, staring.
For the first time since his awakening...
He froze.
Not from confusion. Not even fear.
But something deeper.
His body wouldn't move. Not muscle, not breath.
His instincts screamed—not in warning—but death.
This wasn't a thing you fought.
It was the kind of presence that bypassed the brain and gripped the soul.
Jack's purple-black aura flared violently, unbidden—wild, defensive, sentient. As if it was afraid for him.
"Wha..." he whispered.
CRACK.
The world folded. There was no blur. No dash. Just a fracture in geometry.
The creature moved—and Jack was already airborne, flung like debris.
His body tore through a cliff of bone spires, the impact triggering a quake that shattered half the floating island.
He hit hard. Harder than ever.
Jack coughed. Blood spilled from his lips.
His knees buckled as he stood, breath jagged, chest heaving like a collapsing star. This wasn't pressure. Not aura.
It was primordial despair.
And it was already in front of him again.
On reflex, Jack swung—a fierce strike, his fist wrapped in warping air and consuming flame.
It passed through.
Not a miss.
The being simply hadn't existed in that second.
Time itself had no hold on it.
Jack's eyes widened.
"What... are you?"
The thing tilted its head slightly, no emotion, no motion wasted.
And in that simple, silent, meaningless gesture...
Jack understood.
This wasn't the gatekeeper.
This wasn't a trial.
It was a scar left behind by the universe.
A reminder that some truths should not be fought.
And for the first time in this long ascent...
Jack knew—
he might not win this time.
What do you think might happen to Jack?
Leave your thoughts in the comment section.