Alex waited.
The Tower did not mark time. There was no change in light, no shift in air, no signal that anything above had ended. The walls continued their infinite repetition, catwalks stacked into vertical nothing, indifferent to cause or outcome.
He sat with his back against the railing, wing bound as tightly as he could manage, breath shallow and controlled. Pain persisted, dull and structural, no longer sharp enough to command his attention.
He watched below.
Eventually, something disturbed the pattern.
A shape entered the shaft far above—small at first, then resolving as it fell. Not tumbling. Not flailing. It descended with a terrible dignity, body held together by momentum alone.
The Herald.
It struck the lower depths out of sight. There was no sound that reached him. No echo. Just the knowledge that it had arrived.
Alex stood.
Each step downward took effort. His leg protested, his wing dragged, but the pull in his chest was stronger than the damage. The same pull he had felt near dried blood. The same insistence—but denser now. Sharper. Cleaner.
At the base, the Tower changed.
The walls here were darker, less reflective, their repetition imperfect. The vertical symmetry stuttered, as if something had been absorbed rather than removed. The air felt heavier—not oppressive, just present.
The Herald lay where it had fallen.
Its wings were ruined, feathers burned down to brittle remnants. The wrappings that had bound its body—those careful, ritual layers—had blackened and split. Whatever sigils had once been stitched into the cloth were gone, erased by heat too deliberate to be called fire.
The body beneath was not what Alex expected.
Not luminous.
Not divine.
It was dense. Compacted. As if too much existence had been folded into too small a form. The presence it radiated pressed against him, not outwardly hostile, but demanding recognition.
The hunger hit him all at once.
Not craving.
Recognition.
His body knew what this was.
Not prey.
Not enemy.
Resource.
Alex knelt. His hands shook—not from fear, but from restraint. He hesitated only long enough to understand that this was not a choice he could reason his way out of.
This was alignment.
He consumed what remained.
Not violently. Not reverently.
Precisely.
The pull in his chest unraveled into something vast and stabilizing, as if a missing structure had been slotted into place. The pain in his body dulled further—not healed, but deprioritized. His runes burned warm, then settled, rearranging themselves without instruction.
Above him, the Tower exhaled.
The repetition along the walls tightened. The infinite stack gained definition. For the first time since the descent, the space felt indexed—as if something had taken note of what had occurred.
Only then did the system speak.
[ VOID NIGHTMARE PROGRESS DETECTED]
Designation: Second Nightmare
Challenger: Lumen of the Void
Progress: Indeterminate
Clear Condition:
–Consume
— — —
He had not gained power.
Nothing surged. No numbers rose. No new heat settled into his limbs.
What he gained was something else.
Instinct.
Endurance.
Alex ascended.
His heart hammered, not with strength, but readiness. Muscles tightened in cathartic synchrony, not burning—anticipating. His body leaned forward into motion that had not yet been demanded, reacting to a future his mind had not finished forming.
Breath came easier.
Pain dulled—not healed, not ignored—but accounted for.
The rhythm of effort embedded itself deeper, quieter. Where Frenzy once screamed, something steadier took hold. Not control. Tolerance.
His body had learned what survival required.
His mind lagged behind, struggling to name the change—but the ascent did not wait for understanding.
— — —