The golden chime of the Floor 1 clear notification didn't just ring in Harish's ears; it rippled through the fabric of the Tower itself, a high-frequency vibration that made the very air feel like it had been struck by a tuning fork. The mechanical, disembodied voice of the Spire seemed to stutter, a digital glitch in a divine system, unable to process how an E-rank "Janitor" had cleared the mists in less than a second.
Harish didn't care about the glitch. He was looking at his shoes. One of them had a bit of Shadow Stalker ichor on the lace.
"Great," he muttered, shaking his foot. "This is exactly why I didn't want to come here. Everything is sticky. It's like the floor of a movie theater after a Saturday matinee, but with more existential dread."
On Floor 3, the Hall of Mirrors was a crystalline nightmare. The walls were jagged slabs of reflective obsidian that didn't just show your face; they birthed your insecurities. As Harish stepped into the center of the room, a dark, viscous liquid seeped out of the glass, forming into a perfect, shadow-drenched duplicate of himself. The Shadow-Harish held a spectral clipboard, its eyes glowing with a dull, nihilistic red.
The duplicate didn't roar. It didn't pose. It simply stepped forward, intending to erase the original.
Harish didn't even stop walking. He didn't break his stride. He moved his arm in a sharp, diagonal arc—a motion as casual as swiping a fly away from a bowl of fruit. His two fingers traced a line in the air that didn't just cut; it parted reality.
The Shadow-Harish was bifurcated along the diagonal. The top half slid slowly to the left, while the bottom half stood still for a fraction of a second, the internal shadow-matter evaporating into a fine, grey mist before it could even hit the floor. The mirrors behind the clone didn't just shatter; they were bisected with such surgical precision that the glass remained in place, held together by the vacuum of the cut itself.
"The lighting in here is terrible," Harish grumbled, stepping over the evaporating legs of his shadow. "How is anyone supposed to find the exit if they're too busy looking at their own pores? Terribly managed. Zero stars."
By Floor 5, the "Magma Golem"—a three-story titan of sentient basalt and liquid fire—was waiting. It roared, a sound that melted the oxygen in the room and turned the floor into a sludge of molten rock. It raised a fist the size of a delivery truck, glowing with the white-hot intensity of a localized sun.
Harish performed a sharp, downward motion with two fingers. No mana flashed. No "Skill Name" appeared in a floating box. The air simply sharpened.
The Golem was separated into two vertical halves. The cut was so absolute that the fire inside didn't even explode; it simply spilled out like water from a cracked pitcher, cooling into grey ash before it reached Harish's sandals. The massive stone body collapsed, the two halves falling outward like a cloven mountain.
Meanwhile, in the "Intermediate Rest Zone" of Floor 7, a group of high-ranking "Astra" scouts were huddled around a central terminal, their faces illuminated by the frantic, pulsing gold of the public leaderboard. Among them were the Agnihotri Clan's Solar Disciples, men clad in gold-leaf armor that radiated a constant, arrogant heat.
"It's happened again," whispered a scout named Javi, his voice cracking like dry parchment. "Floor 6... cleared in 0.9 seconds. Whoever 'dollar' is, they aren't fighting. They're... they're just existing through the floors. Look at the damage report."
"Damage report? What damage report?" snapped Kiron, the lead Solar Disciple, his hand resting on the hilt of a blade that hummed with solar flares.
"That's the thing, sir," Javi said, trembling. "There is no 'damage' in the traditional sense. The monsters aren't being beaten; they're being unmade. The logs don't show a struggle. They show a conceptual erasure. It's as if a giant pair of scissors just snipped the thread of their existence. Look at this commentary from the Floor 5 survivors... they say the Magma Golem didn't even get to finish its roar. It just... split."
"Is it a ghost?" Kiron asked, his arrogance finally flickering like a dying candle. "Or perhaps an Elder God who got bored of the higher heavens? To clear seven floors in under ten seconds... that's not 'Player' level. That's 'Architect' level. If this 'dollar' reaches us, we don't fight. We pray. We pray he's just passing through."
"I heard a rumor," another warrior whispered, his eyes wide with wild, boundless imagination. "I heard 'dollar' is actually the spirit of the First Sovereign, reborn to audit the world. They say he carries a scepter of light and a book of judgment. They say his eyes are twin suns that can see the sins of your ancestors."
"Scepter of light?" Javi muttered, staring at a grainy, distorted image captured by a Floor 3 sensor. "It looks more like... like a clipboard. And he's wearing an apron. A grocery store apron."
"Don't be ridiculous," Kiron spat, though his knees felt weak. "That's probably a 'Cloaking Artifact' of the highest order. A god wouldn't wear an apron unless it was made of the woven silk of a nebula. This is clearly a psychological warfare tactic. He wants us to think he's mundane so we lower our guard."
As Harish reached the Floor 7 checkpoint, Kiron and his Great Sun Shield stood in the way. The shield was a massive, three-meter-wide slab of solidified sunlight, supposedly impenetrable to anything below an S-Rank "God-Slaying" strike.
"Halt!" Kiron shouted, his voice echoing with a forced bravado that fooled no one, least of all himself. "The Agnihotri Clan has claimed this—"
"You're blocking the stairs," Harish interrupted, looking at the golden shield with the same annoyance he reserved for a double-parked car in front of the store. "And that shield is way too bright. It's giving me a migraine. Do you have any idea how much electricity a light that intense would cost in the real world? It's irresponsible."
Before Kiron could respond, Harish extended his arm with the casual precision of a man reaching for a high shelf. He stabbed two fingers directly into the geometric center of the "impenetrable" barrier.
There was no explosion. No shockwave. The Great Sun Shield simply shattered into thousands of golden shards, the mana within it instantly neutralized by Harish's "Zero-Frequency" presence. The fragments fell like glitter, coating the floor in a shimmering, expensive-looking mess.
"Safety hazard," Harish muttered, walking right past the frozen, terrified Kiron. "Someone's going to slip on this. You really need to put up a 'Wet Floor' sign if you're going to leave glowing garbage everywhere. Honestly, this tower is a lawsuit waiting to happen."
Kiron stood paralyzed, his arms still raised as if holding a shield that no longer existed. He watched the boy in the apron walk up the stairs, a half-chewed piece of roti still clutched in his other hand.
"He... he broke the Sun Shield with two fingers," Kiron whispered, his mind snapping. "He didn't even look at me. He looked at the floor. He... he is the Void. The Merchant of the End."
While Harish was treating the divine tower like a poorly managed warehouse, Kaelen was currently undergoing a mental breakdown on a separate floor. Her heart was hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs, her Phoenix aura flared to its absolute limit, turning her into a pillar of shimmering violet flame.
"Master, we have to find him!" she cried out internally, her thoughts a jumble of guilt and terror. "He's just a civilian! If a single Shadow Stalker finds him, he's dead! He's probably hiding under a rock somewhere, crying and holding his grocery list!"
Inside her mind, the Martial God Chu-mu was just as panicked, his spiritual senses vibrating with an alarm he couldn't name. He was scanning the environment with a focus he hadn't used in three thousand years.
"Disciple, stay focused!" Chu-mu rumbled, his voice laced with genuine, shaking worry. "Something... something terrible is happening in this Tower. The mana in the air has been shredded. It's not just displaced; it's been torn into ribbons. Look at these corpses... the Magma Golem, the Stalkers... this isn't the work of a human. This is the work of a 'God-Level Slasher,' a predator of the highest order. Every cut is perfect. Every kill is absolute. There is a monster on these floors, Kaelen—a being of such profound power that the Tower itself is screaming in silence. If Harish is anywhere near this 'thing,' he isn't just in danger; he's already a memory!"
They reached the Floor 5 boss room, skidding to a halt. The Magma Golem was lying in two perfectly clean halves, the basalt cooling into a geometric graveyard.
"Master... look at the cut," Kaelen whispered, her voice a fragile thread. "It's so clean. It's like... like someone just decided it should be two pieces."
"It's not a cut, Kaelen," Chu-mu said, his spiritual form shivering so violently it was causing static in her vision. "The space itself was told to divide. I can't sense a single drop of mana from the attacker. This is an 'Atmospheric Void.' Whoever did this is so powerful that they don't even leak energy when they kill. They are a vacuum. A cosmic eraser. We have to find Harish before this monster finds him! The beast is clearing the floors ahead of us, moving toward the top... it's as if it's hunting for something specific!"
Chu-mu, despite all his ancient wisdom, failed to connect the dots. He was so utterly convinced of Harish's "weakness"—so blinded by the boy's lack of talent and ambition—that he assumed Harish was the ultimate prey. He didn't realize that the "Void" he feared was currently complaining about the lack of air conditioning on the 8th floor and wondering if he could deduct the cost of his new sandals as a business expense.
Kaelen's face went pale, her eyes darting around the room. She began to run faster, her flames flickering in distress. But then, near a jagged rock at the edge of the Golem's remains, she saw something small and white.
She picked it up. It was a discarded paper napkin. Printed on the corner in cheap, blue ink was the logo for "Ravi & Son — Best Quality Groceries."
"A napkin?" Kaelen gasped, her eyes widening in pure horror. "Master, the monster... he's targeting our family! He took a napkin as a trophy! Or... or he killed someone from the store and kept this! He's hunting Harish specifically! He's using our logo to mock us!"
"Run, Kaelen!" Chu-mu roared, his voice filled with a warrior's despair. "If that beast is tracking your brother by his scent, we have to reach the top before it's too late! It is a 'Serial God-Killer'! It is the 'Sovereign of the Napkin'! Move, girl! Move!"
Unaware that he was being labeled a "God-Level Slasher" and a "Serial Killer" by his own sister and a trembling Martial God, Harish reached the tenth floor. The final boss—the Iron Chimera, a multi-headed beast of mithril and clockwork—didn't even finish its roar before Harish's fingers moved in a sharp, horizontal sweep.
The machine fell apart into two horizontal sections with a sound like a giant's piggy bank breaking. Gears spilled like loose change, and the glowing "Heart of the Chimera" rolled across the obsidian floor like a discarded marble.
Harish walked past the "Legendary Blade of Astra" that had materialized on a pedestal. He ignored the "Orb of Infinite Wisdom" that promised to reveal the secrets of the universe.
"Too much clutter," he muttered, rummaging through the supply crates in the corner of the room. "Wisdom doesn't pay the electricity bill, and that sword looks like it would be a nightmare to polish."
Finally, his eyes lit up. At the bottom of a "Low-Level Supply Crate"—usually reserved for healing potions and bread—he found a tin of High-Grade Oolong Tea and a Mithril-Filament Mop.
"The mop is a bit flashy, but the mithril won't rust when I clean the milk spills," Harish sighed, tucking the tin under his arm and slinging the mop over his shoulder. "And this tea... Ravi-ji is going to love this. It might actually keep him from complaining about the 'Solar Lord' for at least forty-eight hours."
He stepped into the exit portal, his Ravi & Son apron fluttering in the trans-dimensional wind.
"I hope the dal is still warm," he thought as the world dissolved into white light. "I really hate cold lentils."
Back at the base of the Tower, the leaderboard updated one final time.
Floor 10 Clear: dollar
Time: 0.2s
Reward Claimed: High-Grade Oolong Tea
The entire crowd of warriors went dead silent.
"He... he cleared the Chimera in zero point two seconds," a voice whispered from the back. "And he chose... the tea?"
"It's a message," a strategist from the Global Security Council said, his hands shaking as he wrote in his notebook. "He's telling us that our greatest trials, our most legendary weapons, our 'infinite wisdom'... they are worth less to him than a cup of tea. He isn't just a Player. He is a 'Universal Auditor.' And he just closed the books on the Tower."