Silence had returned to the 98th floor.
Kang Soo coughed, his breath ragged and weak.
He was sitting on the head of the Ice Dragon.
The beast's massive crystalline skull was cold and still beneath him.
Its core had been cleanly shattered, now just a gaping, frozen wound.
He looked up.
Above the ice and snow, the ceiling was a vast, cold sky.
He closed his good eye, breathing slowly and deeply; the air burning his lungs.
The pain was a constant, blinding white noise.
A transparent, rectangular screen materialized before him.
[MANA POINT: 1]
Kang Soo pushed himself up, his muscles screaming under the weight of his now ice covered body.
He picked up his longsword, the hilt sticky with frozen blood.
He stood before a pair of colossal doors, forged from ice and dark metal which would take him to the 99th Floor.
Kang Soo pushed them open with a surge of final, desperate will and stepped through.
A figure stood in the center.
It was clad in shadow, its deep hood hiding any trace of a face and in its hands, thin chains of smoking black material coiled casually.
The figure spread its arms wide in a cheery gesture.
"Well done, Kang Soo!"
"The very first human to clear the tower."
"Congratulations are certainly in order."
Kang Soo ignored the cheer. He leaned on his sword.
"Humans were promised to be granted any wish..."
The figure chuckled a dry, brittle sound of immense condescension.
"Freedom? That is a currency we no longer trade in, little product."
The words struck Kang Soo.
"You have served your purpose well."
"The Constellation Stream does not create Towers for human salvation."
"It creates them for resources..."
The figure's voice turned hard, crystalline. "You are now a Cleared Asset."
Kang Soo felt the blood drain from his face.
The figure stepped closer, its shadow suffocating the surrounding light.
"Those who clear the floors are products to be utilized."
"You will be sent to other worlds and other timelines experiencing the same"
"You shall be given the opportunity to become the Boss of a high-level floor."
"If you excel... you may climb the hierarchy."
"Perhaps become a Tower's Seer, or even a Maker of towers. That is the highest honor."
Kang Soo stood frozen, his mind reeling.
He remembered the endless stream of climbers entering the tower mouth.
Everyone had been hopeful and terrified as well as driven by necessity.
He remembered the empty floors, the bloody trails left behind.
All those dreams, ground into the dust.
He looked at what might have been the ceiling and saw 'him'...
Ah, how had it come to the point where he had forgotten about 'him.'
Kang Soo remembered his words.
"Hyung...promise me you'll make it out?"
---
Kang Soo then saw her face.
---
"When this is finally over, I won't look at a sword ever again."
"I'll buy a small house with a garden."
"I'll grow sunflowers...and only sunflowers..."
"And...apart from that...
...I really want to help people..."
The image shattered.
---
The sound of her gasping and the reek of iron and fresh blood.
She was in his arms her gentle eyes wide with terror and pain.
Her chest was a ruined, gaping mess.
Kang Soo squeezed her fragile body tighter and she broke into tears.
"Don't leave me...Kang Soo.. "
"I hate this place...
"P-Please...I don't want to die here...."
***
Rage boiled in his chest.
Kang Soo bit his lower lip until the skin tore. Fresh, hot blood ran down his chin.
He gathered his strength, ignoring the screams of his Mana-starved body.
Kang Soo launched himself forward, aiming to bury his sword in the shadow being.
He was stopped instantly.
Mid-air, a pressure of impossible magnitude of Absolute Gravitation slammed him down.
He hit the floor, shattering more of the ice on his armor.
Kang Soo struggled, pinned by the cosmic weight.
He looked up with his one functioning eye. The figure was laughing.
"Such fire.
An exceptional product, Kang Soo."
"You will be deployed to a floor to be its Boss and act as it's Dungeon Master...But understand the cost."
Invisible, black, seething chains materialized. They ignored his armor and flesh and plunged into his chest, coiling tightly around his heart and soul core.
The agony was a violation and searing.
"Violate the contract," the figure hissed, its voice echoing in his mind.
"And your own soul will implode."
"You will be erased from all existence."
The binding vanished, leaving a cold, terrible emptiness where the pain had been.
Kang Soo coughed, tasting blood and sulfur.
The figure raised its hand. A final, blinding white light erupted blinding him as his sense of the surrounding began to vanish.
Kang Soo gritted his teeth, forcing his last vow into the blinding white.
"I'll be back."
"I will claw my way back up through every damned floor."
"And I will break through the ceiling of this tower and kill you while I'm at it!"