The sky above Floor 100 was completely black.
It was not the normal dark of a peaceful night. It was a terrifying, empty black. It looked exactly like the color had been erased from the universe, as if the world had ended a million years ago and left nothing but shadows behind.
The battlefield around me was a wasteland of cracked, ruined stone. Everything was burned to ash. Everything was broken. And worst of all, everything was perfectly silent.
I stood completely alone in the center of the ruin.
My trusted sword, a blade that had survived a hundred floors of nightmares, was deeply chipped and dull. My magical mana core, the source of all my power inside my chest, was fractured like a piece of dropped glass. Warm, thick blood ran down my right arm, dripping steadily from my fingertips and pooling on the cold stone beneath my boots.
And standing directly in front of me was the nightmare itself.
The Final Boss.
It was impossibly tall, towering over me like a walking mountain. It was covered in thick, dark armor that seemed to absorb the little light left in the world. It was completely silent. It did not roar. It did not boast. Beneath its broken metal helmet, two cold eyes glowed faintly like dying, cursed stars.
Behind me, the battlefield was empty.
There was no one left to help me. Everyone I loved was dead.
Elena, with her bright smile and fierce sword, had fallen miles back. Kai, who always had a joke to share in the dark, was gone. Mira, who had burned away her own life to cast a shield over us, was nothing but a memory.
They were all gone.
This was the final floor. The absolute peak. The hundredth trial of the Tower.
And out of millions of humans, I was the only one who had reached it.
"Come," I whispered to the monster. My voice was broken, dry, and full of ash.
My silver aura suddenly ignited, wrapping around my exhausted body like a dying flame. The remaining blue mana burned violently through my fragile veins.
The pain followed instantly. It felt like liquid fire was being pumped directly into my blood. My cracked core screamed in agony, but I pushed the pain away. I didn't care if my body destroyed itself. I just needed one last strike.
I charged forward.
The giant boss finally moved. The solid stone ground actually exploded beneath its heavy metal boots as it stepped toward me. It raised its massive, dark blade and brought it crashing down like a falling meteor.
I raised my chipped sword and barely managed to block the strike.
The impact was terrifying. My arms screamed in pain. I actually heard the bones in my wrists crack under the crushing weight. My boots lost their grip, and I slid backward across the rough stone, leaving two long trails of dust and sparks behind me.
I refused to fall to my knees. I roared, pushing back against the giant blade, and struck again.
I forced every single drop of my remaining mana into my chipped sword. The blade glowed with a blinding, desperate light. I narrowed my eyes, aiming for the center of the monster's chest.
Earlier in the fight, at the cost of my friends' lives, I had found a single weakness. There was a tiny, hairline crack in the center of the boss's thick chest armor.
My glowing blade connected with that exact spot.
For the very first time in this endless battle, the mighty boss stumbled. It actually took a step back.
A loud CRACK echoed across the silent wasteland. The tiny fracture in the armor suddenly spider-webbed, breaking open to reveal what was hidden underneath.
Something inside the monster's chest flickered.
It was a core. But it wasn't a normal, glowing mana core like a human's. It was a jagged, pitch-black crystal. It was pulsing slowly, beating like a dark, terrible heart.
I forced a bloody smile.
So, you aren't an invincible god after all, I thought. You have a heart. You can die. But my victory only lasted for a single second. My human body finally gave out. The magic left my veins, and my legs went completely numb.
The boss recovered instantly. It vanished from my sight, moving far too fast for its massive size.
Then came the impact.
I didn't even see the strike that killed me. I only felt the pressure. It was an overwhelming, crushing pressure that hit my side like a speeding train.
My broken body was thrown through the air. My ribs shattered. My lungs collapsed. My fingers opened, and my trusted sword fell away into the dark.
I fell with it, crashing hard against the cold stone floor.
I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. The black sky above seemed to lower itself, opening up to swallow everything I had ever known.
But as the darkness finally reached out to take me, my fading eyes saw one last thing.
The dark, pulsing core inside the boss's chest—the one I had struck with my final attack—suddenly cracked. A tiny piece of the black crystal broke off.
The fragment flew through the air, shooting directly toward my chest like a dark bullet.
It sank straight into my heart.
And then—there was nothing but absolute, perfect silence.
Air flooded violently into my lungs.
I gasped so hard I choked, my back arching completely off the mattress. My eyes snapped open, wide with terror, expecting to see the black sky and the giant blade.
Instead, I saw a cheap, water-stained ceiling.
I lay perfectly still, my chest heaving up and down. I was breathing. The air didn't smell like blood and ash. It smelled like old wood, cheap laundry soap, and morning rain.
I slowly turned my head.
My small bed. My messy wooden desk. The cracked white paint on the walls. The old, dusty window letting in the bright morning sunlight.
This was my room.
This was my life when I was exactly seventeen years old.
This was the time before the black Tower ever appeared in the sky. Before the cruel selections began. Before the climbing. Before the endless, bloody deaths of everyone I cared about.
I sat up slowly. My body felt incredibly strange. It felt completely light, like I was floating. But it also felt weak. Soft. Untrained. The heavy muscles I had built over ten years of fighting were completely gone.
I threw the thin blanket off my legs and rushed across the small room to the mirror hanging on the door. I almost tripped over my own clumsy, weak feet.
I stared into the glass.
There were no deep battle scars crossing my cheeks or my neck. There were no thick, rough calluses on my hands from holding a sword. There was no hardened, dead expression on my face.
The person looking back at me was just a normal, slightly skinny teenager.
But behind those young eyes, my memories remained perfectly intact.
I remembered the terrifying green monsters of Floor 1. I remembered the poison swamps of Floor 10. I remembered the bloody war simulation on Floor 50. I remembered the endless black sky of Floor 100.
I remembered my own death.
And then, I remembered the black core fragment.
Suddenly, my chest tightened painfully. A terrible, burning sensation formed deep inside my ribs, right where my heart was beating.
I gasped and collapsed to my knees on the wooden floor. I grabbed my shirt, clawing at my chest. The pain was sharp and hot. It felt like I had swallowed a piece of burning coal.
My newly formed, beginner-level mana core began to pulse violently inside me.
Something was very, very different. This was not how my core felt in my past life.
I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth against the pain, and forced my mind to focus inward. I looked deep into my own magical center.
And I saw it.
My glowing blue mana core was no longer normal. Right in the absolute center of the bright blue light, a tiny, jagged dark fragment was floating.
It was pitch black. It was pulsing slowly, beating in perfect time with my physical heart.
It felt completely alive.
As I focused on the dark fragment, a strange new feeling washed over my mind. It was an intense, starving hunger.
But the hunger was not mine. It belonged to the core.
Absorption. The word formed in my mind instantly, like a basic instinct I had always known. It was a brand new skill. A skill that no human in history had ever possessed.
The dark fragment wanted something. It was starving for power. It wanted to consume monster energy. It wanted to eat the magical essence of the Tower itself.
I opened my eyes, breathing heavily. Sweat dripped down my young face.
So, I realized, my mind racing. That black fragment from the Final Boss actually came back through time with me. It fused with my soul. I pushed myself off the floor and stood up slowly. I closed my eyes again and carefully tested my normal mana.
It was very small. It was fragile. It was strictly at the Beginner level. If I tried to cast a fireball right now, I would probably pass out from exhaustion.
But beneath that weak blue mana, the dark core felt incredibly deep. It felt like an endless, bottomless ocean. It felt different. It felt incredibly dangerous.
HOOOOOOOONK. A massive, deafening horn suddenly echoed across the quiet city outside my window. The sound was so deep and loud that it rattled the glass in its frame.
My entire body froze stiff.
I knew that sound. Everyone who survived the first day knew that terrible sound.
I rushed to the window and threw the curtains open.
The bright morning sky was completely gone, replaced by bruised, swirling purple clouds. And standing right in the center of the city, piercing straight through the heavens, was the dark structure.
The Tower.
It was massive. It was pitch black. It was perfectly silent.
It was the beginning of the end. Again.
I pressed my hand against the cold window glass. In my past life, when I saw the Tower for the first time, I hid under my bed and cried. I was terrified of the unknown.
But this time, I am not blind.
This time, I have ten years of bloody knowledge locked inside my brain. I know the traps. I know the secrets. I know the betrayers.
And now, thanks to my death on the final floor, I have a new power: Absorption. But I looked down at my thin, shaking hands. My physical body is incredibly weak. If I try to use Absorption to eat too much monster energy too early, my fragile human veins will explode. I could literally destroy myself before I even reach the tenth floor.
I slowly clenched my thin fingers into a tight fist.
The climb begins again today.
I remembered the cruel rules of the dark structure. Every 5 floors, a powerful Rare monster appears to test the climbers. Every 10 floors, a massive Guardian Boss blocks the path.
And on Floor 100... the Final Boss waits.
The monster who crushed my friends. The monster who killed me. The monster whose very fragment now lives and beats inside my own chest.
I looked up at the terrifying black Tower. I didn't feel fear. I didn't feel panic. I only felt a cold, calculating calm.
"This time," I said softly to the empty room, my voice steady and hard. "I won't die."
The massive horn echoed a second time, shaking the ground. The golden circles of the selection process would begin appearing on the streets very soon.
When the light chooses me, and when I step inside those dark walls, I will not climb blindly like a scared child.
I will climb fully prepared. I will use the Tower's own dark energy against it. I will grow stronger than anyone thought possible.
And when I finally reach the top...
The ending will change.
***
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