Chapter 391: Floor Twelve

Kael emerged from the hidden passage beneath the Blue Rose carrying three new problems. Ulsal was apparently a divine being angry enough to arrange his death, the Sun Clan had once spent months searching for a Rune user who was almost certainly him, and his mutated Dark Beast familiar might hatch if exposed to concentrated Darkness Mana.

The Guildmaster had been very careful with the word might.

Kael stood in the evening street with his helmet covering his face and decided he had completed enough social interaction for one day. Andre’s forge was close, and the floor of the workshop had already proven capable of supporting him while unconscious. He could return there, sleep, and test the Darkness Rune against the egg in the morning, when he had enough time to follow the Guildmaster’s instructions carefully.

That plan survived until he turned the corner and discovered that Andre’s workshop had disappeared behind a crowd.

Dozens of Climbers filled the street outside the forge. Some carried broken weapons and damaged armor, while others held monster materials, unfinished equipment, or enough raw metal to suggest they had emptied their inventories the moment they heard Andre was working again. The crowd pressed toward the entrance in a mass of steel, leather, and increasingly short tempers.

"I was here first!" someone near the door shouted.

"You left to get your sword," another Climber answered. "That means you surrendered your place."

A third man attempted to push between them, only for someone to catch him by the shoulder and drag him backward. Several arguments erupted at once, and the entire front of the crowd lurched toward the open workshop.

Andre’s voice thundered from somewhere inside. "IF YA PUSH ONE MORE PERSON THROUGH THAT DOOR, I’M CLOSING THE FORGE AGAIN!"

The threat restored order with impressive speed, though the silence lasted only a few seconds before everyone began arguing more quietly.

Kael watched the entrance, considered forcing his way through, and turned around instead. His strength would make reaching the workshop easy. Doing so without attracting attention would be impossible.

Everyone already knew Andre had refused customers for weeks. A large masked Climber pushing through the crowd in expensive equipment before being allowed inside would give people something to remember, especially when the same man had been seen leaving the closed forge earlier that day. After everything the Guildmaster had told him, Kael had no desire to become more memorable.

Returning to the Blue Rose presented a different problem. He had left through a hidden underground passage less than an hour ago, and casually walking through the main entrance would invite questions he did not want to answer. At minimum, the Guildmaster would enjoy making the situation uncomfortable.

Kael abandoned both options and continued along the street.

Community Floor Two remained active long after nightfall. The crowds had thinned without disappearing, and magical lamps illuminated taverns, workshops, training halls, and transit stations throughout the district. Merchants continued serving customers beneath glowing signs, while guild recruiters lingered near the busiest intersections in the hope of finding someone valuable before a rival faction did.

Finding an inn would have been easy. Finding one where nobody remembered him might have been harder.

Kael caught his reflection in the darkened window of a closed shop. The Spartan helmet concealed most of his face, but everything below it worked against anonymity. Months of developing the Nine Yang Destruction Body had widened his shoulders and added enough weight to his frame that ordinary clothing no longer hid his build. The long Black Basilisk coat softened his outline slightly, yet its dark material and Malachor reinforcement looked expensive even to someone incapable of identifying either.

The new gauntlets only made him more conspicuous. Walking into an inn dressed like that, refusing to remove his helmet, and paying for a room without providing a name would attract exactly the kind of curiosity he wanted to avoid.

He could activate the Darkness Rune, but arriving wrapped in living shadow would be even less subtle. People remembered the armored stranger who refused to show his face. They remembered the armored stranger surrounded by unnatural Darkness considerably longer.

The absurdity of the situation became more obvious the longer he walked. Kael possessed enough money on Earth to buy apartments, houses, cars, and several buildings he would never need. His Tower currency was substantial enough that he rarely worried about ordinary expenses. Despite that, he did not own a bed, a room, or even a chair anywhere inside the Reverse Tower.

Andre had allowed him to collapse on the floor of his forge. Yenna had shared temporary safe areas with him. Vanitas provided shelter whenever it felt generous, and the Fist King had given him access to a cave.

Kael slowed as the realization settled over him. He owned a Manhattan penthouse in the living world, yet inside the Tower he was effectively a wealthy, heavily armed homeless man.

The cave remained available. It was secluded, difficult for most Climbers to reach, and safe enough that Kael could experiment with the familiar without attracting witnesses. His master might not even be there.

Unfortunately, Kael knew better than to rely on that possibility.

He imagined entering the cave and hearing the Fist King’s voice behind him.

Good. You’re back.

Heavier fetters would follow. Then came the punching, the being punched, and several days of discovering new definitions for physical suffering. If Kael stayed long enough to sleep, he might wake to find that another month had disappeared because the Fist King considered attempted murder a reasonable form of instruction.

Kael looked up at the stars stretched across the dark sky of Community Floor Two. After a moment of serious consideration, he decided Floor Twelve might genuinely be safer than returning to his master.

That conclusion concerned him, but not enough to change his mind.

He opened the Tower interface and selected the next available challenge. Floor Eleven remained marked as cleared, with its records and rewards attached beneath it. Directly below waited the entrance to Floor Twelve.

Kael hesitated before accepting. He had always intended to continue climbing, but Floor Eleven had taken more from him than expected. The Lesser Death Knight had destroyed most of his equipment and forced the Nine Yang Destruction Body beyond its previous limits. Ulsal’s interference had then transformed an already dangerous challenge into a choice between victory and another death.

He had planned to prepare thoroughly before moving on. Whether by intention or circumstance, he had done exactly that.

His inventory contained healing potions, antidotes, food, water, rope, climbing equipment, spare cloth, tools, and several cheap weapons he could afford to sacrifice. The untouched half Elixir remained available for an emergency that ordinary healing could not solve, while Brokk’s Hammer rested safely inside its slot.

The entrance prompt remained open before him.

[Enter Floor 12?]

Andre’s crowded forge waited somewhere behind him, while his master’s cave waited farther away with considerably more violence. Kael pressed the confirmation.

"Yes. Floor Twelve."

Community Floor Two disappeared without any sensation of movement. There was no fall, tunnel, or gradual transition between one place and another. The crowded street simply vanished, and cold wind swept across Kael’s coat as his boots settled against hard ground beneath an open sky.

His hands rose automatically, prepared to activate the gauntlets, but nothing attacked him. That already placed Floor Twelve ahead of several other locations he had entered.

A system window opened before his eyes.

[WELCOME TO FLOOR 12]

[The Reverse Tower acknowledges your arrival.]

[Upon successful completion of the Floor Objective, access to a Community Floor will be restored.]

Kael read the next line twice.

[MISSION TYPE: INFILTRATION / ELIMINATION]