[New Objective – Survive for a week in the castle.]
Noah exhaled slowly, staring at the glowing text hovering in his vision.
Around him, chaos erupted like a broken dam. Voices clashed, bodies moved aggressively, and at the center of it all—Kairos stood in the castle's open arena, preparing for a duel.
Booing and jeering came from the remaining members of the team whose comrade Kairos had killed. Their hatred was visible, their glares burning into the white-haired noble.
But Kairos barely reacted, standing there, stripped of his arrogance, eyes locked on the man who had beaten him senseless before.
Noah's mind reeled.
How the hell did all of this happen? And why the fuck are we even here?
…
It had all been so fast.
As soon as the winners of the first trial were decided, Paimon wasted no time. With a snap of his fingers, he summoned the victors—four teams, twenty climbers—into this massive stone fortress.
Noah barely had time to process it before the system's notification told him he was on the Third Floor. If not for that, he wouldn't have had the slightest clue where they were.
That was all Paimon had given them. No explanations. No rules. Just a simple, mocking command:
"Get along."
Yeah, right.
The moment they arrived, chaos took root.
Arguments broke out over leadership. Tensions flared between old enemies.
And somehow, this spiraled into Kairos standing in a dueling ring, facing the man who had brutalized him before—Sigurd.
Noah processed the situation—Sigurd, having joined the team that lost a member to Kairos, wasted no time in avenging them, brutally beating Kairos and killing his remaining teammates.
The reason? Most climbers had no idea. But Noah did.
Sigurd was another key character from Orvathis, another future ally to Adam.
Seeing him duel Kairos now felt like watching history repeat itself—just earlier than it should have. In the book, their rivalry was another important side of the story.
Sigurd was the descendant of Bjorn, a knight who once served the Orthar family before its downfall.
But that didn't mean Noah should reveal himself. Not now.
At this point in the story, Sigurd despised the Orthars, believing they betrayed his ancestor and doomed their bloodline to suffering.
Yet, despite this hatred, he wasn't aligned with the Eight Great Families either. If anything, he loathed them just as much—hence why he had no reservations about pummeling Kairos into the dirt.
Sigh…
Kairos clenched his fists, flexing his fingers inside the gauntlet he had scavenged from the castle's armory.
Across from him, Sigurd twirled his longsword.
Their eyes locked.
Sigurd had despised Kairos before ever meeting him—hating everything the Largent family stood for.
For Kairos, the rage was fresh, personal. His entire team had been wiped out. And the man responsible stood before him, calm, composed, as if it was nothing.
They moved at the same time.
Kairos dashed forward, but he was slower.
Sigurd had trained with the sword since childhood. His talent had been so monstrous that he was once invited to join the Rathion infantry—an invitation he spat on.
The Rathions, after all, were the ones who led the betrayal against the Orthars, the so-called 'revolution' that toppled them from power.
For more than a century and a half, they suppoted the Vaedan family that had ruled Varyndor, the 32nd Floor and the 4th Neutral Floor.
Sigurd had no love for them.
And he sure as hell had none for the Largents.
Sigurd sidestepped, his longsword flashed as he lunged at Kairos's left side. But Kairos twisted at the last second, his gauntleted hand shooting out to grab the blade. The metal groaned under his grip, stopping the strike mid-air.
Then, Kairos punched.
The blow wasn't aimed at Sigurd, yet an invisible force slammed into the swordsman's chest, sending him stumbling back. Kairos released the sword, but Sigurd reacted instantly—his free arm lashing out in a brutal counterpunch.
His fist connected hard with Kairos's face, snapping his head to the side. Blood trickled from Kairos's nose as he recoiled, and an ugly snarl twisted his features.
Sigurd pressed forward, as Kairos gritted his teeth, his hands punched and kicked at the air, seemingly attacking nothing.
To an outsider, it might have looked like he was flailing, but Noah recognized it immediately.
Gravity Sylix.
The Largent family traced their lineage back to Luthiel, the Tyrant of Stars—one of the eight pillar kings.
An imaginary ability user. A master of gravity. And here Kairos was, applying the barest fundamentals of attraction and repulsion.
But against Sigurd?
Against a genius swordmaster and a natural-born ice wielder?
It wasn't enough.
Because Sigurd had yet to even try.
Sigurd had had enough.
The air around him shifted violently, as though the very atmosphere recoiled from the intensity brewing within him.
His red eyes began to bleed into an icy blue. His black hair twisted, strands of it whitening, as if each lock was being washed by a storm of snow. His breath grew visible, a vapor that swirled around him like a rising blizzard.
The long sword in his hands, already deadly sharp, was encased in a layer of ice, its blade glistened with the chill of an icy winter.
Kairos' eyes widened with realization, instinctively took a step back, his gauntleted hands trembled.
The feeling flooded back to him—the last time Sigurd had fought him.
That brutal, overwhelming power that had shattered him in ways he'd barely managed to recover from.
And now, seeing the sword master surrounded by that icy aura, his thoughts were clear: He wasn't ready for another humiliation.
The silence that followed was cut short by the voices of Sigurd's team—loud, rabid with hatred. They screamed with fury as each word meant to be a blow to break Kairos's spirit as much as his body.
Sigurd barely noticed them. His gaze remained fixed on Kairos. But just as the storm was about to break, a voice cut through the madness.
"I think we need to stop this," Noah said, stepping forward, his voice steady despite the chaos around him. The place fell quieter, eyes shifting toward him. "Administrator Paimon told us to get along. I would consider this the trial for this floor."
Sigurd's head snapped toward him, For a moment, there was a flicker of confusion, and then the wind seemed to grow louder around him, like the howling of an angry blizzard.
"And who the hell are you?" Sigurd's voice was no longer human. It had become the voice of a storm—harsh, relentless, each word carrying the weight of a gale that could tear down walls. "Another climber who thinks they can stop me?"
Noah didn't flinch, though the air around them grew even colder. His gaze locked onto Sigurd's with the calm of someone who had weathered far worse storms.
"A climber, just like everyone here," Noah replied, his words firm. "But one who wants to win without carrying someone else's grudge. We're here for the trial, not personal vendettas. So, let's stop this before we all end up losing more than we bargained for."
Sigurd seemed to hesitate.
A flicker of something passed across his eyes—a battle between his rage and the cold logic Noah had laid bare.
Slowly, the winds around him began to die down, his breath no longer swirling into the vaporous mists of a storm.
"Fine," Sigurd said, his voice became human again. "But this is far from over." The sword lowered, though the ice still clung to it.
Kairos stood there, his mind spinning like a broken cog in an endless wheel of confusion.
How the hell had this happened? The son of a prince—someone who was supposed to rule over a neutral floor—reduced to this? This chaos? His body, his bloodline, all had meant something, hadn't they? Yet here he was, caught in the center of a storm, with hatred and anger swirling around him.
Everyone seemed to hate him, to hate his family, and for what? All he'd ever wanted was to get stronger, to gain recognition—not for the sake of power or prestige—but for the acknowledgment of his sibling.
His mind couldn't wrap itself around the absurdity of it all.
A wave of frustration washed over him, and for a moment, everything blurred. He was drowning in thoughts, and the laughter and jeering from Sigurd's team did nothing but feed the flames of his rage.
In the midst of this turmoil, a whisper broke through his spiral.
"Lord Kairos," Noah's voice was soft, urgent, "please refrain from getting into meaningless fights. This would not only damage the team but also—" He paused for emphasis, his tone sharp, "you're still damaged from your previous fight."
Kairos's glare was all venom as he locked eyes with Noah, the anger seething beneath his cold exterior. The words stung, but they didn't reach the core of his anger. He said nothing, his gaze lingering for just a moment longer, before he turned, ignoring Noah's plea.
that was risky…