The stairs twisted unnaturally as Kael climbed. What should've been a simple upward path coiled like a serpent through impossible angles. Sometimes he walked sideways. Sometimes downward. And sometimes it felt like he was moving through water instead of air.
But he didn't stop.
Each floor was a crucible, and each crucible shaped him. Strength, speed, instinct—those he had gained. But something else was changing too, quietly, behind his thoughts. His perception, his awareness of things not easily explained.
The shards were evolving him. Not just physically.
The staircase ended abruptly, spilling him into a chamber that stretched wider than any before it.
The floor was covered in countless threads—thin, silken strands that glowed faintly in the dark, like spiderwebs bathed in moonlight. They weren't lying on the ground. They hovered inches above it, unmoving, taut, forming an intricate grid of impossible complexity.
Kael stopped at the edge.
One step forward, and he would touch the web.
He crouched, examining the threads.
They weren't ordinary strings. They pulsed. As if alive. As if watching him.
Above, the chamber ceiling was hidden in gloom. Tall columns rose at irregular intervals, supporting nothing visible. Between them, more threads stretched into the void.
There were no walls. No clear exit.
Kael took a cautious step forward.
The moment his foot brushed a thread, the entire web vibrated, humming with sudden energy. The threads near him lit up—dim at first, then brighter, until they were blinding.
Kael braced himself.
But nothing attacked.
Not yet.
Instead, a voice filled the air—not a spoken voice, but a message sent directly into his mind.
You step into fate's weave. All threads connect. All choices bind.
Kael clenched his fists. Another trial. One designed to test more than just combat.
He moved again, slower this time, watching the way the threads responded.
Each step sent ripples through the web. With every ripple, a memory flashed in his mind—images he didn't recognize. A girl standing alone in a snowy field. A battle beneath twin moons. A tower crumbling into ash.
Were they his? Or from the dead god whose shard lingered inside him?
He didn't know.
He kept going.
The thread patterns shifted underfoot, revealing hidden symbols that glowed only when Kael looked away. The puzzle was alive. Adapting. Changing.
After a dozen careful steps, Kael realized what the trial was: a maze of possibilities. Each step was a choice, and every choice summoned an outcome.
If he chose wrong...
A vibration hit his spine.
Kael whirled.
From the web behind him, a figure rose.
It looked human at first—tall, robed, silent.
But then its face shifted. Or rather, it didn't have one.
Only a smooth plane of silver, like a mask of flowing metal.
It glided forward across the threads, not walking but drifting, disturbing nothing.
Kael reached for a shard. The Moment of Flame flared in his palm.
The faceless figure moved faster than he expected. A blur of silver and smoke.
Kael ducked, rolled, and countered with a blast of fire.
The flame roared, consuming the space ahead.
But the figure passed through the blaze untouched.
It struck.
A silver thread burst from its arm, lashing toward Kael's chest.
He blocked with a burst of barrier energy, barely holding back the impact.
The figure whispered without a mouth.
No choice is free. No power without consequence.
Kael shoved it back and sprinted through the maze, eyes scanning for a pattern.
Every thread connected to another. Some glowed red. Others blue. A few gold.
He paused only briefly to absorb what the colors might mean.
Red—pain. Blue—knowledge. Gold—risk.
He chose blue.
The thread beneath his foot lit up.
Suddenly, he could see the path more clearly. A dozen hidden routes revealed themselves in a flash of insight.
But the figure was still following.
Kael ducked under a low-hanging thread, twisted left through a gap barely wide enough for his shoulders, and leapt over a broken segment of the web.
The figure came on, tireless, silent.
Kael dove for a cluster of gold threads.
The moment he touched them, a shockwave slammed through his body. Pain. Blinding light. Visions.
He saw the tower collapsing. He saw a battlefield in the stars. He saw himself—
Alone.
Crowned in silence. Surrounded by nothing.
A god, yes. But a god without a world.
He staggered.
The figure struck.
But Kael was ready.
He let the vision fuel him, not break him.
His shard flared. The Abyssal Memory unlocked a hidden door in his mind.
A movement. A technique. A weapon.
His blade reshaped itself into a crescent of darkness, made from memory and shardlight.
Kael lashed out.
The slash didn't just hit the figure—it tore through the web beneath it, unraveling part of the maze in a burst of glowing silk.
The figure shrieked—not in pain, but in warning—and dissolved into mist.
Kael stood still, panting.
The web behind him began to re-weave itself, threads stitching into new patterns.
But ahead, the path opened.
No more obstacles.
Just a staircase. Narrow. Steep.
He walked to it slowly, passing over threads that dimmed as he crossed them.
At the base of the stairway, a symbol waited—carved into the stone in deep grooves: a crown made of shattered stars.
Kael didn't recognize it.
But a part of him knew it wasn't the Tower's symbol.
It belonged to something older.
Something watching him from beyond the floors he had yet to climb.
He exhaled once and began the ascent.
He hadn't earned rest.
Not yet.
The Tower's true trials were only beginning.