Lin lay motionless on the cold stone, his body curled like discarded cloth, limbs trembling with fatigue. His skin was a canvas of lacerations, bruises, and blood both his own and not. One arm hung limp at his side, visibly swollen—nerves unresponsive, bones likely fractured. His breath came in ragged pulls, every exhale laced with pain. The only proof of his survival was that he was still breathing.
He had won.
But at what cost?
The corpses of the mutated beasts steamed in the cool air, their forms sprawled in grotesque stillness, blood pooling beneath them like a dark offering. The silence that followed was heavier than the screams that had preceded it.
Lin stared blankly at the ceiling of the tower, its structure fractured, ancient, choked with the black veins of corruption. The flickering light from the sconces on the walls danced against the stone in a way that made it look like it was bleeding shadows.
He swallowed a mouthful of iron-tinged blood and laughed, though it came out more like a cough.
(In my last life,), he thought bitterly, (I didn't even do half of this to become strong.)
Back then, he hadn't clawed through death. He hadn't faced monsters with half a broken arm or felt ribs cracking under every breath. The system had carried him forward, dragging him step by step, awarding him growth like a mechanical god. He hadn't earned power. It had been handed to him—arbitrary and cold.
(Back then, I didn't know what pain was. The system led. I followed.)
(Now?)
He groaned and forced himself to sit up. Pain screamed through every nerve ending, but he didn't stop. Not anymore.
(Now, I know exactly what it takes.)
He looked down at his arm—smeared in blood and nearly unrecognizable. It wasn't the arm that had failed him. It was the boy who had once relied too much on strength he hadn't bled for.
And yet, the irony remained: he had regressed.
He had been given knowledge—memories of every mechanic, every weakness, every hidden path from his previous life. By all means, he should have dominated.
He should have coasted through this world as easily as breathing.
But the universe hadn't returned him to the one he knew.
This wasn't that world.
Here, there were Gates. Strange rifts in reality that tore open, linking their world to places of madness and ruin—Dungeons filled with creatures birthed from nightmare. And in response to that chaos, some humans had begun to awaken to strange powers. Hunters. People who wielded magic and strength far beyond the mortal scale to fight back the horrors crawling through the cracks.
(Exactly what kind of world is this?) he thought. (How am I supposed to rise here?)
Then—
Ding.
A chime echoed in the empty tower, clear and cold.
[Notification]
You have successfully cleared Floor 7.
Lin blinked, his thoughts slowing. His vision still swam, but the words were there, floating in the air before him, undeniable.
Seven floors.
(Seven floors,), he echoed internally.
And each one had been a sentence passed down by the gods of torment.
Floor 1: A swarm of horned rats the size of wolves. He had underestimated their speed. They had nearly chewed his legs to the bone before he learned to climb and lure them into a burning trap using the oil-lit sconces.
Floor 2: Acid-blooded insects nesting in pitch black. His left thigh still bore the scar from stepping in a nest. He remembered the burning—how it clung even through water, like living fire.
Floor 3: Sentient shadows that mimicked him, each one stronger and faster. He'd fought himself over and over until he stopped fighting like Lin and started fighting like someone who wanted to live.
Floor 4: The stone wolves. Smart. Patient. Their howls echoed for hours before they struck. He lost his left ear to a glancing bite. That was the first time he screamed.
Floor 5: The drowned chamber. Water waist-deep. Creatures that lived in the stillness, punished movement. He held his breath for over eight minutes, moving an inch at a time, praying the things below wouldn't stir.
Floor 6: The room of mirrors. Each reflection showed someone he couldn't save. And if he stared too long, the reflection moved—stepping out. He shattered every mirror with his bare fists, his knuckles raw and bone-deep by the end.
Floor 7 had been the worst.
Until now.
A second chime.
[Notification]
Level Up!
Level 7 → Level 8
Processing healing and regeneration…
The world shifted.
Warmth—real warmth—unfolded from inside his chest, spreading outward like light filtered through honey. A golden aura enveloped him, soft but firm, pressing against torn muscles, filling the gaps between snapped bones, weaving tissue back together. The pain began to fade—not all at once, but in waves, like tides pulling back from the shore.
He watched in quiet awe as the fingers of his broken arm twitched, realigned, straightened. Muscle wrapped bone, tendons tightened, skin resealed.
His ribs clicked into place. His lungs expanded without stabbing pain.
And for the first time in hours—maybe days—he took a deep, full breath.
Another tone followed.
[Notification]
Healing Complete.
Reward: Detoxification Initiated.
His eyes widened as a deep, unseen pressure moved through his veins. It wasn't warm like healing—it was cool, crisp, like mountain air filling his lungs and purging the ash of suffering. His pores tingled. The sting of poison—he hadn't even known he was poisoned—fled from his muscles. His vision brightened. Thoughts sharpened.
Sweat poured from him in thick droplets, dark and oily, smelling of rot and venom. His skin flushed clean in its wake, like he was shedding the last ghost of death.
He exhaled slowly, hands open at his sides.
"This…" he murmured, voice hoarse but steady, "…might come in handy."
Because if the tower had poisoned him without him even realizing, what else lay in wait?
What other traps would this world lay beneath his feet?
(They want me to die here. This tower. This world. Every inch of it is built like a snare.)
But as the last drops of toxic sweat left him, and the chill of detox washed over his bones, Lin didn't feel like prey anymore.
He looked at the dagger in his hand—Nam Ara's dagger. Still stained, still trembling with the weight of what it had done.
And he whispered, "I'm not dying here."
Not until he burned his name into this tower.
Not until the world remembered it.
His body began to flicker.
First the fingertips, then the arms, then the rest of him—fading like smoke caught in the pull of another world. Blood still streaked his face. One eye barely opened. But there was no time to rest.
[Notification]
Prepare for transportation to Floor 8.
His grip tightened.
Only one dagger remained.
Ara's dagger.
The other had shattered—snapped in half mid-swing during the fight with the mutated beasts. Its broken edge had embedded itself in one of their throats, but it hadn't been enough to kill. Not like this one. Not like hers.
The fading light hummed across his skin as the system swallowed him whole—and with a final breath, he held on to her weapon like a lifeline.
⸻
Transition Complete.
The world reassembled around him.
And it was different.
Gone were the cold, crumbling stones of Floor 7. No twisted corridors or narrow passages. No walls closing in. He now stood on solid earth—a massive, open terrain bathed in hazy crimson light. Above, the sky swirled in perpetual dusk, thick clouds crawling like serpents across the horizon.
A strange wind whistled past him, carrying a scent both wild and ancient.
Lin turned slowly, his boots crunching over gravel and dried grass. Towering trees dotted the land in unnatural spirals, their bark etched with glyphs he couldn't understand. He could hear the rustling of distant movement. He wasn't alone.
"This must be Floor 8," he muttered, low and wary.
He looked down at himself—his clothes were barely holding together, torn in strips from the previous battle. His skin, though healed, bore traces of grime and dried blood. His right hand, however, was steady. Around the handle of Nam Ara's dagger, his grip was sure.
"Well," he exhaled, bracing himself. "Let's go."
Each step was a deliberate act. The terrain beneath him shifted between cracked soil and moss-covered roots. His breathing slowed, his mind calculating every sound.
Then—
CRASH.
The sky above ripped.
Something massive plummeted from the clouds, faster than thought.
It struck the ground not far from him—violently.
The impact tore the earth open. A blast wave of dust, dirt, and broken stone exploded outward. Lin barely had time to react. The force hit him like a wall, hurling his body backwards through the air. He slammed into a thick tree trunk with a grunt, the breath punched from his lungs.
His ears rang.
His vision spun.
But when the dust began to clear—his pulse froze.
Standing at the center of the crater was a colossal figure—hulking, broad, and impossible to mistake.
Its skin was a harsh shade of iron green, muscle corded like coiled steel. Tribal markings—cut deep into flesh—glowed faintly with some inner energy, pulsing to a rhythm older than language. In one massive hand, it held a weapon that was part axe, part cleaver—almost as tall as Lin himself. Its red eyes burned like coals beneath a lowered brow, locked squarely onto him.
Lin's blood chilled.
(That thing fell from the sky. And it's already on its feet.)
His stance shifted low—dagger in front, knees bent—but every instinct screamed that this was wrong.
Then, the hairs on his neck rose.
Something else was coming.
No—many things.
The forest trembled.
Tree branches snapped like twigs in the distance. Footsteps—heavy, countless, growing louder—echoed across the land. From the misted edges of the crimson forest, more figures began to emerge.
Dozens of them.
Maybe hundreds.
Each one carved from the same monstrous mold—thick, brutish, adorned in bone and leather, weapons gleaming under blood-red light. Some carried spears. Others wielded blunt stone hammers or jagged blades. Their eyes, one and all, glowed the same.
Red.
[Notification]
Enemy Detected: Tribal Orcs
Objective: Kill to ascend to the next floor.
Lin's dagger trembled in his grip. Not from fear—but from the sheer density of the energy radiating off them. Each one of these orcs—these tribal giants—carried a pressure that dwarfed even the mutated beasts from before.
He had killed. He had survived.
But this—
This was war.
The orc that had fallen from the sky snarled. Its jaw cracked sideways. It took a step forward, and the ground shook beneath its weight.
Lin, who had been steady a moment ago, took one step back.
(This isn't like the last floor. This is a battlefield.)
He tried to recalibrate his stance—but he was too late.
Wham.
A fist met his stomach with thunderous force.
He didn't even see the orc move.
Just boom—and suddenly, he was airborne again, his vision blurring, his lungs screaming for air as he was sent flying through the air like a ragdoll.
He crashed into the dirt, skidding for meters, finally rolling to a stop against a jagged rock. His limbs twitched. His eyes wide with shock. All the breath had left him.
Pain returned in full.
The world trembled again.
Footsteps.
A shadow fell across him.
The orc stood over him now. Towering. Grim.
"Intruder," it said, voice deep like crumbling stone.
The word echoed—repeated by the others, as more and more began to fill the clearing.
"Intruder."
"Intruder."
"Intruder."
Lin lay there, gasping, surrounded by giants.
The fight hadn't even begun.
And already… he was drowning.