Floor 800 breathed like a living thing.
Not wind.
Not heat.
Not illusion.
Breath.
A soft exhale that whispered across the silver tiles as Swift stepped into the chamber.
He felt it immediately.
This was a different tier of the Celestial Tower.
A floor meant for the few who could stand between gods and monsters without breaking.
A floor that tested not just strength, but control.
And control was the one thing Swift had always held closest to his heart.
His silver aura shimmered faintly beneath his skin, not flaring, not loud—just there. Smooth. Steady. Focused.
He exhaled slowly, letting the breath travel through him like water flowing from the peak of a mountain.
"Floor eight hundred," he murmured. "Time to work."
The moment his foot landed fully on the silver stone, the tower reacted.
A ripple of light shot across the floor, and silver runes rose like sparks. The room trembled. Pieces of the ground broke upward, forming floating platforms. Walls slid into place, folding in complex geometric patterns.
Then the guardians formed.
Not beasts.
Not humanoids.
Not simple constructs.
They were made of pure geometry—floating polyhedral shapes with spinning edges sharp as guillotines, reflections cascading over their mirrored surfaces. They orbited one another like a solar system built from death traps.
Swift smiled faintly.
"Alright. Let's dance."
The first shape shot toward him—a spinning cube whose every face rotated independently, each surface glowing with razor-thin energy lines.
Swift didn't dodge.
He stepped.
A single, precise shift of weight, tapping the edge of his foot against the ground.
The cube sliced past him, missing by less than a hair.
He didn't even blink.
Another shape—a twelve-faced polyhedron—whirled toward him from behind.
Swift turned his body sideways, shoulders aligning with an immaculate axis. The shape passed so close it brushed a strand of hair.
He reached out, two fingers extended, and tapped one of its faces.
A silver spark shot from his fingertip.
The entire construct rippled—edges stuttering, rotation faltering—before crashing into the floor below and dissolving into silver dust.
Swift exhaled slowly.
"Precision," he whispered. "Always precision."
Three more shapes launched themselves at him.
He stepped lightly onto a floating platform that rose to meet his movement—like the tower respected the flow of his motion.
He slid his foot forward an inch, guiding a platform beneath him. The platform tilted, sending him gliding into the air. The silver aura around him shimmered like frost caught in a breeze.
The first shape spun upward, trying to predict his trajectory.
It was wrong.
Swift dropped straight down, twisting mid-air, heel striking the top of the construct. His kick did not shatter it—the construct's armor was too hard. But the force generated a shockwave of perfectly directed energy, bending its rotation off-axis.
It spiraled wildly, collided with another shape, and both exploded in a shower of silver fragments.
Swift landed on another floating slab, body stable as stone.
His breathing hadn't changed.
The tower didn't hesitate.
It escalated.
Beams of silver light shot from the walls, sweeping horizontally, slicing the air like heavenly blades. Runes in the ceiling glowed bright, and spear-like constructs rained down from above.
Swift inhaled.
A long, calm breath.
In.
Hold.
Release.
He stepped forward.
The first beam flashed past him—missing because he leaned a fraction of a degree backward.
The second beam sliced downward—missing because he lowered his head by a single inch.
Three spear-like constructs descended in rapid succession, spinning so fast their edges hummed with deadly resonance.
Swift moved through them like silk sliding through a loom.
His arm raised, fingers extended.
Two taps on the first spear.
A palm strike to redirect the second.
A twist of his wrist to deflect the third.
All three shattered upon colliding with each other.
Julian Breadstone, watching from the distant announcer's booth, was practically vibrating.
"OHHHHH! LOOK AT HIM GO! SWIFT IS DANCING THROUGH AN 800-FLOOR DEATH TRAP LIKE HE'S AT A FORMAL TEA CEREMONY!"
Jimmy nodded, voice calm but impressed.
"He's not reacting. He's predicting. He's reading the tower's intent and adjusting before the attacks even finalize."
Julian gasped dramatically.
"HE'S OUT-PACING INTENT?!"
Jimmy's lips curled.
"Swift's whole body is a tuning fork for momentum, timing, and threat perception. This is what the Silver Dragon trials prepared him for."
The tower, annoyed now, shifted tactics entirely.
The floor rippled like liquid mercury.
All floating platforms dropped at once.
The walls folded in.
The ceiling came crashing down like the jaws of a colossal beast.
This wasn't a test anymore.
It was execution.
Swift's silver aura pulsed, brightening around his form for the first time.
Not wild. Not explosive.
Controlled.
Like a blade sharpened over centuries.
He tilted his chin upward.
And the world slowed.
Just a fraction.
Just enough.
The ceiling's descent revealed its structure—mirror panels arranged in fractal patterns, each capable of redirecting beams of pure annihilation. The walls folded like blades. The floor liquefied into traps.
Swift moved.
First step—onto a small point where the folding walls hadn't fully converged.
Second step—onto a rising panel that hadn't yet fully formed.
Third step—pressing lightly with his palm against a mirror seam, nudging it half an inch.
That slight adjustment bent the incoming death-beam by exactly the angle needed to slice apart the collapsing walls.
He jumped—straight into a narrow gap between the falling ceiling panels.
A spear of light shot toward him.
He rotated midair, silver aura coiling around his torso like mist, and used the momentum to twist just enough that the beam passed along the length of his body without touching him.
He landed on a single unbroken tile—the last tile remaining in the falling maze.
It broke beneath him.
He stepped off it before it shattered.
A floating fractal shield rose behind him—one of the remaining guardians—but Swift was faster.
His hand darted out, grabbing the shield by its corner while airborne. He flipped over it, letting it absorb the next barrage of beams, and rode it upward like a drifting leaf.
He touched down on a reconstructed platform as the shield exploded behind him.
Swift exhaled softly.
This floor would have ended almost anyone else.
But Swift wasn't like anyone else.
The guardians reformed, assembling into a massive megastructure—
not a creature,
not a humanoid,
but a swirling geometric cyclone of deadly edges.
A silver storm.
Swift's eyes narrowed.
"Good," he murmured. "I was getting bored."
The storm descended.
It spiraled toward him, a vortex of slicing planes and spinning blades.
Any wrong movement would mean being turned into strips.
Swift stepped forward.
Then—
He vanished.
Or at least, it looked like he did.
He moved with such perfect subtlety that the eye couldn't track him. No burst of speed. No flashy aura. Just… invisibility through precision.
He appeared at the next platform a moment later.
Then another.
Then another.
The silver storm tried to adjust, but his pattern was impossible to map.
He was not zigzagging.
He was not darting.
He was moving in a perfect line of least resistance—
the line the storm never thought to occupy.
He reached the storm's core in less than a breath.
His fingers tapped one key geometric anchor.
Just one.
The entire megastructure froze.
Swift let out a quiet breath and whispered:
"Fall."
The storm obeyed.
It unraveled in a cascading collapse, shards of silver geometry dissolving into glittering dust.
The floor flickered.
The tower whispered:
PASS.
A staircase of light descended.
Swift stepped forward, rolling his shoulders.
He was barely winded.
But as he walked into the portal, something tugged at him.
A pulse of chaotic presence.
A roar of raw hunger.
The Wolf King.
Swift frowned.
"Jake's climbing," he murmured. "Danny's stabilizing. Sedge is… Sedge. And the Wolf King just broke half a floor."
He looked up toward the higher levels.
"Alright then."
He closed his eyes.
A gust of silver aura flowed around him—cool, sharp, clear.
His breath steadied.
His heart did not race.
He stepped upward into Floor 801.
The tower braced.
Because Swift was not done.
Not close.
Now he had a focus.
A purpose.
A storm of wolves above him.
A storm of creation descending.
And a bronze dragon shaking entire floors below.
He had to keep climbing.
For Danny.
For Jake.
For the tournament.
For what was coming.
He whispered to himself:
"Silver never bends."
Then he ascended.