The stone of Floor 70 felt different.
It wasn't just the texture underfoot—slick and uneven, like the dungeon hadn't finished loading. It was the silence. The kind that pressed against your eardrums until you heard your own blood moving.
Cain hated it.
"Sound's muted," Mira said quietly, crouched at the corner of the corridor.
Lucis held his shield tight. "Still reads as a normal zone. But the geometry's off. These corners are too tight for proper mob spacing."
"Like the Tower's adapting," Arin added. "Reacting to us."
Cain said nothing. His eyes swept the far end of the hall, where glowing crimson runes floated midair like a slow heartbeat.
[New Objective: Defeat the Watchers (0/3)]
"Looks like we're still being tracked," Cain muttered. "Arin, you see any spawn timers?"
Arin opened a diagnostic overlay. "Yes. But they're unstable—values are jittering every second."
"Perfect," Cain said. "Let's make a mess."
---
The Watchers appeared mid-hallway in a ripple of static. They looked like statues—humanoid, eight feet tall, no faces, no eyes. Just dense armor layered with shifting symbols.
Cain was already moving before they finished rendering.
"Lucis, left flank! Mira right—Arin, suppression veil!"
[Spell Cast: Reality Suppression Veil]
The hallway darkened, particle effects dimming as Arin warped light itself. Mira vanished from view. Lucis charged the first Watcher, shield raised.
The Watcher moved like a machine—but not like a player. Too fluid. Too precise. It didn't swing—it executed.
Lucis blocked the first strike, but the second split his shield in two.
He exploded in light.
[Lucis – Deceased. Respawn Pending… 00:02:00]
Cain was already at its side, blade flashing red. He drove it into the joint of the Watcher's neck.
[Bloodline Skill Activated: Phantom Rend]
The blade hit, bit deep—but the system glitched. His HUD flashed.
[Critical Registered — Rollback Confirmed]
Cain blinked.
The Watcher was untouched.
He twisted, pivoted, kicked off the wall—and Mira took its head off from behind.
"Double-registered kill," she said, materializing. "Clean your finishers better."
Cain huffed. "I loosened it."
---
The other two Watchers went down hard.
Arin overcharged a spell and burned out half his interface in the process. Mira took a cut down her thigh that made her limp for the next fifteen minutes. Lucis respawned in time to loot nothing.
But they won.
[Objective Complete. XP Gained: +82,000]
The floor didn't brighten.
No fanfare. No item drops.
Just a slow pulsing in the walls.
---
They made camp in a half-rendered side hall, with geometry that flickered every ten seconds.
"Not normal," Arin said, checking his cooldown registry. "None of this is running clean."
"I don't like this," Mira muttered. "Even the loot tables are empty."
Lucis sighed. "I swear to God, if we die and lose our gear without getting anything back—"
"You'll do it again tomorrow," Cain said, tossing him a ration bar.
Lucis caught it. "Yeah. Probably."
Cain leaned back against the glitching wall, eyes half-closed.
The pulse was still there.
He didn't say anything.
But the Tower felt… aware.
And for the first time, it felt like it wasn't just watching.
It was waiting.