The second safe zone was larger than the first, sprawling across what looked like the ruins of an ancient city rebuilt a dozen times over. Crumbling stone walls sat beside gleaming metal structures, and wooden bridges connected buildings that shouldn't have stood on their own. The Tower didn't care about architectural consistency.
Dante led his expanded group through the crowded streets, noting the familiar landmarks from his original timeline. The information broker's den would be three blocks east. The equipment traders clustered near the central plaza. The guild recruiters had already set up their banners along the main thoroughfare.
"This place is massive," Dax said, craning his neck to take in a tower that stretched into a sky that wasn't quite a sky. "How do people not get lost?"
"They do," Dante replied. "The safe zones are designed to disorient. Keeps climbers dependent on guides and information networks."
Sera fell into step beside him, her transformation scars catching the diffuse light. "You know a lot about how the Tower works."
"Observation."
"That's what you keep saying." She didn't push further, but her eyes never stopped studying him. "Where are we heading?"
"Northeast quarter. There's a building with defensible positions and access to the main plaza. We set up there, rest for the full twenty-four hours before Floor 3 opens."
Lena raised an eyebrow. "You know the specific building?"
"I know what to look for."
The lie came easily. He knew the building because he spent three weeks there in his original timeline, recovering from injuries that almost killed him. The owner, a retired climber named Holt, rented rooms to groups who could afford discretion.
Holt would remember Dante's face if he saw it, but that Dante was eight years older and covered in scars. The teenage version walking these streets now wouldn't trigger any recognition.
Small mercies.
---
The building was exactly where he remembered it, a three-story structure of dark stone with narrow windows and a single reinforced door. Holt sat on a stool outside, whittling something that might have been a knife handle.
He looked up as they approached. Old eyes, sharp despite the grey in his beard. "Room for eight?"
"Two rooms if you have them. Connecting if possible."
"Got a suite on the third floor. Big enough for your crew. Hundred crystals, includes food and access to the bathhouse."
Dante handed over the mana fragments without haggling. Holt's prices were fair, and the man's discretion was worth more than the cost.
They settled into the suite as the artificial night began to fall over the safe zone. The space was bare but clean, with sleeping mats arranged along the walls and a central area for meeting. Windows on three sides gave good sight lines.
Sera's group, four climbers including herself, claimed one corner. Dax and Lena took another. Dante positioned himself near the door.
"You always sleep by the exit?" one of Sera's people asked. A young man named Voss, barely twenty, with the nervous energy of someone who wasn't sure they belonged here.
"Always."
"Seems paranoid."
"Paranoia keeps you alive."
Voss didn't have a response to that. He settled into his mat and closed his eyes, though Dante doubted he would sleep much tonight.
The others drifted off gradually, exhaustion from Floor 2 pulling them under. Only Sera remained awake, sitting with her back against the wall, watching the darkness through the window.
Dante crossed the room and sat beside her. Close enough to talk quietly, far enough to give space.
"You don't sleep much either," she observed.
"Old habit."
"For a first-time climber, you have a lot of old habits." She turned to look at him directly. "I'm not going to ask what your secret is. Not yet. But I want you to know that I'm watching."
"I'd expect nothing less."
"And when I figure it out, we're going to have a conversation."
"Looking forward to it."
She snorted, the sound almost like a laugh. "You're strange, Dante. Everyone else in this tower is terrified, desperate, or both. You move like someone who's already seen how this ends."
'Because I have.'
"Just focused," he said aloud.
"Uh-huh." She leaned her head back against the wall. "Wake me in four hours. I'll take second watch."
"I don't need sleep."
"Everyone needs sleep."
"Then I need less than most."
She studied him for a long moment, then shrugged. "Your funeral. Just don't collapse during Floor 3. I'm not carrying you."
"Noted."
Sera closed her eyes, and within minutes her breathing steadied into the rhythm of sleep. Dante watched the window, tracking the movement of climbers in the streets below, and let his mind work through the problems ahead.
---
Floor 3 was a team formation challenge. The Tower forced climbers to form official parties, binding them together through the System for the duration of the floor. Betray your party, and you suffered penalties. Abandon them, and you might not survive.
In his original timeline, Dante formed a party with three strangers who all died by the end of the week. One to monsters, one to another party's ambush, one to a trap he should have seen coming.
This time would be different.
He had Dax and Lena, loyal and growing competent. He had Sera, a future powerhouse who trusted him enough to follow his lead. Her group included Voss (nervous but trainable), Marcus (a quiet tank-type with shield skills), Iris (a healer who never spoke unless spoken to), and Cole (a scout who moved almost silently).
Eight people. A full party for Floor 3.
The question was whether to keep all of them, or trim the group before the real challenges began.
Voss was a liability. Nervous, second-guessing, the type to freeze at the wrong moment. In the original timeline, climbers like him died fast and took others with them.
But sending him away meant he'd join another group, probably one that would get him killed anyway. And Sera might object. She clearly felt responsible for her people.
Dante filed the problem away. He could decide after seeing how Voss performed on Floor 3.
---
Morning came with the gradual brightening of the fake sky. The group stirred, ate the bland rations Holt provided, and gathered their gear.
"Floor 3 opens in two hours," Dante said. "We need to register as an official party before we enter."
"How does that work?" Dax asked.
"Registration desk near the gate. We declare ourselves a party, the System binds us together for the floor's duration. Shared communication, shared penalties if we abandon each other, shared rewards if we clear efficiently."
"What happens if we don't register?"
"We get assigned randomly to fill other parties. Or we go solo, which means higher difficulty and no backup."
Sera nodded. "We register as eight, then. My group and yours."
"That's the plan."
They made their way through the waking safe zone, joining the stream of climbers heading toward the Floor 3 gate. Dante spotted familiar faces in the crowd, people who would become important later, people who would die, people who didn't know their fates were already written.
And there, near the front of the line, Elliot Crane.
The golden boy was surrounded by at least thirty climbers, all wearing matching bands on their arms that marked them as his alliance. He was shaking hands, remembering names, making everyone feel like the most important person in the tower.
Their eyes met across the crowd.
Elliot smiled and raised a hand in greeting, the same friendly gesture he always used.
Dante nodded once, keeping his expression neutral.
'Not yet, but the time's coming.'
The registration desk was a simple table manned by what looked like tower natives, humanoid figures with too-smooth skin and eyes that didn't blink enough. They processed parties with mechanical efficiency.
"Party of eight," Dante said when they reached the front. "Dante Graves, party leader."
"Names of all members?"
He listed them off. The administrator's fingers moved across a glowing tablet, inputting the data.
[Party registration: Complete]
[Party name: Undesignated]
[Members: 8/8]
[Floor 3 access: Granted]
"You're registered," the administrator said. "The gate opens in ninety-three minutes. Good luck, climbers."
They moved away from the desk, finding a quiet corner to wait.
"Party leader?" Sera asked, her tone half-amused, half-challenging.
"You want the job?"
"No. Just making sure you know it comes with responsibility."
"I know."
"Then we're good."
Dax was reading something in his System interface, eyes distant as he scrolled through menus only he could see. "There's a party selection. It says we can choose a party name."
"Does it matter?"
"Probably not. But it feels weird being 'Undesignated.' Like we don't exist."
Lena shrugged. "Call us 'The Eight' and be done with it."
"That's boring."
"We're not here to be interesting. We're here to survive."
Dante let them debate. Names didn't matter. Performance did. But if a name helped them feel like a team, he wouldn't object.
"Grey," he said, cutting through the discussion.
Everyone looked at him.
"Call us Grey. Short, simple, doesn't attract attention."
"Grey like the color?" Voss asked.
"Grey like the space between black and white. Like the place where decisions get made."
Sera's eyes narrowed slightly, that studying look again. "Poetic."
"Practical."
She shrugged. "Grey it is."
Dax entered the name, and the System updated their status. [Party: Grey]
It was a small thing. Meaningless in the grand scheme of the tower. But Dante felt something shift as the name registered. These people were his now. His responsibility. His to protect or fail.
'Don't fail this time.'
He pushed the thought aside and watched the gate, waiting for it to open.
---
Floor 3 was a jungle.
The gate deposited them in a clearing surrounded by vegetation so thick it blocked out most of the strange purple light that passed for this floor's sun. Vines as thick as arms hung from trees that stretched a hundred meters high. The air was hot, humid, and filled with the sounds of things moving just out of sight.
[Floor 3: The Binding]
[Objective: Reach the central nexus]
[Secondary: Survive 5 days]
[Party restriction: Do not separate by more than 100 meters]
[Penalty for violation: Progressive stat reduction]
"A hundred meters?" Marcus said, reading the notification. "That's not much room to work with."
"It's enough," Dante replied. "Stay tight, move together, don't wander. The floor is designed to split parties up. Don't let it."
Sera was scanning the treeline, her eyes flickering toward gold as her power stirred. "Creatures in the canopy. At least six. Tier 2, maybe higher."
"We move on the ground. Avoid engaging unless forced."
"And if we're forced?"
"Then we kill them fast and keep moving."
He took point, leading them into the jungle. The vegetation closed behind them like a wound healing, and Floor 3 began.