I told Lyra to stay at the threshold of the sanctuary. "If I don't come back in three hours, go to the Second Floor. Blend in with the crowd. Don't let them know you were with me."
"Jin, don't do this alone," she pleaded, but I was already stepping off the ledge.
I didn't fall; I descended, using the Architect's Fracture to creates micro-vibrations against the vertical shaft walls, slowing my slide like a magnetic brake. The air grew thick with the smell of stagnant mana and ancient dust.
[LOCATION: THE CESSATION RADIUS (UNMAPPED ZONE)]
At the very bottom of the shaft, I found it. It wasn't a room, but a graveyard of discarded geometry. In the center sat a figure, slumped against a rusted pillar. It wore the tattered remains of a duster coat, and its right arm—or what was left of it—was a jagged stump of crystallized obsidian.
As I approached, the 7\bigstar mark on my hand pulsed violently. The figure's head tilted up. There was no flesh left, only a flickering, pale blue flame where a soul should be.
"Another one," the Echo rasped. Its voice didn't come from a throat; it was a vibration that shook my very marrow. "The Architect has a short memory. Or perhaps he just enjoys watching the same tragedy play out in different colors."
[ENTITY IDENTIFIED: KAIN – THE 4TH RUIN-BREAKER (DECEASED)]
"I'm not here to play a tragedy," I said, my gauntlet humming in resonance with the ghost. "I'm here to find out why you stopped."
The Echo of Kain laughed, a sound like grinding glass. He raised his stump. "I stopped because I realized the truth. We aren't 'Ruin-Breakers' because we break the Tower. We are called that because we are the fuel. Each time we 'reset' a floor, the friction of our power generates the energy the Tower needs to ascend higher. We are the flint, Jin. We spark, we burn, and then we are discarded."
He leaned forward, the blue flame in his eyes flaring.
"The Architect isn't waiting for you to succeed. He's waiting for you to combust. Tell me, little spark... does your arm already feel cold? Does the vibration stay in our bones even when you sleep?"
I went silent. He was describing exactly what I had been feeling.
"I can give you what's left of my 'Frequency,'" Kain whispered, reaching out with a spectral hand. "It will make you stronger than any player on the Second Floor. But it will accelerate your 'Breaking.' You'll reach the top faster, but you'll arrive as nothing but ash."
The darkness at the bottom of the Cessation Radius was unlike the darkness of a cave; it was the darkness of an emptied tomb. As I stood before the Echo of Kain, the fourth man to bear my curse, the air felt thick and viscous, as if the oxygen itself had turned to oil.
I looked at the obsidian stump where his right arm had once been. It wasn't just a wound. It was a crystallization of mana—a physical manifestation of a power that had reached its limit and turned inward.
"I don't want your frequency, Kain," I said, my voice cutting through the oppressive silence. "If I take your power, I'm just taking the momentum of your failure. I'm not here to be the next link in your chain."
The blue flame in Kain's sockets flickered. "Then you are a fool. Without my strength, you will meet the King on the Second Floor and find that his 'Divine Protection' is a wall you cannot vibrate through. You will be crushed by the weight of his numbers before you even see the 'fault lines' of his kingdom."
"Let them try," I said. I stepped forward, not toward his spectral hand, but toward the physical remains of his body.
The obsidian stump was disconnected from the ghost, embedded in the rusted floor where Kain had finally 'combusted.' It was a jagged, glass-like shard about the size of a short sword, pulsing with a faint, rhythmic heartbeat that countered the vibration of my own 7\bigstar mark. It was the only silent thing in this entire mechanical hell.
I knelt and gripped the obsidian.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[ATTEMPTING TO EXTRACT: THE SILENCE OF THE VOID]
[WARNING: This item contains the 'Anti-Resonance' of a failed Ruin-Breaker. High risk of sensory deprivation.]
I didn't let go. I felt the Architect's Fracture on my right arm scream in protest. The two energies—the chaotic, destructive vibration of my gauntlet and the absolute, sucking silence of the obsidian—were like oil and fire. My veins began to turn black where I touched the shard, the coldness spreading up my left arm, balancing the heat of my right.
"What are you doing?" Kain's ghost hissed, his form beginning to dissolve. "You are harvesting the 'Null'! That is the part that killed me! It is the entropy of the Tower!"
"It's not entropy," I gritted my teeth, my bones groaning under the pressure. "It's a brake. You failed because you couldn't stop the vibration. You were an engine with no clutch. I'm not making the same mistake."
For hours, I stayed in the dark. I didn't have a forge here, but I had the Ruin-Forge skill and the materials of a dead legend. I used the Fracture to "tenderize" the obsidian, not breaking it, but forcing it to merge with the Star-Steel cubes I had left.
As the two materials fused, the world around me began to glitch. The floor would disappear and reappear. The sound of the gears above would cut out entirely, replaced by a ringing silence so loud it made my ears bleed.
[CRAFTING PROGRESS: 95%... 98%... 100%]
[NEW ITEM COMPLETED: THE VOID-STILLED SHEATH]
[LEGENDARY SUB-TOOL — GROWTH TYPE]
I had created a mechanical housing for my left arm. It wasn't a weapon for striking; it was a stabilizer. When I crossed my arms, the obsidian in the left gauntlet would "eat" the excess vibration from the right, allowing me to store kinetic energy without it tearing my muscles apart.
I stood up, breathing heavily. I was covered in soot, oil, and the dust of a dead man. I looked at the spot where Kain had been sitting. The ghost was gone. Only a faint, scorched mark remained on the pillar.
[LEVEL UP! LVL. 12 -> LVL. 14]
Strength +5
Agility +3
Intelligence +10 (Understanding the Tower's Core)
I looked at my hands. Right arm: The Fracture (Destruction). Left arm: The Silence (Control).
I was no longer just a "Reset Button." I was a machine that could choose when to strike and when to stand still.
I began the long climb back up the shaft. My movements were different now. I didn't just slide; I moved with a terrifying, predator-like efficiency. When I reached the top, the three-hour mark was almost up.
Lyra was standing exactly where I left her, her barrier flickering with exhaustion. She had been keeping the "Engine" monsters away from our hideout the entire time. When she saw me, her eyes widened.
"Jin? Your left arm... it's black. Like glass."
"It's a gift from a friend," I said, my voice steady. "He told me I was supposed to be a disaster. I decided I'd rather be a revolution."
I looked toward the white marble stairs. The "Sanctuary" Elara had spoken of—the Second Floor—was waiting. But I could see something she hadn't mentioned. My [Architect's Eye], now enhanced by the "Silence" of Kain, could see through the marble.
The stairs weren't just a path. They were a Siphon.
Every player that walked up those stairs had a tiny fraction of their mana drained and sent into the "Engine" below. The Kingdom wasn't just a cage; it was a cattle farm. Kristov was the rancher, and the players were the livestock, providing the energy the Tower needed to keep the gears turning.
"Lyra," I said, pointing toward the stairs. "We're going up. But we're not taking the Kingdom's path."
"Then how do we get there?" she asked.
I looked at the massive, vertical pillar that held up the ceiling of the First Floor. It was the central axis of the Tower, a mile wide and glowing with pure, divine energy. No player would dare touch it; the heat alone would vaporize a Normal-Mode player.
"We climb the Axis Mundi," I said.
"That's suicide!" Lyra gasped. "That's the core of the System!"
"Exactly," I said, a dark grin spreading across my face. "If I'm the 'Reset Button,' it's time I saw the 'Motherboard'."
We didn't walk the stairs. We leapt onto the central pillar.
The heat was agonizing. My skin began to blister instantly, but I slammed the Architect's Fracture into the glowing surface. Instead of shattering the pillar, I used the Void-Silence in my left arm to "suck" the heat away from my body, funneling it into the gauntlet as raw energy.
[WARNING: SYSTEM INTERFERENCE DETECTED]
[ADMINISTRATOR 'ARCHITECT' IS OBSERVING...]
We climbed through the clouds, moving through the "Void Space" between the floors. Below us, I could see the Kingdom's "Expeditions" moving like ants on the white stairs. They looked so small, so trapped in their little rules of classes and pillars.
As we broke through the "ceiling" of the First Floor, the world transformed.
[LOCATION: FLOOR 2 — THE SKY-GARDEN OF JUDGEMENT]
It was a paradise of floating islands, golden waterfalls, and trees that bore fruit made of light. It was beautiful, but to my eyes, it was a graveyard of gold. At the center of the garden stood a massive cathedral—the "Council Hall" where Kristov and the Six Pillars ruled.
But we didn't land in the garden. We landed on the very top of the Cathedral's spire, looking down at the thousands of players below.
"Jin, look," Lyra whispered, pointing at the plaza below.
A massive execution was taking place. A group of "Rebels"—players who had tried to leave the Kingdom to explore the Gears—were being stripped of their gear and "Exiled" back to the Tutorial zone, which was essentially a death sentence now that the monsters had respawned.
Kristov stood on a balcony, his golden armor blinding in the artificial sun. He looked like a god.
"He's not a King," I muttered, the obsidian in my left arm pulsing with a cold, vengeful rhythm. "He's just a gatekeeper who's afraid of the dark."
I stood up on the tip of the spire, the wind whipping my tattered coat. I didn't hide. I didn't vanish. I raised my right arm, the Architect's Fracture glowing with a violent, golden light that rivaled the sun.
I slammed my fist into the spire.
[SKILL: STRUCTURAL COLLAPSE — RADIANT FREQUENCY]
The vibration didn't just break the stone. It sent a shockwave through the entire Sky-Garden. The golden waterfalls stopped flowing. The light-trees shivered. And every single player in the Kingdom—all players of them—received a system notification at the exact same second.
[WORLD ANNOUNCEMENT]
[THE 'CALAMITY' HAS ARRIVED.]
[PLAYER 'JIN' HAS ENTERED THE SECOND FLOOR.]
Kristov looked up, his eyes meeting mine from a mile away. The "Easy Mode" was over. The Ruin had come to the garden.