The Sky-Garden was no longer a paradise; it was a series of jagged, floating graveyards. Kristov stood at the edge of the largest remaining island, his golden cape shredded by the wind. Below him, the 130,000 survivors were moving in a massive, serpentine line.
They weren't the proud "Pillars" of a week ago. They were terrified refugees. Mages used their last bits of mana to float children across the gaps where the floor had fallen away. Fighters carried heavy crates of salvaged grain and rusted iron.
"My King," Elara approached, her face smeared with soot. "The Resource Guild reports that we've lost 60% of our food stores in the collapse. If we don't reach the Third Floor within forty-eight hours, the lower-level players will start to starve."
Kristov didn't look back. He was staring at the Axis Mundi, the central pillar where Jin had disappeared. "He didn't just break the floor, Elara. He broke their spirit. They don't believe in the 'Easy Mode' anymore. They've seen the Engine."
He turned to his people, his voice amplified by a divine skill. "Do not look down! Look forward! The Third Floor is not a void; it is a challenge! We will take the materials we need from the rust itself! I will lead you to a new sanctuary, and I will execute the one who stole your peace!"
The roar that came back was hollow, but it was enough. Kristov stepped onto the massive, makeshift bridge his Summoners had built toward the main gate. He was no longer building a kingdom of comfort; he was leading a Crusade of Survival.
Prologue: The Sea of Rust
The Third Floor is where the Tower stops pretending to be a world and reveals itself as a machine.
Imagine an infinite ocean, but instead of water, the waves are made of billions of tons of discarded metal, rusted gears, and pulverized iron. The "water" is a fine, red dust that clogs the lungs and jams the joints of even the strongest warriors. Massive "Islands" of compacted junk drift in the currents, occasionally colliding with the force of a nuclear explosion.
There is no sun here. The only light comes from the bioluminescent mold that feeds on the rust and the occasional flash of "Static Storms"—lightning that jumps between the iron waves, looking for a ground.
[LOCATION: FLOOR 3 — THE SEA OF RUST]
Environmental Hazard: Tetanus Fog (Reduces healing by 50%).
Condition: Metal-Stress (All non-Legendary gear loses durability 10x faster).
While Kristov led his army through the main gate, I emerged from the Axis Mundi directly into the center of the Sea of Rust.
The transition was violent. One moment I was climbing a pillar of heat; the next, a blast of freezing, metallic wind nearly tore me off the ledge. I slammed the Architect's Fracture into a mountain of rusted scrap to anchor myself.
"Jin!" Lyra coughed, her hand over her mouth as the red dust filled the air. "I can't... the mana here... it feels heavy!"
"It's the iron," I shouted over the screeching wind of a distant static storm. "The air is 40% metal shavings. Your barriers will act like magnets. Don't use them unless you have to."
I looked out over the horizon. It was a landscape of orange, brown, and blood-red. Below us, the "Sea" shifted and groaned—a literal ocean of scrap metal that moved in tides.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[YOU HAVE ENTERED A 'NO-MANS LAND' ZONE]
[LEVEL 14 -> LEVEL 15 (LEVEL UP!)]
New Perk: Rust-Proofing (Passive) — Your Ruin-Breaker frequency prevents metallic dust from settling in your joints.
"We can't walk on that," Lyra said, pointing at the shifting waves of junk below. "If we fall in, we'll be ground to pieces by the moving metal."
"We aren't walking," I said.
I looked at my left arm—the Void-Silence. It was pulsing. It wasn't reacting to the rust; it was reacting to something underneath it. Deep in the Sea, something massive was moving. A rhythmic, heavy thud that shook the very foundation of the floor.
"Something is hunting in these waves," I muttered
I grabbed a discarded steel cable from the pile we stood on. I wrapped it around my waist and then around Lyra's.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"The previous Ruin-Breakers didn't just leave armor behind," I said, my Architect's Eye scanning the "Sea." "They left a trail.
Look at the waves, Lyra. They aren't moving randomly."
Through the blueprint-view of the Tower, I could see a "Current" of pure kinetic energy. It was a highway of vibration that bypassed the dangerous scrap.
"We're going to surf the rust," I said.
I jumped.
We hit the moving sea of metal, but instead of sinking, I activated the Fracture at a specific frequency. We didn't touch the metal; we hovered an inch above it on a cushion of high-speed vibration. We became a human sled, screaming across the surface of the Sea of Rust at eighty miles per hour.
[SKILL EVOLUTION: KINETIC SURFING (RANK D)]
As we sped toward the center of the floor, the first obstacle of the Sea of Rust appeared. Out of the red waves rose a Scrap-Colossus—a monster the size of a skyscraper made of thousands of rusted swords and shields.
It wasn't a monster born from the System. It was a monster made of the failed dreams of the players who died here.
"Jin! It's blocking the path!" Lyra screamed as the Colossus raised a hand made of a hundred broken tanks.
"Good," I growled, the obsidian in my left arm glowing. "I needed a target to test the new level."
A massive, subterranean tectonic shift occurred within the Sea of Rust. Somewhere deep in the belly of the floor, a primary gear the size of a mountain had slipped. The result was a Tidal Wave of Metal.
A wall of jagged steel, serrated iron, and toxic red dust rose three hundred feet into the air. It wasn't water; it was a vertical avalanche of grinding blades. Anything it touched wouldn't just drown—it would be atomized.
"Jin! Look up!" Lyra's voice was high with panic as she clung to the cable connecting us.
The Scrap-Colossus didn't even have time to swing. The wave hit it first. The titan, made of thousands of tons of metal, was swept away like a pile of autumn leaves, its massive form being shredded back into raw scrap as it was consumed by the tide.
"Don't stop!" I shouted. My feet were burning from the friction of the Kinetic Surf.
I saw the "Fault Line" of the wave. Even a wall of death has a point of least resistance.
I focused the Architect's Fracture to its maximum output. My right arm began to glow a violent, neon gold, while my left arm—the Silence—pulsed black to keep my heart from stopping under the recoil.
[SKILL: PIERCING RESONANCE — THE DIVIDER]
I didn't try to outrun the wave. I steered us directly into the center of the crashing metal.
"Brace yourself!"
I lunged forward, leading with the point of the Fracture. At the moment of impact, I released a high-frequency vibration that didn't just break the scrap—it created a Sonic Tunnel. For a split second, the metal wave parted, held back by a physical wall of sound and pressure.
We shot through the center of the wave. Around us, I could see the faces of long-dead players trapped in the metal, their armor and weapons being recycled by the floor.
BOOM.
We burst out the other side, skidding across a relatively stable island of compacted machinery. Behind us, the wave slammed into the pillars of the floor with enough force to shake the entire Tower.
The Aftermath: The Breath of the Void
I collapsed onto the rusted ground, my right arm smoking. The Architect's Fracture was red-hot, the metal of the gauntlet hissing as it cooled in the toxic air.
[STAMINA: 12%]
[MANA: 5%]
[WARNING: OVERHEATING DETECTED]
Lyra tumbled beside me, coughing up red dust. She looked back at the wave, which was now settling into a slow, churning vortex. "We... we survived that?"
"Barely," I wheezed.
I looked at my hands. The obsidian on my left arm was cracked. The "Silence" had taken too much of the impact. I reached out and touched a nearby rusted pipe, attempting to use [Devour] to repair the gauntlet, but the material was too low-grade. It was nothing but trash.
"Jin, look over there," Lyra whispered, pointing toward the center of the vortex.
As the scrap settled, a structure was revealed that hadn't been there before. It was a Black Tower within the Tower—a spire made of pure, un-rusted obsidian that stood perfectly still amidst the churning sea of junk.
At the base of the spire, a figure stood. He wasn't a player. He was tall, thin, and wore a suit made of shifting clockwork. He held a silver stopwatch in his hand.
[ENTITY IDENTIFIED: THE CHRONO-KEEPER (FLOOR 3 ADMINISTRATOR)]
The figure looked toward us and clicked the stopwatch.
"You are early," the Administrator's voice echoed, perfectly clear despite the wind. "The Kingdom is still miles back, struggling with the tide. But you... you have the scent of the 4th Ruin-Breaker on you."
He began to walk toward us, his feet making no sound on the jagged metal.
"The Architect wants to know," the Keeper said, stopping ten paces away. "Now that you've seen the graveyard of your predecessors, do you still wish to climb? Or would you like to take your place in the Sea of Rust now, while there's still room for a Level 15?"
I looked at the Chrono-Keeper, his clockwork suit ticking in a thousand different rhythms. The offer was a classic Tower trap: progress at the cost of the only person I trusted. Behind me, Lyra's breath hitched. She didn't speak, but I could feel her mana-signature trembling.
"Fast-forward to the Fourth Floor," I repeated, my voice raspy from the red dust. "And all I have to do is leave the girl?"
The Administrator smiled, a cold, mechanical movement of his lips. "She will become part of the Sea's history. A small price for a 'Calamity' to reach his destination. Do we have a contract?"
"We have a deal," I said, stepping forward.
"Jin!" Lyra gasped, her voice breaking. I didn't look back at her. I kept my eyes on the silver stopwatch in the Keeper's hand.
"But," I added, raising my left arm—the cracked Void-Silence. "A Ruin-Breaker doesn't travel light. If I'm going to the Fourth Floor, I need to 'compress' my baggage. Let me prepare her mana-core so she doesn't destabilize your spire while I'm gone."
The Chrono-Keeper tilted his head, his gears whirring. To him, I was just a desperate player. He clicked his stopwatch, slowing the movement of the rust-waves around us to a crawl. "Proceed. You have thirty seconds of local time."
I turned to Lyra. Her eyes were wide with a mix of betrayal and confusion. I grabbed her wrists, pulling her close.
"Trust me," I hissed, so low the wind almost ate the words.
I didn't prepare her mana-core. Instead, I used the Void-Silence to 'suck' every stray vibration from her body, making her "invisible" to the Tower's sensors for a fleeting moment. Simultaneously, I reached into my inventory and pulled out the Gear-Guardian Core fragments I had kept from the First Floor.
I didn't hand them to her. I jammed them into the 'fault line' of the ground right between me and the Administrator.
"Now!" I roared.
I didn't strike the Administrator. I struck the Concept of the Deal.
[SKILL: ARCHITECT'S DECEPTION — RESONANT FRAUD]
Using the Fracture on my right and the Silence on my left, I created a "Feedback Loop." I didn't break the stopwatch—I 'synced' my heartbeat to it.
"I'm not leaving her," I growled, my hand slamming into the obsidian ground. "I'm 'folding' her into my shadow. In the eyes of your contract, we are now one entity. One player. One price."
[SYSTEM LOG: ERROR]
[CONTRACT AMENDMENT DETECTED...]
[LOGIC LEAP: PLAYER 'LYRA' IS NOW CLASSIFIED AS 'EQUIPMENT' OF PLAYER 'JIN']
The Chrono-Keeper's silver eyes flashed with a violent purple light. The gears in his suit began to grind and smoke. I had used the Ruin-Breaker's ability to find the flaw in the System's own legal logic.
"You... trickster," the Keeper hissed, his voice distorted like a skipping record. "You would dare use the Void to hide a soul?"
"The contract is signed," I said, grabbing Lyra and pulling her behind the 'Shield' of my own status. "The Fourth Floor. Now. Or does the Administrator want to break his own word in front of the Architect?"
The stopwatch in his hand began to glow white-hot. He had been outplayed. If he refused, the System would penalize him for a broken contract. If he accepted, I had just smuggled a 'Player' through a 'Single-User' shortcut.
"Fine," the Keeper spat, clicking the watch with a force that cracked the silver casing. "Go. But know this, Jin. On the Fourth Floor, there are no shadows to hide in. You have made an enemy of Time itself."
The world blurred. The Sea of Rust didn't fade; it accelerated until the red dust became a solid wall of fire.
Floor 4: The Neon Labyrinth of the Unspoken
We didn't land on solid ground. We landed in a world of glass, electricity, and vertical silence.
[LOCATION: FLOOR 4 — THE SILENT GRID]
Special Rule: All vocal communication is disabled.
The Toll: Your 'Deception' has caused a permanent debuff. Lyra is stuck in 'Spirit Form'—she cannot interact with the world, only you, until you find a Soul-Anchor.