The stairwell was a concrete throat, swallowing the six of them into a suffocating darkness. The emergency lights were dead, leaving only the rhythmic, golden pulse of Vikram's aura to light the way.
"Keep your hands on the railing," Vikram whispered. His voice didn't shake anymore. It felt cold, like the edge of a sharpened blade.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[CURRENT LOCATION: THE ZENITH TOWER - STAIRWELL]
[CURRENT FLOOR: 19]
[DANGER LEVEL: LOW]
"Vikram, what are you looking at?" Teja asked, her voice trembling. She saw him staring into empty air, his eyes tracking something invisible.
"The System," Vikram replied shortly. "It's giving me data. It says we're on the nineteenth floor. We have to reach the lobby."
"System? Like a video game?" Aman let out a hysterical, high-pitched laugh. "Ananya is dead, the sky is purple, and you're talking about a game?"
Vikram stopped dead. The golden light around him flared, casting long, jagged shadows against the concrete walls. He turned to look at Aman. "It's not a game, Aman. It's a set of rules. And if we don't follow them, we end up like her. Do you understand?"
The group went silent. The grief was a physical weight, but the fear was sharper.
They reached the 15th-floor landing when a sound reached them from below. Scritch. Scritch. Scritch. It wasn't one creature. It was dozens.
"Back up," Vikram commanded, pushing Yuv behind him.
From the darkness of the 14th floor, a swarm of Shadow Rats—each the size of a street dog—scrambled up the stairs. Their eyes were tiny pinpricks of violet light, and their teeth were jagged shards of obsidian.
[QUEST ACTIVATED: THE FIRST GAUNTLET]
[OBJECTIVE: DEFEAT THE SWARM (0/30)]
"Vik, there's too many!" Viraaj yelled, grabbing a heavy fire extinguisher from the wall, his knuckles white.
"Don't move," Vikram said. He closed his eyes for a split second, feeling the heat in his chest. He didn't just have strength; he had Authority.
[SKILL UNLOCKED: SOVEREIGN'S PRESSURE (LVL 1)]
As the first rat leaped, its jaws snapping inches from Vikram's face, he released a wave of golden energy. It wasn't a physical blast, but a mental one.
The rats didn't just stop; they collapsed. Their tiny hearts burst from the sheer weight of Vikram's intent. The ones that survived scrambled over each other in a blind panic, squealing as they tried to flee from the monster in human skin.
Vikram stepped forward, crushing the skull of a stray rat under his boot. It vanished into black smoke.
[30/30 TARGETS NEUTRALIZED]
[LEVEL UP: 7]
[NEW REWARD: SOVEREIGN'S MARK (PASSIVE)]
"Is it over?" Ishaan asked, his face pale in the fading gold light.
"For now," Vikram said. He looked at his hand. The Sovereign's Mark allowed him to share a portion of his stats with an ally. He looked at Yuv, who was still gripping a crumpled Vada Pav wrapper like a lifeline.
"Yuv," Vikram said. "Take my hand."
"Why?"
"Because the city below is going to be worse than this building. I can't fight for all of us forever. You need to wake up."
As Yuv reached out, a spark of orange electricity jumped between them. For the first time, a System screen appeared in front of someone other than Vikram.
[LINK ESTABLISHED]
[SOVEREIGN'S MARK APPLIED TO ALLY: YUV]
[POTENTIAL DETECTED: THE VAJRA BODY]
Yuv's eyes widened as his muscles began to ripple and harden like iron. "Vik... what is this? I feel... heavy. Strong."
"That's the power to survive," Vikram said, turning back to the stairs. "Let's move. We're only halfway down."