The transition from the obsidian Pit of Trials to the First Floor was not a journey; it was a violent restructuring of reality. One moment, Arthur Penhaligon was standing amidst the settling ash of atomized spiders; the next, his lungs were seized by air so thick and humid it felt like inhaling warm, liquid silk. The scent was a cloying mixture of overripe nectar and the sharp, metallic tang of ozone.
[Floor 1: The Weeping Canopy]
[Condition: Eternal Monsoon (Corrosive)]
[Objective: Reach the Heart of the Grove]
The world was a cathedral of predatory green. Trees the size of skyscrapers arched overhead, their trunks wrapped in pulsating, vein-like vines. But it was the sky—or what remained of it—that commanded terror. The violet clouds of the Pit had been replaced by a heavy, lime-colored mist that dripped. It didn't fall in drops; it fell in thick, oily needles of translucent vitriol.
"Argh! My eyes! It's in my eyes!"
The screams began instantly. The survivors—now reduced to a mere forty—were clutching their faces. The rain was a weak acid, designed by the Tower's architects to be a "pressure mechanic." It was meant to force Challengers to move, to fight for shelter, and to exhaust their Mana on defensive barriers.
Arthur looked down at his own hand. A heavy, glowing drop of the green rain landed on his knuckle. He watched with clinical detachment as the liquid hissed, the skin beneath it reddening and bubbling in real-time.
[Warning: Acidic Corrosion detected. -2 HP per second.]
The pain was sharp, a stinging needle of heat, but Arthur's mind remained as cold as a data center. He was a man of logic, and logic dictated that a system with rules could be exploited.
I have three Loop Slots available, he thought. The first must be survival.
He didn't choose to heal. Healing was a reactive process; it consumed resources after the damage was done. Instead, Arthur targeted the specific millisecond of impact resistance in his own skin cells. He reached into the logic of his own biology and grabbed the moment his skin was still whole.
Slot 1: Biological Regression—Molecular Integrity.
Suddenly, the red welt on his hand vanished. The acid was still there, sizzling against his skin, but the skin was constantly regressing to its state from one millisecond ago. The chemical reaction was forced into an infinite loop of "just about to happen." To the naked eye, the acid simply sat on his hand like harmless water, unable to find purchase.
[Status: Absolute Environmental Immunity (Rank: F-D) – Active.]
"Arthur! Please!"
It was Elena, the architect. She was huddling under a massive, fleshy fern, but the acid was already eating through the plant's fibers, dripping onto her shoulder. Her Level 1 "Basic Mana Shield" was flickering like a dying lightbulb.
Arthur stepped out into the open, directly into the heaviest downpour. He didn't run for cover. He walked with the measured pace of a man taking a stroll through a park.
Slot 2: Atmospheric Regression—Kinetic Displacement.
Arthur visualized the air three feet around his body. He didn't want to move the air; he wanted to loop its velocity. He triggered the skill on the oxygen molecules surrounding him, forcing them into a tight, circular orbit that repeated infinitely.
A localized whirlwind erupted around him. It wasn't a natural wind; it was a "static storm." The acid rain, caught in the infinite repetition of the wind's circular path, was flung outward with the force of a centrifuge.
"Get in," Arthur commanded, his voice cutting through the roar of the rain.
The survivors didn't hesitate. They scrambled into the five-foot "Dry Zone" surrounding Arthur, shivering and staring at him with a mixture of reverence and primal terror. Inside the circle, the air was perfectly still and bone-dry. Outside, the world was melting.
The Predator in the Leaves
As the group moved deeper into the Canopy, the forest grew unnervingly quiet. The sound of the rain was muffled by the sheer density of the foliage. The "ground" beneath them was a tangled mess of roots that felt more like muscle than wood.
"We're being watched," whispered a man named Miller. He was clutching a rusted gladius, his eyes darting toward the canopy. Miller was a senior sales rep—a man who lived for the "hustle"—and even now, his eyes were calculating. He wasn't looking at the monsters; he was looking at Arthur's back, wondering how much that power was worth.
Above them, the leaves rustled. Not from the wind, but from weight.
[Warning: Floor Guardian 'Vine-Constrictor' has detected an Illegal Heat Signature.]
From the shadows above, a massive, rope-like limb—thick as a sewer pipe and covered in jagged, obsidian thorns—whipped down. It moved with the speed of a falling guillotine, aimed directly at the center of the "Dry Zone."
Arthur didn't even look up. He simply raised his left hand, palm open to the sky.
Slot 3: Kinetic Regression—Friction.
The vine slammed into Arthur's palm with enough force to crush a car. But it didn't move an inch further.
Arthur didn't use strength to stop it. He used the logic of friction. He looped the moment of contact resistance between his palm and the vine. In a fraction of a second, the friction at that single point of contact multiplied by a factor of a billion.
Physics dictated that friction generated heat. By looping the friction infinitely, the temperature at the point where the vine touched Arthur's hand bypassed the boiling point and reached the flash point of carbon in less than a heartbeat.
WHOOMPH.
The vine didn't just stop; it spontaneously combusted. A pillar of white-hot, violet flame roared upward, traveling back along the vine's length like a burning fuse. The predator in the canopy let out a screech—a sound like grinding tectonic plates—as its entire nervous system was incinerated from the inside out by the kinetic energy it had used to strike.
[You have slain 'Greater Vine-Constrictor'.]
[Experience Gained: 1,200.]
[Level Up! Level: 14.]
The charred remains of the vine crumbled into ash, floating harmlessly away in Arthur's wind-loop.
"My god," Elena breathed, her eyes wide. "You're not even fighting them. You're just... letting them break themselves against you."
"The System provides the force," Arthur said, staring at his glowing Level-Up notification. "I just provide the circle for it to run in."
The First Shadow
As Arthur reached Level 15, a new prompt appeared, one that stayed hidden from the rest of the group.
[Skill Evolution Available: Loop Slot 4.]
[Requirement: Absorb a 'Guardian Essence'.]
"Hey, Arthur," Miller said, stepping closer. He had a fake, oily smile plastered on his face. "Listen, we all appreciate what you're doing. But we've been talking. We need to share the loot. That vine monster dropped a 'Core', didn't it? It belongs to the group."
Arthur turned his head. His eyes were cold, devoid of the social niceties that usually governed human interaction. "I am the only reason you are not currently a puddle of soup on the forest floor, Julian. The 'Core' is mine. The safety is mine. If you want to discuss 'sharing', you are welcome to step outside the circle."
Miller flinched, his hand tightening on his sword. "I was just saying—"
"Don't," Arthur interrupted.
Suddenly, the "Dry Zone" flickered. Arthur felt a sharp, icy pressure in the back of his mind. It was as if a massive, invisible eye had just opened in the sky and was staring directly at his soul.
[System Admin 'The Overseer' has flagged User: Arthur Penhaligon.]
[Action: Deploying Entropic Pulse to stabilize reality.]
The green rain stopped instantly. But it wasn't a relief. The forest began to lose its color, turning into a dull, pixelated grey. The sounds of the jungle cut out, replaced by a low, vibrating hum that made Arthur's teeth ache.
"What's happening?" Elena cried, her hand becoming translucent. "I can't feel my legs!"
The System was "unweaving" the area. It was a localized reset—a way for the Tower to "delete" a glitch by simply erasing the space it occupied.
Arthur felt his body starting to dissolve into white cubes of data. This was the one thing he couldn't loop—the end of existence itself. If there was no "moment" to regress to, the skill was useless.
No, Arthur thought, his eyes burning with a sudden, violent gold light. A deletion is just a command. And every command has a beginning.
"Fenris," Arthur whispered, not even sure why he was saying the name.
From Arthur's own shadow, a pair of glowing yellow eyes snapped open. A small, pitch-black cat with nine tails stepped out onto the grey, dissolving ground. It yawned, stretching its limbs as if it hadn't just appeared in the middle of a reality-wipe.
"Took you long enough, kid," the cat said, its voice a deep, gravelly bass that resonated in Arthur's bones. "The System is trying to 'Alt-F4' you. Want me to bite it?"
"Do it," Arthur hissed.
The cat, Fenris, didn't move. He simply hissed at the sky. The hiss was a sound of such pure, primordial power that the grey "deletion" stalled. The pixels froze.
"Now," Fenris grinned, showing rows of teeth that looked like shattered stars. "Loop the delay. If you can make the 'Moment of Deletion' take an eternity to execute, you win."
Arthur understood. He didn't try to stop the deletion; he grabbed the speed at which the deletion was occurring.
Slot 3 (REPLACED): Temporal Regression—Execution Speed.
The "unweaving" of the world slowed down. Then it stopped. Then, under the pressure of the infinite regression, it began to move backward. The grey pixels turned back into green leaves. Elena's legs solidified. The color returned to the world with a violent, oversaturated flash.
[System Error: Entropic Pulse Failed.]
[Logical Paradox Detected.]
[The Overseer is... confused.]
Arthur fell to one knee, blood pouring from his nose. His Level had jumped again—Level 20.
He looked at the black cat sitting calmly on a root. "Who are you?"
"I'm the guy who was here before the Tower had a name," Fenris said, licking a paw. "And you, Arthur Penhaligon, are the most interesting glitch I've seen in three thousand years. Now get up. The Floor Boss is pissed that you just broke its house."
In the distance, the ground began to heave. A massive, wooden heart, the size of a building, began to rise from the soil, surrounded by the skulls of gods.
Arthur wiped the blood from his face and stood up. He looked at Miller, who was trembling, and then at the boss.
"Let's go," Arthur said. "I have a system to delete."