The sensation of the Floor Transfer was unlike the violent descent into the Pit. It was a silent, clinical dissolution. Arthur felt his molecules being sorted, indexed, and reassembled. When the white light finally receded, the humidity of the Weeping Canopy was gone, replaced by the dry, metallic tang of an industrial metropolis.
[Floor 2: The Trade-City of Ghal-Zul]
[Status: Neutral Zone / Inter-Planetary Hub]
[Note: Violence is prohibited within city limits. Violation results in 'System Erasure'.]
Arthur stood on a platform of floating obsidian. Beside him, Elena gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. Behind them, the remaining thirty-odd survivors from the office sat on the cold ground, shivering in their torn suits and ruined dresses.
They weren't in a forest anymore. They were in a canyon of steel and neon that stretched upward until the buildings vanished into a permanent amber twilight. Above them, massive ships made of bone and crystal drifted through the air, and the "stars" were actually the glowing windows of the upper districts.
But it was the crowd that froze the humans in place.
Thousands of beings moved through the plaza below the platform. There were creatures with four arms and skin like polished sapphire; insectoid giants in silk robes that clicked their mandibles in rhythmic conversation; and ethereal, floating wisps of light draped in heavy iron chains.
"We... we aren't alone," Elena whispered, her voice trembling.
"We never were," Arthur said, his eyes scanning the crowd. "We were just the last ones invited to the party."
The Evaluation of the Herd
As the humans descended the crystalline stairs into the main plaza, the chatter of the city didn't stop, but the atmosphere shifted. The alien entities began to slow down, their many eyes—lateral, vertical, and compound—turning toward the group.
A group of tall, gaunt beings with elongated limbs and skin the color of bruised plums stepped into their path. They wore fine, translucent tunics and carried scanners that hummed with a low, predatory frequency.
[Race Identified: The Star-Eaters (Rank: B-Grade Merchant Class)]
One of the Star-Eaters, a male with a crest of silver feathers along his spine, stepped toward Arthur. He didn't look at Arthur's face; he looked at the floating Level tag above his head.
"Level thirty-five?" the Star-Eater hissed, his voice sounding like two stones grinding together. "A fresh hatchling from a Tier-9 world... and he has a Primordial Guardian in his shadow? Impossible."
Fenris, currently in the form of a black cat, hissed from Arthur's shoulder. The Star-Eater flinched, his crest flattening in fear.
"What do you want?" Arthur asked.
The alien recovered his composure, a sneer curling his thin lips. "I am Vaelen of the Third Nebula. I am here to offer you a mercy, little ape. Your race has been classified as 'Grade-E Livestock'. By the end of the week, the Debt Collectors of the 5th Floor will arrive to auction your world's survivors as mana-batteries."
The survivors behind Arthur erupted in panicked murmurs. "Auction? Livestock? We're human beings!" a man shouted from the back.
Vaelen laughed, a dry, clicking sound. "You are 'Resource'. But," he looked at Elena, his eyes lingering on her glowing Level-15 tag, "your group has a few specimens with high latent logic. I will buy you now. Ten thousand mana-credits for the lot. It is more than you are worth."
"We aren't for sale," Arthur said.
"You don't understand the rules of Ghal-Zul, hatchling," Vaelen stepped closer, the air around him cold. "In the Tower, if you cannot pay the Floor Tax, you are forfeit. The Tax for a new race is one million credits. You have... zero."
Arthur looked at the alien's hand, which was reaching out to grab Elena's arm.
Slot 1: Kinetic Regression—Friction.
Slot 2: Spatial Regression—Distance.
The alien's hand moved toward Elena, but it never arrived. No matter how much Vaelen reached, the three inches between his fingers and Elena's sleeve became an infinite abyss. Every time his hand moved an inch, Arthur looped the distance, regressing it back to the starting point.
Vaelen blinked, his three eyes widening. He tried to pull his hand back, but now he found he couldn't move at all.
"What... what is this magic?" Vaelen gasped. "Violence is forbidden! The System should be erasing you!"
"I'm not attacking you," Arthur said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "I'm simply ensuring you never arrive at your destination. There is no violence in a paradox."
The Market of Broken Dreams
Arthur released the loop, and Vaelen stumbled back, his feathers quivering. The alien looked at Arthur with a new expression: not greed, but the look of a man who had just seen a ghost in the machine.
"You... you are the Anomaly," Vaelen whispered. "The one the Overseers warned the Trade-Guilds about."
"If they warned you," Arthur said, stepping forward, "then you know I don't care about your Floor Tax. Tell me where the 'Memory Vault' is."
Vaelen pointed a trembling finger toward a monolithic black spire in the center of the city. "The Hall of Records. But you cannot enter. Only those with a 'Sovereign Rank'—"
Arthur didn't wait for him to finish. He turned to the survivors. "Stay here. Fenris, stay with them. If anyone touches them, loop their nervous system until they forget how to breathe."
"With pleasure, kid," Fenris purred, his shadow stretching across the plaza.
Arthur walked toward the black spire. As he moved through the city, the "Grade-E" status above his head should have made him a target for every bully and slaver in Ghal-Zul. Instead, a path opened. The Star-Eaters, the Hive-Lords, and the Sapphire-Skins moved aside, whispering in a dozen different tongues.
He reached the Hall of Records. Two massive guardians made of living mercury stood at the entrance.
[Warning: Entrance restricted to Floor Masters and Divine Envoys.]
Arthur ignored the prompt. He looked at the mercury guardians. They were beautiful, shifting forms of liquid metal.
Slot 3: Temporal Regression—Material State.
Arthur touched the surface of the first guardian. He didn't use force. He reached into the logic of the mercury. Mercury was a liquid at room temperature, but he forced the guardian to regress to its state at absolute zero—the moment it became a frozen, brittle solid.
CRACK.
The guardian shattered into ten thousand shards of ice-metal. The second guardian tried to strike, but Arthur reached into its "History." He regressed it back to the moment it was a raw ore in the mines of the 40th Floor. The guardian dissolved into a puddle of unrefined sludge.
[System Error: Guardian Entities 'Deleted'.]
[Alert: Security Breach in Ghal-Zul.]
The Truth in the Mirror
Inside the Hall of Records, it was silent. Rows of floating crystalline spheres lined the walls—each one a "Soul-Record" of a fallen Challenger.
Arthur walked past millions of spheres. He was looking for something specific. He didn't know how he knew where it was, but his [Infinite Regression] skill was humming, pulling him toward the very back of the vault.
He stopped in front of a sphere that was different from the rest. It wasn't clear; it was obsidian, etched with the same Ouroboros symbol as his ring.
He touched it.
The world vanished. Arthur wasn't in the city anymore. He was standing on the 99th Floor, surrounded by the corpses of gods. He saw himself—or a version of himself—covered in golden armor that was shattered and bloodied.
"It's not enough," the armored Arthur said, staring at a massive, faceless entity that occupied the entire horizon. "The System is a loop. Every time I win, it just resets. The only way to win... is to stay in the loop."
The armored Arthur looked directly at the "Current" Arthur.
"I am leaving you the key," the memory said. "I am regressing the skill. I am sending it back to the beginning of the next cycle. You won't remember the ninety-nine times we've reached this floor. But this time, don't climb the Tower. Break the gears."
The memory shattered.
Arthur stood in the Hall of Records, his hand trembling on the obsidian sphere.
[Memory Synchronized.]
[Unique Passive Evolution: Infinite Regression --> Sovereign of Recurrence.]
[New Capability: You can now 'Regress' the System Prompts.]
Arthur looked up. A blue screen was flickering in front of him, trying to issue a new warning.
[Warning: Illegal Data Access detected. Initiating—]
"Regress," Arthur said.
The word "Initiating" vanished. The screen blinked and changed.
[Warning: Illegal Data Access detected. Thank you for your inquiry, Sovereign.]
Arthur smiled. It was a cold, jagged thing. He realized now why the Tower existed. It wasn't a test for humanity. It was a prison for the "Zero-God," and he was the reincarnation of the inmate who had finally found the lockpick.
He walked out of the spire. Vaelen and a squad of city guards were waiting for him, their weapons charged with plasma.
"Arthur Penhaligon!" Vaelen shouted, though his voice lacked conviction. "By order of the Overseer, you are—"
"I'm the one who decides what happens next," Arthur said.
He looked at the million-credit "Floor Tax" notification hovering over the city. He tapped the air.
Skill: System Regression.
The notification changed.
[Floor Tax for 'Humanity': 0 Credits.]
[Status: Humanity has been promoted to 'Sovereign Race' by Administrative Decree.]
Across the city, every alien's scanner beeped simultaneously. The "Grade-E" tags above the shivering office workers in the plaza flickered and turned gold.
Vaelen dropped his weapon, his plum-colored skin turning a pale, sickly grey. "That... that is impossible. You cannot change the System."
"I just did," Arthur said, walking past him. "And tell the Overseer I'm coming for the rest of the code next."