The sky was broken.

  Fractured into a thousand bleeding veins, it dripped a lightless mist over the ruins of what once had been cities, oceans, dreams. Now, there was only the Tower. A monolith of cracked stone and howling flesh, coiled into the heart of every reality fragment still pretending to exist.

  Nihil pulled his coat tighter, though the cold wasn’t something mere fabric could fight. The air wasn’t just frigid — it was wrong. It clawed at his skin, bit into his mind, gnawed at the memory of warmth he barely clung to. Every breath was a negotiation with death.

  Still, he walked.

  Past the hollowed skeletons of buildings. Past the glassless frames of windows gaping like empty eyes. Past the shattered statues of gods no one worshiped anymore.

  The Tower loomed before him. It didn’t rise into the sky — the sky bent around it, pulled into its gravity like water down a drain. The first gate stood open, an invitation and a grave.

  Nihil tightened his grip on the shard-blade at his side. It was cracked, chipped, barely more than a jagged piece of iron fused with remnants of old reality. It was enough.

  It had to be.

  He stepped into the Tower.

  The ground squelched underfoot, some awful mixture of dirt and something that had once been alive. The walls pulsed, breathing in a rhythm too slow to be human. Above him, impossible staircases spiraled in geometries that twisted his stomach if he looked too long.

  The First Floor.

  At one time, this place had been simple — a trial of strength, a rite of passage for new Climbers. Now, it was a wasteland. The monsters that had once been challenges had evolved, corrupted by the rot leaking from the Tower’s core.

  A rasping shriek echoed down the corridor.

  Nihil didn’t hesitate. He moved.

  His body was worn thin by years of starvation and endless fighting, but necessity forged efficiency. Every step was precise. Every breath measured.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  From the mist ahead, a creature emerged — a thing stitched together from bones and blackened flesh, eyes glowing with spite. It limped on three legs, dragging broken claws behind it, and opened a maw lined with a hundred serrated teeth.

  Nihil charged.

  No battle cries. No hesitation.

  He ducked under the first swipe, feeling the wind of the beast’s strike graze his scalp. His shard-blade came up, slipping through rotting muscle. Black ichor sprayed, burning holes into the floor where it landed.

  The beast shrieked again, this time in pain.

  It was faster than it looked. Too fast.

  A claw raked across Nihil’s side. He staggered, the breath knocked from his lungs, but he didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop.

  Another slash — the creature's claws aiming for his throat.

  He dropped low, sliding across the slick floor, and drove the shard-blade up into the creature’s exposed ribcage. There was a sickening crunch. The beast spasmed once, twice, and collapsed.

  Nihil gasped for air, clutching his side. Blood oozed between his fingers.

  Not deep. Not deadly. Not yet.

  He looked up.

  The corridor stretched endlessly before him, branching into paths that shouldn’t logically exist. Floors floated above, below, beside — some upside-down, some sideways, all connected by rotting bridges of sinew and stone.

  There was no map. No markers.

  Only forward.

  Always forward.

  Dragging his wounded body, Nihil moved on.

  Time didn’t pass here like it should. Minutes felt like days. Hours like heartbeats.

  Somewhere, far above, he knew, the higher floors still existed — layers of hell, each worse than the last. Legends said that those who climbed high enough could reach the Core, where the Tower’s heart bled into the world. But legends were for the dead.

  He didn’t believe in salvation.

  He believed in steps.

  One after another.

  Even when it hurt. Especially when it hurt.

  A second creature slithered from the shadows — something more mist than flesh, eyes blinking in and out of existence. Nihil stumbled into a defensive stance, but his vision blurred.

  Blood loss.

  Fatigue.

  He was slower this time. He barely deflected the first lunge, taking a gash across his forearm that numbed his fingers instantly.

  The shard-blade slipped from his grasp.

  The creature struck again — a whip of fog solidifying into a claw — and Nihil fell back, smashing into a crumbling pillar. Pain flared through his ribs.

  The creature closed in.

  Nihil reached for anything, found a broken spear shaft, and jammed it upward just as the thing leapt.

  A scream — inhuman and endless — as the mist-thing tore itself apart against the improvised weapon.

  Silence fell again, thick and oppressive.

  Nihil slumped against the pillar, chest heaving.

  He wasn’t going to make it much further.

  He knew that.

  Still... he smiled.

  A bitter, broken smile.

  Because the Tower hadn’t beaten him yet.

  And as long as he could stand, as long as he could drag his battered body forward, he hadn’t lost.

  Not yet.

  He pushed himself upright.

  One more step.

  Just one more.