Chapter 275: The Tower is Just
Still, he had already shouted for a rabbit in formal clothes and gotten an answer. Perhaps dignity had left the room several floors ago.
Kael lifted his chin slightly. "Tower, I have a compla—"
The pressure arrived before he finished speaking.
It did not come down like the presence of the Fist King, whose aura had felt like standing too close to a predator that could pulp him whenever it became bored. It did not feel hostile at all. There was no killing intent, no anger, no sense that whatever had noticed him wanted him dead. Yet the instant it focused on him, Kael’s entire body locked.
His knees bent slightly under a weight that did not touch his flesh. His heart hammered once, violently, and his internal energy stilled as if every channel in his body had simultaneously remembered that it was small. The mist surrounding the chamber stopped moving. Torrac’s fur lowered against his body. Even the suspended system windows seemed to flicker beneath the attention of something so much greater that every other presence in the chamber became incidental.
A new notification unfolded in front of Kael, each word forming slowly enough that he felt less like he was reading it and more like it was being pressed directly into his thoughts.
[Calibrating.]
[The alteration of the Trial of Endurance modified the parameters, behavior, and balance of the trial.]
[The trial completed by Climber Kael Ardent was not equivalent to the trial completed by previous ranked challengers.]
[Petition acknowledged.]
[Climber Kael Ardent remains within his rights to request one of the following corrective measures:]
[Option One: Re-enter the Trial of Endurance under its original conditions with a new group of climbers. Overall ranking may be recalculated upon completion.]
[Option Two: Challenge the Dark Beast of the Rift directly. This challenge may be accepted without repeating the completed portions of the trial.]
[The other surviving climbers affected by the altered trial have been presented with equivalent options.]
[Awaiting responses...]
Kael could barely move, but his thoughts remained clear enough to focus on the last few lines. Christy and Hakim had been given the choice as well. Good. At least the tower had acknowledged that they had been dragged through the same altered disaster rather than treating them as irrelevant pieces that happened to survive beside him.
The notification changed after several seconds.
[Climber Christy has declined a re-trial and declined the Dark Beast challenge.]
[Climber Hakim has declined a re-trial and declined the Dark Beast challenge.]
[Their original clear results have been confirmed.]
Kael could hardly blame either of them. Christy was injured even if she now has access to her bag and could use a healing potion she’ll not risk doing the trial again. Whatever bravado she possessed did not change the fact that she had spent days being worn down by the desert before nearly falling into a rift. Hakim was more capable than the old man had given him credit for, but he was not a fool. Neither of them had any reason to walk back into that abyss and fight the thing whose breathing alone had convinced Kael not to wake it.
The system continued.
[Climber Kael Ardent is the sole eligible challenger requesting evaluation of the Hidden Objective.]
[Do you wish to challenge the Dark Beast of the Rift alone?]
[Due to the absence of group assistance and the confirmed alteration of your original trial parameters, the completion reward will be increased.]
Kael read the last line slowly.
Fighting the creature alone was not what bothered him. That part almost felt better. If he returned to the rift without Christy and Hakim beside him, he would not have to divide attention between the monster and keeping two nearly blind people alive. He would not need to conceal as much, either. The thing below had sounded powerful, but if it was meant to be a hidden objective for climbers of this floor, then it was something the tower considered beatable.
The issue sat behind him, smeared across the threshold of the exit.
"This still doesn’t feel fair," Kael said.
The pressure in the room eased enough for him to speak normally, though it had not disappeared completely. Torrac turned toward him with genuine irritation crossing his rabbit face.
"What do you mean it does not feel fair?" Torrac asked. "Do you have any idea how rare it is for the Tower to acknowledge a retrial claim, much less offer a direct challenge to a missed hidden objective? You complained, it recalibrated, and now it is offering you a higher reward for fighting the monster alone. What exactly are you unhappy about?"
"Not me," Kael replied.
Torrac blinked.
Kael looked toward the now-sealed direction from which he had entered the chamber. He could no longer see the trap or what it had done, but the image remained irritatingly clear. The old man’s face, full of relief because he thought his betrayal had succeeded. The iron walls splitting open. The sudden closing impact. Blood reaching Kael before the scream had even finished.
"I’m perfectly fine fighting the beast alone," Kael said. "That is probably better for me than dragging another group through the desert. But the old man died to something other climbers never faced. He made a terrible choice, and he tried to kill us to save himself. I’m not mourning him. But he only ran first because the rule changed. He only entered that trap because this floor stopped being the same trial everyone else had taken."
Torrac’s mouth opened, then closed again.
For once, the administrator did not immediately reply with sarcasm or dismissal. He stared at Kael with an expression that looked uncomfortably close to evaluation, as though he had expected complaints about lost loot, lost ranking, or unfair difficulty, but not this.
Then Torrac’s body stiffened.
His crimson eyes turned white.
Not pale. Not reflective. White, completely and unnaturally empty, as though whatever looked through them had pushed the rabbit aside without effort. The monocle over one eye caught a harsh light that did not belong to the chamber, and Torrac’s posture straightened into something far too still for the irritable creature Kael had been arguing with a moment earlier.
When he spoke, the voice did not belong to him.
"We understand your frustration, Climber Kael Ardent," the voice said. It was not loud, yet the chamber carried it from every direction, making Kael feel as though the words were not traveling through air at all. "The altered rule influenced the decisions of all climbers within the trial. It increased suspicion, accelerated conflict, and changed the circumstances by which the exit was approached. These facts have been recognized and corrected where correction remains appropriate."
Kael found himself unable to interrupt. The weight of the presence did not physically force him into silence, but speaking over it felt as impossible as shouting into an ocean and expecting the tide to listen.
"The climber to whom you refer was not killed outside the authority of the trial," the voice continued. "The Trial of Endurance does not conclude upon sighting an exit. It concludes only after safe passage has been achieved. Many before it have died near the end of that path. Some by exhaustion. Some by misjudgment. Some by betrayal. Some by monsters. Some by failing to recognize that the promise of completion is itself part of what must be endured."
Kael’s jaw tightened.
"He did not endure," the Tower said. "Had the climber been slain through a violation beyond trial authority, it would have been restored, its memory of the invalid outcome removed, and its proper evaluation resumed. Such intervention was not required."
The empty white eyes fixed upon Kael.
"The Tower is Just."
The final word carried more than sound. It settled through Kael’s bones, his gauntlets, and the runes embedded into them. For a moment, it felt like the entire chamber had become an extension of the statement, as though the walls, the pathways, the mist, and every floor above and below him had agreed without leaving room for argument.
Then the pressure vanished.
Torrac staggered backward half a step, blinking rapidly as crimson rushed back into his eyes. He pressed one paw against the side of his head and adjusted his monocle with the other, his expression sour enough that Kael almost felt sympathy for him.
"Damn it, I hate when it does that," Torrac muttered. His ears shook once before settling backward again. "Was that satisfying? Did hearing the Tower personally tell you that the dead old traitor legally deserved what happened make you feel any better?"
Kael took a slow breath.
His body responded properly again, but there was still an uncomfortable heaviness deep inside him, a memory of the pressure more than the pressure itself. He thought back to the first time the Fist King had placed his will over him and nearly made Kael’s body submit before the training even began. Back then, that presence had seemed impossibly great, like a mountain had opened its eyes and decided to inspect him.
Compared to whatever had just looked through Torrac, the Fist King’s pressure felt like the brush of a feather.
"That was the Tower?" Kael asked.
Torrac stared at him for a moment. The annoyance on his face remained, but there was something else mixed into it now, something that looked suspiciously like the rabbit knew better than to answer certain questions out loud.
Rather than reply, he snapped his fingers.
The golden portal opened behind him once more. Torrac stepped backward into it, then paused with half his body already swallowed by the light.
"For what it is worth," the rabbit said, refusing to meet Kael’s eyes directly, "not everyone who runs these floors agreed with what happened to your trial."
Kael frowned. "What does that mean?"
"It means you have two options in front of you, and one of them is significantly more interesting to watch."
With that, Torrac vanished. The portal collapsed behind him, leaving Kael alone in the quiet chamber with the three mist-covered paths ahead and the system notification still hovering in front of his vision.
[Choose Corrective Measure.]
[Option One: Re-enter the Trial of Endurance Under Original Conditions.]
[Option Two: Challenge the Dark Beast of the Rift Alone.]
[Completion Reward Increased.]
Kael stood there for several long moments, staring at the two choices. Retaking the trial would allow him to chase a proper ranking under the same circumstances as those who came before him. It would erase the technical argument the tower had used to place him fourth, give him the chance to clear cleanly, and perhaps prove that even under the original rules he would have surpassed every name above him.
The thought held very little appeal.
He had no desire to spend more days trudging through a desert with another group of strangers who might lose their minds, stab each other, or decide he was too dangerous to keep alive. The desert was irritating enough the first time. Repeating it for the sake of fairness sounded less like a challenge and more like punishment.
The second option was different.
Somewhere below that ravine, in the same darkness where he had fought the Stone Maw Lizard while carrying the burden of two other lives, the Dark Beast remained. He remembered the slow breathing that had filled the abyss, the instinct that had warned him to keep moving rather than look for the source. At the time, leaving had been the correct decision. He had people to protect, a traitor to catch, and a trial rule designed to punish delay.
Now there would be no one beside him.
No one to protect.
No one to hide his runes from.
No one waiting to steal an exit while his back was turned.
Kael flexed one gauntleted hand, feeling the newly socketed Stone Rune settle beside the others. A quiet pulse of excitement moved through him despite the lingering discomfort of the Tower’s attention.
The choice had not yet been made.
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