I liked it.
A lot more than I should’ve.
I adjusted my jacket and strolled out of the Black Auction, the pulse of forbidden energy humming beneath my skin. Katana was still silent, simmering in disapproval. I could practically hear her glaring.
“Say it,” I muttered, stepping into the cracked stone streets of the Seventh Floor’s main hub.
“You’re an idiot.”
There it was.
“An idiot with a new toy,” I replied, grinning.
But the grin faded quickly.
Above me, the TOWER shimmered. Its monolithic structure, endless and unknowable, pulsed once—subtly. For the average explorer or adventurer, it was easy to miss. Just another quirk of this bizarre world.
But for me? For someone who just hijacked a Hero’s destiny, hacked into the System, and made a contract with an ancient mask?
It was terrifyingly noticeable.
A glitch.
The Tower never glitched.
And yet, for a split second, lines of raw code cascaded down the sky like rain. Symbols older than language flickered and died. The world shuddered on its axis. My Status Window—normally dormant unless summoned—flickered on of its own accord.
[SYSTEM ALERT]
UNREGISTERED HOST DETECTED.
ERROR_CODE_7XF93A.
TOWER CONTROL: COMPROMISED
Reboot sequence initiated...
Veyrith chuckled in my mind.
“Oh… now you’ve done it. You didn’t just poke the bear. You stabbed it in the eye and stole its honey.”
Perfect.
Exactly what I needed: a cosmic entity realizing I’d cheated twice in a row.
Time to get ahead of the fallout.
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I ducked into an alley, breath steady but heart sprinting. My fingers flicked open a Map Interface, the holographic layout of the Seventh Floor blooming before me. There was only one place safe from direct Tower surveillance:
The Cradle of Echoes.
A crumbling ruin, buried in the underlayers of this Floor. Forgotten by most. Hated by the rest.
Legend said it was where rejected heroes were discarded. The place where failed Chosen Ones screamed themselves into oblivion.
In other words: my crowd.
“You’re serious about going there?” Katana finally spoke again, her tone edged with concern.
“Dead serious,” I replied, setting the marker. “If I’m gonna play puppetmaster in this broken System, I need allies who don’t ask stupid questions about morality.”
And I knew exactly who to visit first.
The descent into the Cradle was… unpleasant.
Rusted ladders. Collapsing staircases. Echoing tunnels that whispered forgotten names into your ear if you weren’t careful. My boots hit shattered stone, kicking up dust older than my regrets.
And then—I heard it.
Laughter. Jagged and raw, like glass scraping bone.
I smiled.
At the far end of the crumbling amphitheater, four figures lounged lazily atop broken thrones.
The Pact of the Last Kings.
A group so deranged, so irreparably done with the Tower’s lies, that even other outlaws avoided them. They weren’t just rebels—they were artists of rebellion.
And leading them…
A woman draped in bandages, her smile too wide, eyes too bright.
Lysandra.
The Fallen Priestess.
One of the Tower’s ex-high-ranking Arquitextos—turned cultist, madwoman, and unchallenged manipulator of the Cradle.
Her gaze slid to me, and her grin sharpened.
“Well, well,” she purred. “Look what the glitch dragged in.”
I bowed mockingly. “Lysandra. You look unhinged as always.”
Her followers hissed, but she waved them down, rising gracefully.
“Rumors spread fast, little thief,” she whispered, approaching me with unnatural elegance. “They say you stole the Hero’s Blessing. That you walk with errors in your veins now.”
I didn’t deny it. Why bother?
Instead, I reached up and tapped the edge of the mask fused to my face.
Her smile faltered for just a breath.
Ah.
She knew.
This mask wasn’t unknown to her. Maybe she’d even tried to claim it once.
Perfect.
“I need sanctuary,” I announced, voice steady. “And I’m willing to pay in chaos.”
Lysandra’s laughter peeled through the ruins like a siren’s call.
“Oh darling,” she whispered, circling me now like a vulture around a feast, “around here? Chaos is currency.”
Our deal took less than ten minutes.
In exchange for sanctuary within the Cradle, I’d offer them the fruits of my System manipulation—broken skills, bugged artifacts, glitched knowledge that could destabilize the Tower’s stranglehold.
I had no intention of keeping all those promises, of course.
But deals are like masks.
You wear them long enough, people forget what’s underneath.
As our pact sealed, Lysandra leaned in close, her breath ice-cold against my ear.
“The Tower will hunt you soon, little thief,” she cooed. “When it does, you’ll need more than tricks and whispers. You’ll need an army of the forgotten.”
She pulled back, eyes gleaming.
“And here? We remember everything.”
My grin stretched wider under the porcelain.
An army of madmen, ancient glitches, and forsaken rebels?
Oh yes.
Now I was the one setting the board.
And this time?
I wasn’t playing anyone’s game but mine.