Even the most familiar paths can become labyrinths when fate decides to roll the dice.
It was a saying often repeated within his clan—a haunting phrase, usually tucked away in the corner of his young mind, dismissed like a meaningless refrain.
But over the years, it had taken on a deeper meaning, echoing like a truth too bitter to ignore.
For believing you know the way is often the first mistake. Even the most well-marked roads can twist and warp under the weight of the unexpected. It takes only a breath of chance, a spark in the gears, to make everything falter. In this logic, fate was nothing more than a capricious player, ready to overturn the chessboard without warning.
And at that very moment, Evan Edrok was tasting that truth, ringing in his mind with an unsettling clarity.
He was running. Tirelessly.
He dashed down an endless staircase, his boots pounding out a frantic rhythm against the steps, through a darkness so deep it felt alive.
Around him, the shadows stretched endlessly, dotted with structures that defied logic—staircases hanging in midair, some inverted, others winding off in impossible directions. It was a place where the laws of gravity had been rewritten, allowing travelers to walk on surfaces that reason would have deemed unreachable.
This place had no center, no top, no bottom. It sprawled in every direction, like a fractured web suspended in shadow. With each step, the boundaries of reason stretched a little further.
Evan, small and almost childlike in stature, bore a gaze that betrayed a depth of experience far beyond his size. He moved with startling agility, a comically oversized pack bouncing on his back without slowing him down. His short, dark-silver hair framed a face pale as milk, faintly glowing in the gloom. His metallic eyes scanned every corner of the strange space, contrasting with his dark green explorer's outfit, worn by time and travel.
He no longer knew how long he'd been running. All landmarks had vanished, and only the pounding of his steps reminded him he was still moving.
But it wasn't fear or urgency driving him forward.
It was her.
Ha Yuri Zahard. A Princess of Zahard. A force of nature.
She moved with blinding and unreal speed. Her dark hair lashed the air, and her clothes billowed behind her like a flame caught in a storm. No words. No glance. Only her eyes—two blood-red gems—cut through the darkness like blades, drawing a straight path nothing seemed able to break.
Evan still couldn't understand what was driving her to descend so far—down to the very base of the Tower. She hadn't explained a thing. Just a well-aimed kick in his quarters, a rough yank by the collar—and suddenly, he was swept along for the ride.
And though he grumbled inwardly, he didn't dare complain. From the moment the Zahard family had assigned him as this tempest's personal guide, his life had been nothing but chaos. And clearly, that wasn't going to change anytime soon.
Still, a weight pressed on Evan's chest—a creeping unease he couldn't quite explain.
This time, he was sure: whatever awaited them at the end of this path wasn't just another mission. This wasn't some skirmish. Something else was taking shape behind the veil of silence.
Something worse. Maybe beyond anything he had faced before.
He sighed and cast a glance at the figure racing ahead—unyielding, unfazed.
"Miss Yuri!" he suddenly shouted, his voice shattering the dull echoes of the stairs. "What exactly are you planning to do on the lower floors?!"
Not a word. Not a movement. The princess kept running, as if his question had dissolved into the void.
Evan gritted his teeth. He swallowed the string of curses rising in his throat, his frustration simmering just behind his eyes.
Then, louder this time:
"Miss, please! Answer me!! Miss! Miss!!"
An annoyed growl tore through the air.
"Alright! Just shut up already!" Yuri snapped without even turning around. "Your voice is echoing so much it's giving me a headache!"
He opened his mouth to fire back—but the words caught in his throat when the princess came to a sudden halt. She turned slightly, and her ruby eyes finally met his.
A smile tugged at her lips—slight, but charged with a barely contained excitement. A spark of long-held anticipation, ready to ignite.
Then she dropped the bomb.
"An Irregular has entered the first floor of the Tower," she announced. "She told me he opened the door… on his own."
Evan's breath died. He froze in place.
An Irregular.
The word cracked through his mind like thunder. Unforeseen. Unacceptable. A brutal twist of fate.
And in that instant, he understood his unease hadn't been misplaced. This moment wasn't just dangerous. It might be the greatest upheaval of his entire life.
The Irregulars… those mythical beings. Walking tempests.
Entities capable of bending the Tower's laws by their mere presence. Anomalies from another world, whose very existence struck fear—even into the most powerful.
Even into him.
But there she was, the only person who could say the word with a grin—as if she were announcing a hunt.
Princess Ha Yuri Zahard, in all her glory.
He swallowed hard, as if his throat had tightened under invisible pressure.
"W-What?!" he stammered, his voice cracking with shock. "Miss Yuri… you do understand what that means, don't you? This is monumental!"
Panic was rising in him, drop by drop, like a slow and inevitable tide. His mind began to race. If his fears were justified… then she, this princess with her explosive temperament, might very well…
"Of course it's a big deal, Evan!" she exclaimed brightly, arms raised as if to embrace the whole world. "That's exactly why I'm going down. I want to see it with my own eyes!"
Her smile gleamed with an almost childlike excitement—terrifyingly sincere. And that was precisely what sent a chill down Evan's spine.
Sometimes, he told himself it was better to keep quiet. Maybe then the calm would last just a little longer. Maybe.
But it was too late. What he feared had just taken shape.
Catching his breath, he gritted his teeth and snapped, his voice firmer now, tinged with just a hint of panic behind the anger:
"Excuse me!? But Princess... what have you been smoking to want to do such a thing?!"
Yuri shrugged as if this whole thing mattered no more than a routine errand.
"Honestly, it sounds kind of fun, doesn't it?" she replied with a teasing grin, as if meeting a being capable of shaking the Tower to its core was just another item on her to-do list. "And for the record, I didn't smoke anything. As far as I know."
Evan felt sweat bead on his temples. His heart was pounding against his ribs.
"No! This isn't funny at all!" he cried out, unable to hide the panic flooding him. "We could get caught by Headon! Have you even thought of that?!"
Yuri rolled her eyes, clearly annoyed.
"You're such a buzzkill, Evan. Why would we get caught? It's not like I'm going down there to help the Irregular."
Her tone had sharpened, a flicker of reproach flashing in her eyes. She hated being doubted—especially by him.
But Evan didn't believe her for a second. He placed a weary hand on his forehead, as if trying to calm a growing headache.
"Knowing you…" he muttered.
"Tch. Whatever! Just shut it and go back if you're that scared! I'm going to see this Irregular, no matter what! Mwahahaha!"
Her laughter rang out—dramatic, almost villainous—echoing through the dark like an ominous omen. She wasn't joking. Or if she was, she was playing with fire.
Ignoring Evan's anxious gaze, she turned away. Her body dipped low—and with a single, fluid motion, she leapt. A sharp, dull bang cracked through the air. An instant later, she was nothing more than a red streak slicing through the darkness, a comet grazing the steps at a speed the human mind could barely comprehend.
Evan stood frozen, motionless, eyes locked on the silhouette fading deeper and deeper into the abyss. A bitter taste rose in his throat. That heavy feeling he'd had from the start only grew stronger. This wasn't just some wild whim of a bored princess.
No. This was going to go very, very wrong.
He let out a long sigh, shoulders slumping in resignation. Trying to reason with Yuri… what a ridiculous idea. It was like blowing at a hurricane and expecting it to change direction.
Mission impossible.
"I'm going to get in so much trouble if I let you go alone, you know?" he muttered through clenched teeth, shaking his head like he was waking from a bad dream.
He adjusted his pack, the weight of responsibility pressing heavier than ever, then took off after her.
And in the silence of his sprint, only one thought echoed with the rhythm of his steps:
Let's just hope we make it out alive…
.
.
.
When they finally reached their destination, Yuri stepped onto the smooth, black floor of the First Floor. A heavy silence blanketed everything around her. The ceiling—distant, invisible—vanished into darkness, suspended in a timeless, lightless void.
The place seemed abandoned for ages. A glowing square in the center of the room bathed the ground in a cold, white light. This glow sliced through the surrounding shadows like a gateway to another world.
Yuri moved slowly toward the radiant rectangle. Her heels clicked against the stone—sharp, steady. The fire of her earlier pace had faded, replaced by a strange calm, almost solemn.
Tap.
Another footstep echoed behind her. Evan had just arrived, struggling to catch his breath, his hands clenched around the straps of his pack.
"Haaah… Finally," he gasped, panting.
Dozens of floors, descended at full speed. Hours of uninterrupted running. Even a High Ranker would have dropped to their knees after such an effort.
But not Yuri.
The young woman stood upright, motionless as a pillar, not a single drop of sweat on her. Her crimson eyes glowed with a quiet intensity, as if the whole ordeal had been nothing more than a light stroll.
She turned, crossed her arms, and regarded her guide with a mix of amusement and exasperation.
"You're dragging, Evan," she said, half-mocking, half-impatient. "Don't tell me that little jog wore you out already? Come on, stop pretending. The Irregular's not going to wait for us forever."
Evan clenched his jaw. His brows furrowed, offended. A searing monologue burst through his mind:
Not everyone was born of an Irregular, okay?! I'm not some divine genes merchant !
But he didn't dare say it aloud. He swallowed the words, like he always did.
With a sigh, he looked away. One thought looped endlessly in his mind: the Guardian. If they were caught here, he knew no excuse would ever be enough to appease Headon's wrath.
And this time, he wouldn't be smiling.
Still weighed down by that thought, Evan stepped onto the cold tile.
One step.
Just one.
And everything collapsed.
It wasn't a fall. It wasn't dizziness. Nothing that simple. It was deeper, more insidious—a silent fracture, a tearing from within.
His silver eyes, trained to decipher the hidden veins of the Tower, froze. A dull tension rippled through them as his gaze instinctively searched for the woven paths of fate.
But he found nothing.
Where he should have seen glowing threads—those luminous veins that guided the living toward their futures, shifting paths and possible destinies—there was only a void.
Not a glimmer.
Not a strand.
Nothing.
Only a veil—dark, grainy—stretching over everything.
Fog? Not quite. It wasn't a cloud. Not even a mystical mist. No… it was denser, older. It felt like fabric. A cloth of darkness, rough and infinite, woven into the very underside of reality itself.
Evan stepped back—one heartbeat too late. The darkness had already seeped into his vision.
He was standing, breathing, and yet he felt blind. Not in his eyes, but in his soul.
His breath came in short gasps as he tried to see—but there was nothing to see. A guide without direction. His gift, his essence, his craft—extinguished in an instant.
He searched for a path. Just one. The faintest thread. An exit. A clue. But the silence stood before him like a wall. No vibrations. No whisper of fate.
The trajectories had been erased—no, denied.
A slow shiver crept up his spine.
He, a High-Ranker Guide, could no longer read the future.
This place had no future.
This place… refused to have one.
The darkness surrounded him—but more than that, it watched him. It judged him. Like a pupil-less eye hidden behind the weave of the world.
And in that exact moment, Evan understood: the Tower he knew was no longer the same. Its ancient laws had been trampled.
Something—or someone—had shattered the invisible pact of order.
His fingers trembled faintly as he turned his head toward Yuri. When he spoke, his voice was low, but it carried an uncharacteristic unease—a crack in the calm of the Guide.
"Princess… There's something here. Something that doesn't belong."
But his words vanished. Carried away by a soundless wind, they reached no ears.
Yuri was no longer listening.
"Hey, Evan! Look over there! It's the rookie… and Headon!" she called out, lying flat at the edge of the chasm, feet in the air, her head tilted into the void.
She hadn't heard. Or rather, she hadn't sensed it. Not the shadow, not the shiver. After all, she wasn't a Guide. She didn't bear that gift… or that curse.
And yet, at that moment, a realization clicked into Evan's mind.
The Irregular.
His breath caught.
Could it be him? Could it be this lawless presence… that erases fate?
In the tales passed down through generations, it was said that Irregulars' paths could not be seen. They were unreadable. Not even the Red Witches could trace their destiny.
They were fractures in the Tower's very fabric.
But this—this wasn't just a veil.
It was an abyss. A complete dislocation.
A sharper chill slid down his neck. He stepped forward, wordless, driven not by curiosity… but by a sense of urgency.
He had to see the Irregular. Understand him. Assess him.
Not to indulge some whim — but because it was necessary.
Silently, he knelt beside his princess, his gaze following hers.
And at last… he saw him.
The Irregular.
A thin figure, not very tall, with tousled hair and a face still marked by youth. He looked ordinary. Almost delicate. A boy that the Tower should've crushed the moment he crossed its threshold.
And yet—
A cold shiver bit into Evan's skin the instant his eyes landed on him. His instincts, honed by years of service, screamed.
Because at the heart of that black mass — that ancient, dense, and nameless fog — stood this boy.
The darkness came from him.
Around him, the Shinsu trembled. Not like a current, but like a beast disturbed. It shuddered, recoiled, tried to flee… and yet clung to him, as if some unseen force compelled it to acknowledge his presence.
Even without a particular sensitivity to this energy, Evan could feel it. And he knew Yuri would feel it too.
This was no ordinary power.
He narrowed his eyes, studying the boy again.
How could such a frail body hold such weight?
He didn't have the answer.
But deep within, a single truth took hold — cold and absolute.
This child… is dangerous.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
N/A : Hey guys, it's with pleasure that I finally release a chapter to you after more than a month without publication.
For this chapter, I admit I had doubts about how I was going to proceed. Should I skip straight to participating in the MC test, or something else?
After some thought, I decided that this chapter would be told from Evan's point of view.
Why? Because Evan is a character I really like, and who is, to say the least, quite interesting. It's a shame that he's been sidelined and rather underrated among the fandom, so I decided to put it up front a bit in this fanfic.
Also, I know this chapter might seem like a bit of a copy-paste from canon, but I wanted to do it my way, how a guide like Evan would react to Baam's presence. And personally, I'm quite proud of how I was able to transcribe these scenes. It took me two days, not two whole days, but it took me quite a while to write this chapter.)
Anyway, I'm wondering how you found this Mazino spin-off that came out over two days ago. I personally find it quite interesting, and satisfying from the information we were able to have on the outside world, and above all and obviously, on Phantamaniun.
Siu may have removed the concept of Axis from his story, it may not have been 100% confirmed, but it does suggest that SIU has changed (again) plots he had been preparing for years.
I just hope future storylines don't turn out bad because of these changes. The TUS universe is too interesting to be thrown in the trash, that would be a real waste.
However, Urek seems to be "The Luminous One" , primordial beings born from the light in the outside world and that Phantamanium would have exterminated them all to seal them in jewels, which he becomes obsessed with (WTF bro??!)
Urek is the last survivor of "The Luminos One," and the only hope to defeat Phantamanium. Which I find absolutely crazy! He just got a huge Upscale just from this spinoff.
I knew my goat wasn't lying when he said he was the strongest in the Tower. From the very beginning of his ascent of the Tower, He humiliates a Ranker. No wonder he has an oversized ego.
In short, this means that there are some things I need to change in my future plans for my Urek storyline. I might even have to rethink the power scale for the entire fanfic.
But don't panic, he's still far inferior to a Floor Guardian, even less than Enryu, and not even comparable to Phantamanium.
And who would be the strongest between Urek and Zahard ? That... That's a question for later.
Anyway, the next chapter could be out this weekend or next Monday. I wish you all a good day (or evening). See you next time ;)
Don't forget to give points to support this fanfiction !!
3,076 words