The stairwell twisted upward like a spinal cord made of stone. Chris climbed each step with silent purpose, sword in hand, body worn but harder now—more resilient. The echoes of his footsteps didn't bounce like before. This floor absorbed sound, as if it feared waking what slept within.
And as his foot landed on the next platform, he felt it.
A shift.
Something clicked inside him—a new presence, not loud, but deeply intimate. It wasn't a voice, but a sense. A knowing.
Something had changed again.
Chris exhaled and looked ahead.
The fourth floor stretched out into a vast, frosted cathedral of death. Icy mist clung to the ground. Massive columns of petrified bone jutted from the stone, and between them stood frozen, motionless creatures. Their forms were mangled, distorted. Grotesque. Straight out of a nightmare—some twisted mockery of every horror movie he'd ever watched. Too tall. Too thin. Too many jaws. Too still.
Their bodies shimmered faintly, crusted in frost or dried blood. None of them moved.
But all of them watched.
Or at least… it felt like they did.
Chris didn't speak. He didn't breathe too hard. But as he scanned the floor, a single thought wormed through his skull:
I should be scared.
But he wasn't. Not like before.
His fear was distant now—muted, buried beneath something colder. Something heavier.
I've changed.
He took a few steps forward, careful, calculating.
"Let's see if you're statues," he muttered, picking up a rock from the floor. He locked eyes on the closest monster—a hunched, semi-humanoid mass of claws, teeth, and black chitin, frozen in mid-snarl.
Chris raised the rock.
And then it hit him.
A vision.
A seizure of fate.
He stood in the same spot—rock midair—and in the blink of an eye, a beam of searing black energy tore through his chest. He saw himself fly backward, ribs exploding, limbs twitching as death overtook him in less than a second.
His own corpse fell to the floor, blood steaming in the cold.
And then—he was back.
Standing. Alive.
Still holding the rock.
Chest unpierced. Heart still beating.
He dropped the rock with a shaky breath. "…What the fuck was that?"
The creature still hadn't moved.
But it could've killed him.
Instantly.
His body trembled for a moment, but only from adrenaline. Not fear. That terror—that wild, paralyzing dread he once lived in—no longer held him hostage.
So this is my new ability.
Death Echo.
A warning from the future—of his own end, seconds before it happens.
If he hadn't hesitated…
Chris shivered.
He stepped back, reassessing. He tested the creature's aggression again, walking sideways. No death echo. But when he stepped within a certain distance—bam, another vision.
A flash of his own death by shredding claws this time.
So they were proximity-based.
Chris took a longer, looping path around the monster, careful to never breach the invisible radius. No warning this time. Just cold air and silence.
The next few minutes became a game of deadly chess. He moved slowly across the frozen floor, mapping which monsters were active killers, and which were just for show. Most never stirred. But some—just some—erupted into violent Death Echoes the moment he dared to approach.
They're like mines…
Chris began marking spots in his head. Safe zones. Danger zones. Patterns.
Eventually, he couldn't avoid one.
A massive creature blocked the path forward—serpentine, with a skeletal torso that reached the ceiling and claws dragging on the stone. Unlike the others, it actually twitched. Not a vision. Movement.
Chris weighed his options.
Run and risk the Echo triggering too late?
Or…
Kill it. Take what it had.
He stared, tensing his grip on the sword. "I need more," he whispered. "If I don't keep growing, I'll die on the next floor."
He crouched low, moving in slowly. No vision.
It hadn't seen him yet.
When he was within range, he leapt forward, slicing with all his strength toward the neck.
The creature shrieked, its chest bursting open in defense—but Chris already ducked left. The Echo screamed through his mind—death by tail—but he sidestepped, spun, and drove the blade through its open ribcage.
The monster screamed again, but its voice cut short.
It dropped.
Dead.
Bloodless, like it had frozen from the inside.
Chris stepped back, panting. His muscles burned. But then, the aftershock hit him—a transfer.
A surge through his arm. A pulse of knowledge, half-understood.
He staggered.
New ability gained:
Pulse Slash – By timing his breath and swing, he can release a short-ranged shockwave with a blade. It's minor—barely a few feet—but powerful enough to stagger an enemy.
Chris felt it settle in his bones. He didn't know how he knew it. He just did.
He tested it—swung the sword again, this time focusing on the pressure.
A faint shockwave snapped through the air, distorting the mist.
"…Holy shit," he breathed.
Later, after circling deeper into the floor, he was forced into combat again. This time, against a hound-like creature with eyes on its flanks and a mouth in its chest. It leapt—he dodged barely in time—but not before it clawed his arm.
Chris retaliated with a Pulse Slash to the leg, then stabbed it clean through the skull.
Another ability surfaced.
New ability gained:
Bone Spike – He can harden a portion of his bone outward from his forearm, forming a short, jagged spike for close combat or last-ditch attacks.
It hurt like hell to form. But it was there, under the skin—like a weapon fused to his body.
The third monster he killed, a floating eye-sack with hooks for limbs, gave him nothing.
No ability. No insight. Just rot.
Still, each kill made him feel heavier, darker.
Like something inside was eroding.
He stopped thinking about that.
Hours passed.
Using his visions and instincts, Chris carefully navigated the rest of the floor. He avoided what he could. Killed only when necessary. He was colder now. Sharper.
The Pulse Slash saved his life twice.
The Bone Spike nearly broke his arm—but it worked.
And eventually, through a long hall of silence and frost, he reached it.
The stairs.
Leading upward.
No more Death Echoes. No monsters in sight.
Chris took a breath, and looked back over the frozen crypt he'd survived.
"I'm still alive."
He touched the hilt of his blade. Felt the ache in his bones.
Then turned toward the next floor—and climbed.