The portal to Floor 7 swirled before them, a vortex of potential and peril. But as Jade took a final breath, ready to step through, the memory of Alter-Jade's voice echoed in his mind with chilling clarity.
"You've gotten soft... They are cracks in your foundation... The old Jade knew that to conquer everything, you must be willing to sacrifice everything—especially attachments."
A cold knot tightened in Jade's stomach. It wasn't guilt, but a ruthless, analytical fear. Alter-Jade wasn't entirely wrong. The apology to Seraphina, the acceptance of Cassian's punishment, the careful handling of Lilith's emotions—it was all strategically sound, but it required a level of emotional engagement the "old Jade" would have scorned as weakness. He was building a kingdom of alliances, but was he dulling his own ultimate edge in the process? Was this new path making him vulnerable?
He pushed the thought down. The path was chosen. There was no going back.
He exchanged a glance with Zero. A single, sharp nod passed between them. It was time.
They stepped toward the light.
And the world stuttered.
It wasn't the smooth, nauseating lurch of teleportation. It was a violent, jarring skip, like a record needle being dragged across its surface. The portal's light flickered erratically, flashing between blinding white and a sickly, corrupted crimson. A sound like tearing metal and static screams ripped through the chamber.
The message glitched, dissolving into fragmented, alien symbols before their eyes.
Jade's Observer's Eye flared to life on instinct, but the data it returned was chaos—a torrent of corrupted code, a system under active assault.
"They're not just watching anymore," Zero said, his voice cutting through the digital scream. His hand was already on Gesshilla's hilt, his body crackling with nascent lightning. He wasn't looking at the portal; he was looking at the space around it, where the very fabric of the Sanctuary seemed to be peeling back. "They're intervening directly."
This was it. The entity from the upper floors, the one who had overwritten Floor 5 to send them to Lady Anya, was no longer hiding behind proxies and manipulated floors. They were hacking the System itself to strike at them before they could even ascend.
The portal stabilized for a single, deceptive second, then the light didn't just brighten—it reached for them. Not as an invitation, but as a predator's lunge. It wasn't a gateway to a trial anymore.
It was a trap. And the jaws were snapping shut.
ZERO'S POV
The world snapped into focus with the sterile clarity of a System-generated environment. Zero stood on a flat, grey plain under an overcast sky. A standard, blue system prompt hung in his vision. It was then that he realized he was alone.
In the distance, a dozen lumbering Stone Grunts, Level 5, mindlessly began their advance. It was a standard, almost insultingly simple floor. The sheer, mundane normalcy of it was a louder alarm than any glitch.
His mind, a supercomputer of cold logic, replayed the final milliseconds before the transfer. The corrupted code had not been random. It had been a surgical strike. The energy signatures had bifurcated at the last possible nanosecond—one stream, clean and simple, pulling him here. The other... a tangled, snarled knot of malevolent data, had wrapped around Jade and yanked.
He wasn't the target.
The realization was a cold splash of water. This wasn't an attack on the anomalies; it was an assassination attempt on a single one. They had used the System's own protocols to separate them, isolating Jade.
The Stone Grunts were almost upon him. Zero's eyes narrowed. Gesshilla remained sheathed. He didn't need it for this. He became a blur of motion—a twist, a sidestep, a precise chop to a stone knee. The first Grunt crumbled. A spinning kick shattered two more. Each movement was brutally efficient, a master dismantling training dummies. But his mind was elsewhere, calculating.
They were stalling him. Containing him in this pointless, time-wasting loop. Every second spent here was a second Jade was alone in whatever digital hell they'd crafted for him.
A thought, cold and absolute, crystallized. He couldn't breach the System. But he could break its game. The fastest way out was through. He had to clear this floor, every single wave, faster than it had ever been cleared before. Only then would the System release him.
He stood in the center of the plain, his stance shifting. The air around him began to hum, not with the wild crackle of lightning, but with a low, gathering thrum of pure kinetic potential. The next wave of enemies, larger and faster Ash Stalkers, began to materialize.
Zero's silver-green eyes locked onto the first one to fully form.
Jade. Hold on.
JADE'S POV
Consciousness returned not with an impact, but with the softness of silk and the scent of incense. Jade's eyes opened. He was lying in a colossal, four-poster bed, draped in rich, purple velvets. Sunlight streamed through towering arched windows, illuminating a chamber of staggering opulence—tapestries depicting battles, suits of gilded armor standing sentinel, a vaulted ceiling painted with celestial scenes.
His mind, a fortress of cold logic, scrambled for purchase. The glitch. The corrupted portal. Zero. Lilith. The connection to his scythe was there, but muted, dormant, as if buried under layers of this new reality.
Where am I? What is this?
Before he could even sit up, the heavy oak doors of the chamber swung open. A man in polished steel armor, a crimson plume on his helmet, marched in and dropped to one knee, his head bowed.
"Your Majesty," the man's voice was deep, resonant with respect and urgency. "The day is upon us. The 20,000 soldiers of the Solar Legion are assembled on the plains. Morale is high, but they await your command. The barbarian horde will not wait for our preparations. Your presence at the frontlines is crucial for the final blessing before we commence the war."
Jade stared, his mind a whirlwind of static. Your Majesty? War? Barbarians? This wasn't a Floor. This was... an identity. A life.
He opened his mouth, a sharp, logical retort on his lips, demanding an explanation.
A flicker of light, cold and void-black, danced at the edge of his vision. A system prompt materialized, but it was wrong. It was stark, glitching, the text appearing not as a request, but as a stark, imperious command from an unseen observer.
The words hung in the air for a heartbeat, devoid of emotion, a demand from a warden to a prisoner. Then they vanished, leaving no quest log, no objective, no timer. Nothing but the weight of the command.
The commander was still kneeling, waiting for his king's orders.
A cold understanding settled in Jade's gut. This wasn't a trial to be conquered for reward. It was a performance. A test set by the entity that had hijacked the System, and his freedom depended on putting on a show brutal and absolute enough to satisfy it. He was to be a king, a conqueror, for an audience of one.