The next day, Luna was standing on the rooftop as she stared intently at the frozen water. She was in full armor since this part of the building was still affected by the coldness of the outside world.

  She had been staring at the distant orange light for a while now and hadn’t taken her eyes off it. Beyond this point, the powerful winds were still blue, and the sky was still trapped in twilight like everything else here.

  After giving It some thought, Luna sighed before uttering a command to the suit.

  “Initiate cross-country communication.”

  After a brief silence, the suit’s robotic voice responded.

  [Signal interference detected. Cross country communication unavaible.]

  She clicked her tongue. It was probably the enchantments around the building blocking the signal from other nanosuits.

  Speaking of enchantments, Luna was still thinking about what Storm Rider had said to her before.

  “I can’t believe I have the potential to become a sorcerer. A powerful one.”

  She smiled and squeezed her small hands into fists. Luna felt some hope that she might survive long enough to learn more about both worlds. She needed to learn more about the fall. The origin of the corruption and how the gods died. And what exactly led to the fall after the gods fell?

  Oblivion expined that the fme was nourished by the gods’s existence. But the upsetting truth about all this is that the fmes held for a while. The occupants of the divine realm were still alive with their New Rulers. The temples were proof of that.

  Oblivion had been promised power and ter betrayed by his comrades. Something happened in between that upset the bance even more.

  ‘Damn it…’

  She could turn around and go ask Storm about everything. But learning the truth from Storm Rider seemed to have consequences. And Luna wasn’t ready to risk that much at the moment.

  “Control yourself Lunaris.”

  She told herself as she stared at the orange light. Yes, she was going to find the answers to her many questions one day. She was the threat, after all. And if the tower was keeping her trapped here, then there was still something for her.

  It didn’t need a genius to figure out that was pying along with someone’s sinister pns. Luna even suspected it was the person she talked to before her memory was altered by the curse on the forgotten. That person might even be Storm Rider’s accomplice.

  Anyway, she already needed a break from reality. So maybe the tower wasn’t so bad. At least she wasn’t getting judged by people here.

  The only people she often thought about were Diana and the rest of her css. It had been months since the subjugation and the outside must’ve changed drastically because of the events happening in the southern reach. The appearance of a real dungeon must have caused its own chaos in the real world.

  In games and webtoons, dungeons could be cimed or destroyed. This one in particur was capable of being cimed after all its guardians and prisoners were killed and transformed into a citadel for one of the great houses of the world. Ascenders were immune to corruption so making a citadel couldn’t be that hard.

  They would cim this thing and build a city around it or in it if they found a way of killing the cursed emperor in the blood desert.

  “They can also make this floor work like Southern Settlement.”

  At the moment, she was sure that the quick great houses were now running towards this dungeon. They were coming after its secrets, its relics, and most importantly its powers. Humans were always hungry power creatures. They only needed one person to study the construct of this structure to replicate the world created in this tower.

  However, it was only Luna who knew that the Mildrith tree was the heart and source of the power running this tower. You could describe the tower as a relic left behind by the now dead gods.

  Slowly, she walked to the edge and looked down.

  There, a massive shadow was moving in the water. Its eight tentacles waved calmly in the water like seagrass. It was no longer glowing with essence after it had consumed the undead shark.

  From the little Luna understood, the Mildrith was a parasitic mystical tree that fed on energy or blood depending on which type of Mildrith tree you encountered. The one in the building was rather unique since it fed on both blood and energy if its creator wanted it to.

  And right now, the branch had grown into a small tree inside the Kraken’s body that was using its roots to absorb both blood and essence to slow it down. It was so weak that it had failed to regenerate its lost tentacle. By the coming week, the Kraken would be kilble thanks to Storm Rider’s pn.

  After next week, Luna was either going to be dead or off this frozen sea. This floor was not going to break down her mentality.

  “You hear that? I’m going to kill you and move on to the next floor.”

  As Luna stared into the frozen sea, far beyond the tower’s influence, the world outside was bracing for its next challenge.

  ***

  Outside the Tower, the reddish sky hadn’t changed since the first soldiers were sent to conquer the first floor of the dungeon.

  It was raining heavily, the sky cackling with red lightning as the terrible downpour continued. The world was enveloped in an eerie darkness that was slowly consuming the Southern Reach. For several days now, the Southern Reach hadn’t experienced any daylight thanks to the tower’s strange influence on the real world.

  Waiting at the entrance was an armed group of soldiers. Some were mundane soldiers holding guns while others were in arachnids and exoskeleton suits with rge rail guns in the size of small cars.

  Leading the front line of ascenders was a tall man with abaster skin and wet brown hair. He was dressed in bck nanoskin armor with a specialized greatsword in his right hand.

  As he was still watching the boundary, a voice sounded in his ear. “Major! There has been an interference, something is coming through!”

  The tall man lingered, turned his eyes to the ascenders waiting for his signal, and then back to the boundary.

  “Everyone! Brace yourselves!”

  His serious green eyes narrowed. Weapons powered up in the background as zenshi cores came active.

  He almost attacked when a red-horned sparrow flew out of the gateway and past them, heading to the main command building where the generals were.

  Following the small creature, a winged horse with a short-haired woman emerged from the tower’s entrance.

  As soon as they recognized the winged horse, the soldiers broke into a wide celebration as more familiar summons emerged from the gate.

  Cheers erupted as the survivors emerged, their armor battered, their faces weary but triumphant. The sight of the winged horse brought tears to many who had feared the worst. This was proof—proof that the tower could be conquered