Chapter 1: Welcome Back, Erevan
The sky wasn't dark from night.
It burned — because Caelvaris was dying.
Ash fell like snow over the ruins of a city that once touched stars.
The remnants of glass and steel glimmered in the air, refracting the light of distant flames. Towers leaned like wounded giants, sagging under their own weight. Molten cracks split the streets, leaking red, hot despair.
Everything bled.
The screams had long since stopped.
Just silence.
And silence carried ghosts.
At the heart of the devastation stood a man.
Barefoot. Shirtless. Untouched.
Erevan.
His skin shimmered faintly — like starlight trapped beneath flesh.
Not a single scar.
But his eyes? Galaxies.
Fractured. Spinning.
The kind of eyes that only came after death.
[System Rebooting…]
[Adaptive Core Reestablished.]
[Location: Tower Periphery – Floor 0]
[Objective: Climb or Die.]
The Tower's influence pressed down on him, filling the air with static — cold, biting, oppressive.
He didn't smile.
Ahead loomed the Tower — a monolith that scraped eternity, its obsidian surface reflecting the blood-red horizon like a mirror to the void.
It pulsed like a heart ready to end lives.
Each floor was a crucible. Each survivor, a monster.
But Erevan wasn't here to survive.
He was here to end everything.
Three years ago, he'd climbed for glory.
Reckless. Hopeful. Human.
That version of Erevan died on Floor 17.
When Elira died.
Her laugh once echoed through his thoughts, a memory like the sun rising over the horizon — warm, alive.
Now it was buried behind steel walls he'd forged himself.
No attachments.
No emotions.
The Tower had taught him that.
The Tower had taken her.
And now?
He would take the Tower. One floor at a time.
[New Trait Unlocked: Emotion Suppression – Level 1]
[Adaptation Sync: 94%]
[Warning: Excessive detachment may affect 'Remembrance' stat.]
He blinked.
Remembrance?
That hadn't existed before.
He tried to access it.
Locked. Greyed out.
Like a memory half-buried in chains.
Still, the word gnawed at him.
Like something forgotten that wasn't meant to be.
He stepped forward.
The Tower's gate loomed high, etched with names of the dead.
His wasn't there.
Not because he would fall.
Because he would erase the rest.
Inside, silence.
No fanfare. No guardians. No tutorial.
[Tutorial Skipped – User classified as "Returning Entity"]
[Custom Protocol Initiated: "Abysswalker" Mode Activated]
His brow twitched.
[New Ability Unlocked: Voidstep]
[Trait Mutation: Cosmic Adaptability → Abyssal Evolution]
So the system remembered him.
Maybe even feared him.
Good.
From the dark, a figure emerged — a holographic girl.
Blue hair. Warm smile.
But her eyes?
Too bright. Too empty.
"Welcome back, Erevan," she chimed, her voice a blend of mechanical cheer and something darker. "The Tower missed you."
"I doubt that," he muttered, his voice rough with the weight of years.
He barely had time to react before she lunged. Her form was glitching, shifting — like something that was never meant to exist outside the system's control. A hollow imitation, programmed to deceive.
The world around them rippled. The Tower's will pulsed through the air, suffocating, pushing at the edges of reality. Erevan's body thrummed with energy, alive with the cosmic power of his past.
He wasn't just fighting the Tower.
He was fighting the past.
And it was time for it to die.
In a single, fluid motion, Erevan's fist connected with the girl's chest. His hand tore through her like paper, the illusion disintegrating into shards of data, vanishing in a burst of static.
Her distorted giggle echoed, fading like broken data.
[Aggression Detected. Logging Emotional Patterns…]
Let it log.
Let it observe.
It would never understand what burned inside him now.
Not hope.
Not ambition.
Resolve.
He would climb.
He would adapt.
He would destroy.
And this time, the Tower wouldn't survive.
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