The 17th floor wasn't made of stone or fire or steel.
It was made of music.
Not the kind that brought peace—but a melody woven from agony, triumph, and something ancient... like the heartbeat of a dying god echoing through time.
Erevan stood in a temple made of bone-white pillars that stretched into a sky of churning void. The air was thick with sound—no instruments, no vocals. Just a vibration that wormed its way under the skin, into the marrow.
The System's message was slower this time, almost reverent.
> [Welcome to the Floor of Binding.]
[Here, you will face the oaths you have made—spoken and unspoken.]
[To ascend, you must break a bond… or be broken by it.]
He exhaled through his nose.
Of course. The Tower never forgot.
He stepped forward. With every pace, the music shifted. Grew closer. He wasn't just hearing it—he was remembering it.
A lullaby.
One he hadn't heard in years.
He froze.
For the first time in a long while, Erevan felt a pang not of rage or sorrow—but something gentler. Bittersweet.
His mother's voice. Soft. Fragile. Singing in the dark after his father had disappeared into a war that never ended.
"You were born under a cursed star," she had once whispered, stroking his hair. "But even stars burn bright before they die."
He had carried her body out of the ruins of their village after the invaders came.
He had been twelve.
The melody returned then, stronger. The temple trembled.
A figure rose from the far end of the hall—tall, elegant, wrapped in flowing silk that shimmered with constellations. No face, only a void where one should be.
> [Manifestation of the Broken Bond: "The Forgotten Promise."]
"You said you'd become something better," the voice echoed from the faceless form, feminine and warm.
"You swore you wouldn't let the world change you."
Erevan didn't respond.
Because he remembered that promise. Remembered making it with bloodied hands and a heart too naive to understand what it would cost.
He had changed.
Because becoming better had never been enough.
To protect, to avenge, to survive—he had needed more than ideals. He had needed power.
The apparition raised its hand, and stardust poured from its palm like tears from the sky. Swords formed in midair—twelve of them, shaped from broken constellations, each singing with the lullaby's melody.
They launched forward.
Erevan didn't hesitate.
He moved through the storm with the grace of a man who had danced with death a thousand times. One sword grazed his cheek—drawing not blood, but smoke. Another shattered against his shoulder as his skin turned to silver-metal instinctively.
He fought with silence.
But inside, memories roared.
A dying rebel who had begged him to spare a child he didn't know was already dead.
The moment he had chosen vengeance over diplomacy during the siege of the White Bastion.
The friend he had sacrificed to escape a collapsing realm—because he knew he could still climb the Tower, and they could not.
Each strike he parried, each blade he shattered, wasn't just survival.
It was penance.
Or maybe just justification.
He hated lies. Especially the ones he told himself.
The faceless figure spoke again as he neared.
"You kill to protect. But who protects you?"
Erevan's expression tightened.
"I don't need protection," he said, voice low.
"I need to win."
The lullaby cracked.
The melody turned to static, the temple flickering like a fading flame. Erevan plunged his fist into the center of the being's chest—where a heart might have been.
It dissolved into stardust.
> [Bond Severed: "The Forgotten Promise"]
[Title Gained: Oathbreaker of the Tower]
[Mental Resistance +5% | Charisma -1]
[Abysswalker Trait Progress: +3%]
He stood alone in the silence that followed.
The System didn't offer congratulations.
But Erevan didn't need them.
He turned toward the staircase that revealed itself ahead—this one descending into what looked like mist veined with glowing tendrils.
Before stepping forward, he paused.
In the reflection of a nearby shard of glass, he didn't see himself.
He saw a man in a throne of bones, stars orbiting his shoulders, his eyes not human, but endless.
He saw what he would become.
And beneath that image, a whisper. Faint, buried in the System's static.
> [Warning: Alignment Shift Detected – Tyrant Path Deepening.]
He stared at it for a long moment.
Then walked on.
He didn't fear the word tyrant.
He feared the world that made him need to become one.
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