The next morning, Gun Seren walked into school like nothing had happened.
That was the funny part.
Inside, everything was different.
Outside, the streets were crawling with panic. People were staring at the sky. News vans were parked at intersections. Every screen in the city kept replaying the same message over and over.
The Towers Have Appeared.
But school was still open.
Barely.
The building felt tense, like everyone knew the world had changed and nobody wanted to be the first one to say it out loud. Teachers moved through the halls with forced calm. Students whispered in clusters. Half the class looked excited. The other half looked terrified.
Gun looked neither.
He looked annoyed.
He pushed the classroom door open and took his seat without saying a word.
A few people glanced at him. Some remembered the cracked monitor story already, or at least some version of it. By now it was probably being exaggerated into something ridiculous.
Gun didn't care.
All he cared about was the class testing.
Today was the day the system would judge everyone.
Today was the day people found out what kind of power they had.
And today was the day Gun Seren planned to make the towers regret ever touching his life.
A sharp chime echoed through the classroom speaker.
"Students," the principal's voice crackled through the intercom, "please proceed to the auditorium for class and nexus evaluation."
The room stirred instantly.
Chairs scraped. Students stood. A few people were already sweating.
Gun rose slowly and followed the crowd.
At the auditorium, a large crystal pillar stood at the center of the stage. It was tall, clear, and glowing faintly with blue-white light. One by one, students were called up to place their hands against it.
The system would respond.
Sometimes with a class.
Sometimes with a nexus.
Sometimes with both.
Sometimes with nothing.
The people who got nothing were usually the first to panic.
Gun watched from his seat as the line moved.
A girl near the front got a support class and aqualith as her nexus. The room murmured.
A guy behind her got a commander class and swift gale nexus. More murmurs.
Someone else got one class and no nexus. He looked like he might vomit.
Gun sat back in his chair with his arms folded.
"C'mon," he muttered under his breath. "Don't be boring."
His turn came soon enough.
The teacher called his name.
"Gun Seren."
He stood and walked down the aisle.
The whole room seemed to watch him.
Maybe because everyone knew about the Deepwoken thing. Maybe because he had already become the school's weird legend. Maybe because they could tell from the way he walked that he didn't care what the system wanted from him.
Gun reached the crystal pillar and placed his hand against it.
The crystal lit up immediately.
A beam of light shot through the room.
The teacher blinked. "Hmm…?"
Then the first message appeared above the pillar.
CLASS AWAKENED: KNIGHT
A wave of reaction rippled across the auditorium.
"Knight?"
"Is that rare?"
"That sounds strong…"
Gun didn't even react.
Then the crystal flashed again.
A second message appeared.
CLASS AWAKENED: ASSASSIN
The room went dead silent.
A few students leaned forward as if they had heard wrong.
The teacher's eyes widened. "Two classes?"
Murmurs exploded instantly.
"Wait, that's not normal."
"I thought you could only get one!"
"No way…"
Gun stared at the pillar with the same expression he used when the server lagged at the worst possible time.
Then another line of text flickered.
Everyone waited.
A nexus was supposed to appear now.
A blue symbol. A core. Something.
Nothing came.
The crystal dimmed.
And then the final line appeared.
NO NEXUS DETECTED.
The auditorium erupted.
Some people laughed in disbelief. Others looked confused. A few looked impressed in a weird way, like they had never seen a result that strange before.
Gun just stood there.
No nexus.
Two classes.
Knight and Assassin.
He slowly pulled his hand away from the pillar.
"Huh."
That was all he said.
The teacher cleared his throat awkwardly. "Well… that is highly unusual."
Gun turned and walked back to his seat without another word.
But someone else in the room was not nearly as calm.
A boy stood up from the back row with a grin so ugly it seemed practiced. He had sharp eyes, a smug posture, and the kind of presence that made people around him instinctively tense.
Everyone knew him.
The school bully.
A rich, arrogant, overpowered idiot who was an eldritch.
He had one class.
And two nexuses.
People called him a prodigy. People called him gifted. People called him untouchable.
He called himself the future.
His eyes locked onto Gun.
A sneer spread across his face.
"Well, well," he said loudly enough for the whole auditorium to hear. "A double class and no nexus. That's hilarious."
A few nervous laughs scattered through the room.
The bully stepped forward, cracking his neck.
His gaze shifted to the girl sitting near the front row, the one everyone knew he liked. Her face tightened when she saw him moving.
He pointed at Gun and laughed.
"Ha. Let me try on this shi on you, loser."
The auditorium got quiet again.
Gun looked at him.
Slowly.
Without any rush.
He stared for a second, then stood up.
The bully grinned wider.
"Yeah, that's right. Come on. Let's see what kind of trash gets two classes and still has no nexus."
Gun rolled his shoulders once and stepped into the aisle.
He didn't look angry.
That was the scariest part.
He looked patient.
Like he had already decided how this was going to end.
The bully lunged first.
Fast, wild, powered by raw arrogance and whatever.
The crowd gasped.
Gun moved once.
Just once.
His hand snapped upward in a clean defensive motion.
Parry.
The impact rang through the auditorium like a metal bell.
The bully's attack stopped dead.
His eyes widened.
Gun stepped in immediately, his body moving with precise, efficient calm. No wasted motion. No hesitation. Just the exact response his instincts demanded.
A sharp strike to the ribs.
A step to the side.
Another strike.
The bully tried to recover, swinging with his nexus-powered arm, but Gun was already reading the rhythm.
He caught the next attack cleanly.
Parry.
Then he punished it so hard the bully stumbled backward into a row of chairs.
The whole room exploded into gasps and shouts.
"WHAT?!"
"No way!"
"Did he just parry that?"
Gun advanced.
His face was blank.
The bully tried to unleash another attack, this one heavier, eldritch energy twisting around his arm like broken smoke. The air itself bent around the strike.
Gun tilted his head.
Then parried it too.
The force backfired into the bully's own body, sending him off balance.
Gun stepped in and hit him again.
And again.
And again.
The bully's arrogance evaporated in real time.
His face twisted from shock to panic as Gun pressed him back with the kind of control that only came from absurd experience.
Gun didn't need a nexus.
He needed timing.
The bully rushed one last time, desperate, trying to overpower him with raw force.
Gun caught the swing.
Parried.
Closed the distance.
And drove him into the floor with a final brutal strike.
Silence fell over the auditorium.
The bully lay there stunned, humiliated, and very much not winning.
Gun looked down at him for a second, then glanced toward the girl in the front row.
She was staring at him now.
Not with fear.
With surprise.
Maybe even a little admiration.
Gun smirked faintly.
Then he turned away.
The teacher, after several seconds of complete failure to process what had just happened, finally said, "...Class dismissed."
The students erupted into noise the moment they were allowed to move.
Gun ignored all of it.
He left the auditorium and headed straight into the city.
He had decisions to make.
A class meant nothing if he fought wrong.
He needed weapons.
Not armor.
Never armor.
Armor was for people who expected to get hit.
Gun had no intention of getting hit.
That was the whole point.
He wanted a no-hit run.
A real one.
Not just for bragging rights.
For Drake Eshet.
For the build that was wiped.
For every Depths fight he had ever survived.
For every time he had learned that pain was just information.
He found a weapons shop near the market district, one of the few places still open after the tower event. The owner looked like he had already seen too much in one day and didn't care enough to ask questions.
Gun examined the stock silently.
A sword.
Not too heavy. Not too flashy. A blade with enough reach to punish mistakes and enough balance to move fast in his hands.
Then a dagger.
Short. Clean. Deadly.
Perfect for follow-ups, assassinations, and the kind of close-range control Gun liked.
He paid without haggling.
The owner looked at him oddly. "Not buying armor?"
Gun shook his head.
"Nope."
"Why not?"
Gun took the sword, tested its weight once, and slid the dagger into his coat.
Then he answered without looking up.
"Because I'm not getting hit."
The owner stared.
Gun walked out.
By the time he reached the edge of the city, the tower was impossible to ignore.
It rose over America like a wound in the sky, black and endless, its surface shifting with strange light. The air around it felt wrong. Heavy. Charged. Like the world itself was holding its breath.
Other people stood nearby in loose clusters, staring up at it with the same mixture of fear and awe.
Gun stepped forward alone.
He stopped at the gates.
Massive.
Locked.
Waiting.
For everyone else, the tower was a disaster.
A mystery.
A new era.
For Gun Seren, it was something much simpler.
An enemy.
He rested one hand on the hilt of his sword and stared up at the first floor entrance.
His reflection barely showed in the dark surface of the gate.
Good.
He didn't need to see himself.
He just needed to climb.
Gun smiled.
The tower stood silent before him.