The gates opened with a low groan.
Gun Seren stood at the threshold of the tower, one hand on the hilt of his sword and the other near the dagger at his waist. The air around the entrance felt wrong the moment he stepped closer, like the world had shifted into a different rule set entirely.
Behind him was America.
Cars. Sirens. News drones. People staring at the tower from a safe distance like it was a disaster they could still afford to watch.
Ahead of him was the first floor.
Gun took one breath.
Then he stepped inside.
The moment his foot crossed the gate, the light changed.
The sky vanished overhead, replaced by a dim stone ceiling far above. The walls were rough, ancient, and damp with the smell of old blood and wet earth. Torches burned with a pale, sickly flame along the corridor, casting long shadows over broken pillars and cracked floor tiles.
Gun stood still for a second.
Not from fear.
From focus.
His eyes moved across everything at once.
Exit routes.
Corners.
Angles.
Sound.
Distance.
Enemy possibility.
Deepwoken had trained him to do this without thinking. Years of depths fights had burned the habit into him so thoroughly that his brain did it automatically now.
He listened.
He watched.
He measured.
Something shifted ahead.
A shape moved in the dark.
Gun's posture changed instantly.
A small goblin stepped into the torchlight, hunched and twitchy, carrying a crude spear that looked like it had been hammered together from scrap metal and bone. It snarled the moment it saw him.
Gun's eyes narrowed.
His mind began to work.
Not just looking.
Analyzing.
Weight distribution.Foot placement.Shoulder tension.Breathing rhythm.
The goblin shifted its left leg forward by half an inch.
It was preparing to lunge.
Gun's lips parted slightly.
"So that's your opener."
The goblin screamed and rushed him.
Gun raised his sword.
He had fought thousands of Sharkos in the Depths. He knew what blind aggression looked like. He knew how monsters telegraphed through instinct and motion.
But this wasn't Deepwoken.
This was real.
The goblin was real.
Its body had weight.
Its movement had life.
Its spear was a physical object that could stab him and kill him if he misread it.
That thought flashed through Gun's head in the same moment his body moved.
He decided to test it.
A parry.
He met the spear with perfect timing.
CLANG.
The goblin's weapon bounced away.
The creature looked stunned for a split second.
Gun used that split second to step in and drive a single clean hit into its chest.
The goblin collapsed immediately, low HP turning into death in one instant.
Gun stared at the body for half a breath.
Then he exhaled.
"Okay," he muttered. "That still works."
A sound echoed down the corridor.
Wet feet.
Fast.
Gun turned just in time to see five more goblins pouring out from the shadows, all of them smaller than the first but moving with frantic speed. They spread out unevenly, trying to box him in with cheap weapons and ugly snarls.
Gun's face stayed flat.
He shifted his stance, sword ready, dagger hand loose.
One goblin came from the left.
Parried.
Another from the front.
Parried.
A third tried to swing high and wide.
Gun ducked under it, slashed once, and the goblin dropped.
The next two hesitated.
That hesitation killed them.
Gun stepped in and finished the nearest one with a fast slash, then caught the last goblin's desperate attack with the dagger, just to prove he could, and sent it crashing backward into the stone wall.
Five goblins.
Gone.
The corridor went quiet again.
Gun looked down at the bodies and rolled his shoulder once.
"Trash mobs."
Then the floor shook.
A heavy sound rolled through the tower like a distant drumbeat.
Gun lifted his head.
The air changed.
Even the torches flickered.
Something big was coming.
The shadows at the far end of the corridor split apart as a larger silhouette emerged.
A goblin.
No.
Not a goblin.
A mutated goblin.
Huge.
Broad.
Its arms were thick enough to look carved from tree trunks, and in one hand it carried an axe so large Gun's first instinct was to compare it to a small door. Its skin was mottled and ugly, warped by something unnatural that made the creature look like a failed experiment in violence.
Its eyes locked onto Gun.
Then it roared.
The sound hit like a physical force.
Gun tightened his grip.
This one was different.
The smaller goblins had been easy. Predictable. Basic.
This thing moved with a much faster rhythm than he expected.
It charged.
Gun reacted on instinct and raised his sword.
The axe came down like a falling executioner's blade.
Too fast.
Gun did not know the pattern yet.
His body chose the safer option.
He blocked.
Metal collided with metal.
The impact almost ripped his arm from the socket.
His feet slid back across the stone.
The boss did not stop.
It smashed forward again, using the momentum of the first strike to push straight through Gun's defense.
The axe crashed into his stomach.
Gun's breath exploded out of him.
His eyes widened.
Pain.
Real pain.
Not the kind he felt from losing in a game. Not the kind he could shrug off with a respawn.
This hit landed in his body.
His posture broke.
He felt it all at once: the shock, the pressure, the sudden weakness in his core, the brutal force of an attack that had not cared about his pride or his experience.
Because he had no armor.
His body took the full damage.
Gun stumbled backward and nearly fell.
For one second, everything in him screamed the same thought.
This is how I die.
The mutated goblin raised its axe again.
Gun reacted immediately, throwing himself backward just before the next strike landed where his chest had been.
He landed hard, one knee skidding against the stone floor.
Blood dripped down from his stomach.
His breathing became shallow.
The goblin advanced slowly now, axe lifted, certain that it had already won.
Gun backed away another step, hand pressed against his injury.
His face had gone pale.
For the first time since entering the tower, he looked genuinely cornered.
But then he smiled.
Not because he was okay.
Because he understood.
"Three moves," he whispered.
The goblin snarled and rushed.
Gun moved.
Not to win.
To learn.
He dodged the first swing by a hair's breadth.
The axe smashed into the floor and shattered part of the stone beside him.
Second move.
The goblin pulled back and swiped horizontally.
Gun rolled under it, barely keeping balance as his injured stomach screamed in protest.
Second move confirmed.
The goblin tried a third attack immediately afterward, a brutal overhead cleave meant to finish him before he could recover.
Gun jumped back just in time.
Third move.
His chest rose and fell quickly.
He had it.
Only three attacks.
The problem was his stamina was draining faster than he wanted, and the blood loss was making his timing feel heavier.
One more mistake and it would be over.
The goblin charged again.
Gun straightened.
No more testing.
Now it was time to parry.
The axe came in.
Gun met it cleanly.
CLANG.
The force rattled up through his arms, but this time he was ready.
The goblin attacked again.
Gun parried again.
Then again.
And again.
The rhythm began to form.
The mutated goblin's movements were strong, but once Gun had the pattern, they were no longer unknown.
They became beats.
Openings.
Moments to punish.
The tower floor echoed with the repeated sound of metal impacts as Gun's body moved on instinct, timing every block and counter with the precision that had made him terrifying in the Depths.
The goblin swung low.
Parried.
Swung high.
Parried.
Came in with the side cut.
Parried again.
Gun's breathing was rough now. His wound still burned. But the fear was gone.
In its place was something colder.
Control.
The goblin lunged with its final heavy strike, fully committed, trying to crush him before he could recover.
Gun saw the opening.
He switched the sword to his left hand and the dagger to his right in a flash of motion so smooth it felt rehearsed.
The goblin's axe came down.
Gun caught it with the dagger.
The tiny blade shouldn't have been able to stop something that heavy.
But it did.
For just long enough.
Gun stepped forward at the exact instant the boss overextended.
His greatsword—his real blade, now moving with all the force of his rage and skill—came up in a brutal arc.
Then he drove it into the goblin's neck.
A single savage hit.
The mutated goblin's eyes widened.
Its body froze.
Then the strength drained out of it all at once and it crashed to the ground with a thunderous impact that shook the corridor.
Gun stood there breathing hard, blood still running down his stomach, sword lowered.
The silence after the fight felt enormous.
Then a glowing message appeared in the air above the body.
THE ENEMY FELLED.FLOOR COMPLETED.
Gun stared at the words for a second, then let out a short breath of laughter.
"Yeah," he said, voice rough. "That's more like it."
Light spilled out from the goblin's corpse.
Two scrolls floated upward and landed in front of him.
One glowed faintly with a pale common sheen.
The other pulsed with a deeper uncommon light.
Gun crouched and picked them up.
He turned them over once in his hands.
Ability scrolls.
Common and uncommon.
Not enough to change everything.
But enough to matter later.
He slipped both into his coat.
"Save for later," he muttered.
Then he looked ahead.
The next staircase rose from the end of the corridor, descending deeper into the tower's unknown floors.
Gun wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, adjusted his grip on the sword, and took one step forward.
Then another.
The first floor was done.
The climb had begun.