"rrily, do you want the blessing of Light Affinity?"
Lucious asked the question casually, as if he were offering her a piece of candy.
He twirled his staff, walking with a bounce in his step toward the swirling blue vortex that marked the end of the First Floor.
"My mother is the First Apostle," Lucious explained, his golden eyes shimring with innocence. "She can just ask Lady Gaia for a blessing. It’s really no trouble. If you have the affinity, you won’t need to protect you all the ti."
rrily, floating beside him, nearly choked on her own breath.
"Ask... Lady Gaia?" she squeaked.
To a common Fairy, Gaia was a distant, supre deity. To Lucious, she was apparently just a family friend. It was a stark reminder of the gap between a Climber and soone from the royal family.
"I... I would be honored, Lucious," rrily whispered, her heart pounding.
They approached the Portal Gate. It was a massive archway of stone, filled with a mana. Stepping through ant leaving the Endless Forest and entering the unknown dangers of Floor 2.
"Co on, guys!" Lucious called out over his shoulder.
Behind him trailed his "party."
It wasn’t just the original ten wolves anymore. Over the last month of wandering the forest, Lucious’s Angelic Beauty had acted like a magnet.
The pack had swelled to thirty Shadow Wolves, led by a massive D-Grade Alpha Wolf with fur like obsidian spikes.
They had been his loyal guardians. They hunted for him, slept curled around him to keep him warm, and played fetch with him in the clearings.
To Lucious, they weren’t monsters; they were family.
But as Lucious stepped toward the portal, the pack stopped.
Whine.
The Alpha Wolf dug his claws into the dirt, his ears flattening against his skull.
The thirty other wolves bunched together, trembling. They looked at the portal with terror.
"Guys?" Lucious stopped and turned around. "What’s wrong?"
rrily floated higher, looking down at the beasts. She realized imdiately what was happening.
"Lucious," she warned. "They are Tower Monsters."
These creatures were constructs. They were born of the Tower’s mana, designed with specific rules.
One of the fundantal Laws of the Tower was Floor Lock. A monster spawned on Floor 1 belonged to Floor 1. If it tried to leave its designated reality, the tower would treat it like an error.
And the tower deleted these errors.
"Don’t you want to follow to the Second Floor?" Lucious asked, tilting his head.
He didn’t understand the chanics. He only knew that they loved him.
The Alpha Wolf looked at the portal, sensing imdiate death. Then, it looked at Lucious.
It saw the boy’s golden hair, his hopeful eyes, the radiant aura that made every creature want to serve him.
The wolf’s rules scread SURVIVE, but its soul, or whatever the talent had awakened in it, scread FOLLOW.
The Angelic Beauty talent was SS-Grade. It didn’t just charm; it rewrote instincts. It was stronger than the fear of death.
Awoooo!
The Alpha howled, a sound of mournful determination. It stepped forward. The pack followed. They were marching to their execution because their master asked them to.
"See?" Lucious smiled brightly. "They just needed a little encouragent! Let’s go!"
Lucious turned and stepped into the blue vortex. The world spun, and he vanished.
One by one, the wolves walked into the light.
Tower of Eternity, Floor 2: The Marshlands.
ZAP.
Lucious materialized on a stone platform surrounded by fog. The air here was damp and slled of decay.
"Phew!" Lucious wrinkled his nose. "It slls bad here. Alright, guys, form a circle around rrily, we need to...."
He turned around to issue orders to his pack.
But there was no one there.
"Guys?"
Lucious waited. rrily popped out of the portal a second later, looking around frantically.
"Where are they?" Lucious asked, a knot forming in his stomach.
"I... I don’t know," rrily whispered, though she feared she did.
"Maybe they got stuck?" Lucious reasoned. "I’ll go back and check."
He stepped back into the portal, returning to Floor 1.
He erged back in the Endless Forest. The clearing was empty. There were no wolves waiting for him. There was no Alpha wagging its tail.
Instead, on the ground where the wolves had entered the portal, there lay a pile of items.
Thirty small E-Grade Mana Stones.
And one large, pulsating D-Grade Wolf Heart.
Lucious stared at the heart. It was still warm.
"No..."
His mind went blank. The world seed to tilt on its axis.
"What happened?" Lucious whispered, falling to his knees. He reached out and touched the Wolf Heart. It was the only thing left of the Alpha that had let him use its stomach as a pillow.
"Let’s go, Lucious," rrily said softly, floating down to tug on his sleeve. "We can’t stay here."
"Why did this happen?!" Lucious scread, his voice cracking. Tears spilled from his eyes. "Where did they go?!"
This was the first ti in his ten years of life that reality had told him ’No.’ He was the Morningstar. He was the Hero. Things always worked out for him.
But now, his friends were dead. And worse, they had turned into loot.
"It’s the rules, Lucious," rrily explained gently, her heart breaking for him. "Tower Beasts... they can’t leave their floor. If they try, the tower... Erases them."
"Erases?" Lucious looked at her with horror. "They aren’t just so non living things! They were alive!"
Suddenly, a lodious voice echoed in his mind.
[Do not weep, Child]
It was Thea. She had been monitoring the First Hero closely. Seeing his ntal state deteriorating, she calculated that an intervention was necessary to prevent trauma that might affect his growth.
[They were Soulless Constructs]
Thea explained, her voice calm and logical.
[They were manifested by the Tower to serve as obstacles. They possess no true consciousness. Their deletion is a natural cycle of the tower. Do not mourn the artificial.]
Thea thought this would comfort him. Logic usually comforted mages.
She was wrong.
"Soulless?" Lucious whispered, his tears turning angry.
"Lady Thea? But you saw them too!" Lucious shouted at the sky. "They were alive! They ate the at I gave them! They played when I threw the stick! They followed when they were scared!"
He clutched the Wolf Heart to his chest, staining his white robes with blood.
"If they were soulless, why did they trust ? They were my friends! They shouldn’t die just because of a stupid rule!"
Thea fell silent. Her logic hit a wall. She didn’t know how to salvage this situation.
The Throne Room, City of Gods.
Sunny sat on his Throne, watching the scene unfold on a holographic screen.
His expression, usually impassive behind the mask, softened.
He rembered.
He rembered being six years old on Endor, long before he was a God. He rembered a squirrel he used to feed in the park.
One day, the squirrel ran across the road to get to him.
A car. A screech of tires. A small, broken body.
Sunny rembered the feeling of helplessness. The feeling that the world was cruel and indifferent to small, innocent things.
"He is just a boy," Sunny whispered.
He looked at Lucious, sobbing over a monster drop.
"Thea."
[Yes, Master?]
"Tower Rules are ant to challenge climbers, not to traumatize children," Sunny said quietly. "If a climber can ta a beast, that beast ceases to be a monster. It becos a Companion."
"Revive them," Sunny ordered. "I don’t want his childhood scarred by a wrongly designed rule."
[As you command, Master]
Tower of Eternity, Floor 1.
Lucious was curled into a ball, weeping. The cold reality of the world had shattered his perfect bubble.
Suddenly, the air pressure changed.
The ground beneath him began to vibrate. The items, the mana stones and the Wolf Heart began to glow with a blinding golden light.
A voice, deeper and more powerful than Thea’s, resonated through the entire floor.
[Your prayers have been heard by the Emperor.]
Lucious looked up, his face streaked with tears. The golden light intensified, swirling around him like a cyclone.
"Emperor?" Lucious whispered.
The Wolf Heart floated into the air. The mana stones joined it.
SWIRL.
A thick, black fog erupted from the ground, the essence of Creation. It wrapped around the items, weaving muscle, bone, and fur out of nothingness.
Within seconds, the fog dissipated.
Standing there, confused but alive, was the Alpha Wolf. Behind him, the thirty pack mbers shook their heads, shaking off the disorientation of death.
Whine?
The Alpha looked at Lucious. It licked his cheek.
Lucious froze. Then, he tackled the massive wolf, burying his face in its fur.
"You’re back!" Lucious sobbed, laughing hysterically. "You’re back!"
rrily watched with her mouth open. She had never seen such a scene before in her entire life of 19 years.
[From this mont forth, tad Monsters are designated as ’Companions’. They are bound to the Climber’s soul and may traverse the Floors freely. If they die in combat, they will respawn after a cooldown period, provided the Tar is alive.]
Thea’s voice returned, softer this ti.
[The Emperor has decreed it. Train them well, Little one.]
Lucious wiped his eyes. He looked up at the sky, past the ceiling, past the stars, towards the Throne he knew was watching him.
He dropped to his knees, ignoring the dirt.
"Thank you..." Lucious choked out, pressing his forehead to the ground. "Thank you, God Emperor. Thank you for the blessing of absolute strength. Thank you for saving my friends."
"I will never forget this. I will serve you forever."
The golden light faded, leaving a boy, a fairy, and a pack of resurrected wolves standing before the portal.
Sunny, watching from his throne, smiled.
"Go on then," Sunny whispered. "Climb. And take your friends with you."
Lucious stood up. The sadness was gone, replaced by a fanatical devotion. He patted the Alpha Wolf.
"Let’s go, Winter. We have a tower to conquer."
This ti, when they walked through the portal, the wolves didn’t hesitate. They walked into the light, following their Hero to the ends of the earth.
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