The Tower had no dawn. Only the trembling hush before slaughter.
Somewhere high above the marble vaults, the Tower's voice boomed, neither male nor female—a thing woven of iron and cold wind:
"Eighteen remain.
But only twelve shall stand when the sun returns.
Shed blood. Claim breath. Time flees."
Silence. Then the screams began.
Kaoru moved through the halls like moonlight gliding across water.
White hair fell about his face in delicate strands. His eyes were pale silver, calm as frozen seas. He carried no weapon, only cold.
A girl lunged at him with twin daggers, screaming her name, desperate to make her mark. Kaoru barely shifted. Frost spiraled from his fingertips, kissing the air. The daggers froze mid-swing, splintering into icy shards.
The girl gasped, tried to pull away—but Kaoru stepped forward, laid his palm against her throat, and frost crawled over her skin. Flesh turned pale, blue, then white. When he pulled back his hand, she fell in a rigid block of ice, eyes staring forever forward.
Kaoru exhaled a little mist. Whispered:
"It's a pity… It could have been beautiful."
Elsewhere, Liora stalked corridors lined with golden pillars, her lilac hair flowing like a veil.
She hummed a melody. It was gentle, sweet, like a lullaby. But to those who heard it, reality fractured.
A boy with a spear staggered toward her, eyes rolling back, shrieking that serpents were devouring his legs. He slashed wildly at shadows, foam flecking his lips.
Liora leaned close, her voice soft:
"Sleep, darling.The dawn won't miss your breath."
She slipped a hidden dagger under his ribcage. His screams dissolved into gurgling gasps as blood stained his tunic violet.
In another hall, a clash of steel rang out like church bells.
Hanzo, a towering man of iron flesh, advanced through two desperate contestants hacking at him with curved swords. Sparks flew, blades bouncing harmlessly from his skin. He caught one man by the throat and squeezed. Bones crunched. The body fell limp.
The second fighter tried to run. Hanzo snatched him by the back of the skull and drove his face into the marble floor until red spread in a widening pool.
Hanzo's eyes were flat and dark.
"The weak die first," he murmured. "The Tower knows this."
Naya drifted like a wraith through corridors painted in shadows.
Her slender arms were latticed with black vine tattoos. When a burly man roared and charged her with a cleaver, vines exploded from her skin. They coiled around his arms and throat, pulsing like living serpents.
He struggled, screamed—then the vines constricted, flaying strips of flesh from his shoulders and chest. Blood gushed like red curtains. His scream dwindled to a wet rattle as he collapsed, vines slithering back into Naya's skin.
Her eyes were blank, distant.
"Mother said flowers drink blood too."
From eighteen… to sixteen. To fifteen. Then fourteen.
Four corpses sprawled across marble floors, faces twisted in final horror. Blood streamed along the tiles, trickling into carved runes that pulsed faintly, as though the Tower itself drank from the fallen.
The halls reeked of iron. Of fear.
Rin crept through a narrow passage, pressing himself into shadows. Every sound set his heart hammering. His skin still ached from the frost that had brushed him the day before. His mind raced.
"They're not people anymore. Not here. Just beasts in a cage."
His breath misted in the cold air. He shivered, clutching his arms across his chest.
Somewhere, a scream cut off abruptly. A wet crunch followed. Rin squeezed his eyes shut.
He could still feel the way his own blade sank into flesh. The look of that cocky boy's eyes as the life drained out. His stomach twisted—but alongside it, something else stirred: an alertness. A cold, calculating clarity.
He hated it. And craved it.
A man staggered around the corner ahead of Rin, blood pouring down his face. He collapsed to his knees, sobbing. Rin reached out instinctively—
—but before he could help, The Butcher stepped into view behind the dying man, towering like a crimson god.
Eyes black as burned earth. Blood crusting his arms up to the elbows. He whispered, almost gently:
"Ssssh… It doesn't hurt if you let go."
And he slit the man's throat with a single flick of his cleaver. Blood fanned out in a steaming arc across the wall.
The Butcher looked up, eyes locking with Rin's. A smile crept across his lips.
"Rin… next time, I won't stop."
Then he vanished back into darkness, dragging the corpse by the hair. Rin stared after him, trembling.
High above, on a balcony draped in shadows, The Red Advocate leaned on the railing, his crimson cloak coiling like liquid silk. His voice floated down in soft, poetic sighs:
"The Tower weeps, for Time runs thin,And red blooms where innocence has been.
Fate writes its script in dying breaths—Who loves, who kills, who faces deaths."
He smiled faintly, golden eyes glinting.
He could feel it: something stirring inside the boy below. A ripple of time out of place.
"So soon…" he murmured. "Too soon."
Rin staggered deeper into the maze of marble. The blood-slick floors gleamed like glass under the flickering lanterns.
He whispered to himself:
"I'm not ready.I'm not ready.
But I have to be."
Each step felt heavier than iron. His mind kept replaying the Advocate's words:
"No mercy. No hero's grace."
He turned a corner—and collided with Kaoru, The Frostcall Heir.
Kaoru's silver eyes fixed on him. Frost spiraled outward, creeping across the marble in delicate fractals. His breath steamed like a winter storm.
"I saw what you did," Kaoru said softly. "With The Butcher.
Show me your power, boy."
Rin took a step back. "I don't want to fight you."
Kaoru tilted his head. His voice was calm, emotionless:
"Then you'll die."
He thrust his palm forward. A blast of freezing air howled down the corridor, slamming into Rin's chest. The marble split under Rin's feet. Frost spiderwebbed up his legs, biting into flesh.
Rin gasped. Panic surged in his veins.
Kaoru advanced, ice swirling around his body.
And suddenly—
Time buckled.
The frost seemed to pause midair. Kaoru's arm slowed as though pushing through water. Every sound twisted into an echo.
Rin blinked. He felt himself floating just half a step outside reality, as if standing behind glass, watching time crawl.
His own voice whispered from somewhere inside him:
"Run.Or kill."
When time snapped forward again, Rin ducked sideways, narrowly avoiding a spike of ice meant for his throat. He twisted, bringing his blade around. It clanged off a wall of frost Kaoru raised just in time.
Kaoru's eyes widened. "Impossible. You… you shouldn't be able to do that yet."
But Rin wasn't listening. He was moving, faster than he ever had before. He felt his mind crackling with lightning, muscles surging with new energy. Everything blurred—until he realized his body was screaming for air, his vision going white.
He dropped to one knee, gasping. His vision spun.
Kaoru stumbled backward as well, frost fading from his hands. Both of them panting, glaring.
Kaoru lowered his hand slowly. "We'll finish this… later."
He vanished into a spray of ice crystals, leaving Rin on trembling legs.
High above, The Red Advocate leaned closer over the railing, lips parted in wonder.
"The clock strikes out of tune…
The boy stumbles into fate's cocoon.
Such lovely chaos."
He laughed softly, a sound like glass bells.
Rin staggered against a wall, sweat streaming down his face. His heart thundered like war drums.
"I… I can't keep this up…"
He clenched his shaking fist.
"But I'll die if I don't."
Somewhere deeper in the North Gate, new footsteps echoed. Another presence approaching. Another fight waiting.
And the Tower whispered once more:
"Fourteen remain."