Adyanth wasn't a chosen one.
No divine bloodline. No cursed birthmark. No mysterious stranger handing him a prophecy at twelve.
He was just some kid the universe forgot to finish.
What he lacked in trauma-soaked righteousness, he made up for with unfiltered spite and a complete absence of reverence for the system he was born into.
Most people climbed the Tower for answers. Others, for salvation. A few, for vengeance.
Adyanth?
He climbed because the universe had been exceptionally bad at its job, and he wanted a refund with interest.
Adyanth died on a bar floor, gutted and coughing blood, quietly resenting how inconvenient it all was.
He didn't scream. Didn't pray. Just stared at the ceiling and wondered how long it would take to bleed out. He'd done a good thing, supposedly—saved someone. A bartender, a woman, a friend? The universe didn't seem impressed.
Which made sense. It never had been.
But the universe, in all its cruel comedic flair, had one final twist queued up.
He woke six months later in a hospital bed. Ribs mummified in gauze. Brain humming like a machine just booted from cold sleep. And hovering over the IV stand was a message that crackled with ancient code:
You have been selected by Tower of Eternity. The Trials awaits ascender.
He heard no explanation. No divine voice in his mind saying this like, "Congradulation you have awakaned,". Just glowing symbols and a sense of cosmic impatience.
Adyanth didn't even know what the Tower was. Nobody did, not really. The doctors ignored it. The nurses couldn't see it. But it was there—vibrating just beyond perception like the grin on a cruel joke.
At discharge, knowing full well that the next time he opened his eyes he might not be in this world anymore, Adyanth searched the hospital gift shop for a mask. Something—anything—to cover his identity.
The only one available?
A clown face. Painted grinning. Lurid. Mocking.
He stood in front of it for ten solid seconds before muttering, "Screw it." Then stole it. Like the universe owed him one free insult before they got started.
The Trials began. A tutorial wrapped in lies and blood. Other climbers spouted ambition like cultists at a seminar—revenge arcs, chosen-one declarations, save-my-planet speeches. Adyanth listened. Quiet. Detached.
Then he heard it: the whisper about the 150th floor. The top. The alleged source of power that could rewrite reality itself.
And in that moment, his reason crystallized.
Not redemption. Not conquest. Not glory.
Spite.
The Tower? No one knew who built it. No one even dared guess. Even gods and demons treated it like a shrine they couldn't remodel. To seek its top was heresy. To mock it was suicide.
So Adyanth wore the clown mask like a declaration.
They called him jester. Pretender. Joke.
Fine by him. Let them laugh.
Because if the Tower was sacred, if it was the axis of all existence—
—then maybe the universe deserved to be beaten at its own game…
by a man too broken to care,
wearing the face of the punchline.