The vibration in the obsidian pillar transformed from a low hum into a rhythmic, mechanical grinding.
"What is that?" the girl stammered, backing toward the ledge. "The quest... the Hive... what does it mean?"
I didn't answer. My Architect's Eye was already screaming. The jagged stone beneath us wasn't just rock—it was a honeycomb. Every crack and crevice I had seen during my fall began to widen, and from the darkness emerged thousands of translucent, needle-thin legs.
[MOB IDENTIFIED: OBSIDIAN STINGER (LVL. 5)]
Type: Swarm/Crystalline
Trait: Mana-Siphon (Drains player energy on contact)
Danger Level: Lethal (Death Mode Scaling)
The insects were the size of wolves, their bodies made of sharpened volcanic glass. They didn't make a sound—no buzzing, no chirping—just the terrifying click-clack of glass against glass as they surrounded us.
"Get behind me!" I barked, clutching my broken arm against my chest. The golden light was still knitting my bone together, but it wasn't fast enough. I had one good arm and a skill that could level a building, but used too much energy.
[WARNING: STAMINA AT 15%]
[MANA AT 20%]
The first Stinger leaped. It was a blur of black glass.
"Move!" I lunged forward, not with a punch, but with a shoulder tackle. I slammed into the creature's midsection, feeling the razor-sharp edges of its shell slice into my skin.
[ACTIVE SKILL: STRUCTURAL COLLAPSE (LOW OUTPUT)]
I didn't try to explode the air this time. I touched my palm to the creature's thorax and sent a micro-vibration into its center.
Crack.
The Stinger didn't just die; it turned into a pile of fine black sand. But there were hundreds more crawling up the sides of the pillar, their many eyes glowing with a hungry, emerald light.
"I... I can help!" the girl suddenly cried out. She held out her hands, and a shimmering, unstable barrier of light flickered into existence around us. "I'm a [BARRIER MAIDEN], but I can't hold them all off!"
[PARTY SYNERGY DETECTED: RUIN-BREAKER & BARRIER MAIDEN]
New Potential Skill: Resonant Shield (Explosive Defense).
"Listen to me!" I shouted over the sound of the approaching swarm. "The moment they hit your shield, don't try to hold them back. Let the shield vibrate. I'll trigger the collapse through your barrier!"
It was a suicidal plan. If I mistimed it, the explosion would kill us both.
"Do it now!" I roared.
The girl—her name tag finally flickered into view as LYRA—screamed in concentration. Her shimmering barrier turned from a pale blue to a frantic, vibrating white. The Obsidian Stingers slammed into it, their glass mandibles scraping against the light, hundreds of them piling on top of each other until we were encased in a dome of skittering, crystalline monsters.
"I can't... hold them!" she gasped, her knees buckling. "The pressure is too much!"
"Don't hold it! RESONATE!"
I slammed my good hand against the interior of her barrier. Using Architect's Eye, I saw the frequency of her mana. I didn't try to break her shield; I synchronized my Structural Collapse with it.
[UNIFIED SKILL TRIGGERED: RESONANT SHIELD]
For a heartbeat, the world went silent. Then, the barrier didn't just break—it detonated outward in a perfect, horizontal ring of kinetic force.
BOOM!
The shockwave carried the 'Ruin-Breaker' energy through the 'Barrier Maiden's' construct. Every Obsidian Stinger touching the shield was instantly turned into dust. Those further back were shredded by the shrapnel of their own kin. A massive cloud of black obsidian powder erupted from the pillar, visible for miles.
[MASS KILL RECORDED]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL UP!]
[CURRENT LEVEL: 4]
[STAMINA & MANA PARTIALLY RESTORED]
The dust settled, revealing a scorched circle of empty stone around us. Thousands of Stingers had been erased in a single second. Lyra collapsed to her hit-points, sobbing with relief, her hands trembling.
I stood there, my broken arm finally snapping back into place with a sickening crunch as the level-up bonus forced a rapid heal. I flexed my fingers, feeling the raw power of the 7\bigstar contract coursing through my veins.
"We're alive," she whispered, looking up at me. "We actually survived Death Mode."
"Don't get comfortable," I said, looking toward the center of the pillar.
The dust was clearing, but it wasn't just empty stone left behind. In the center of the hive, the explosion had uncovered a massive, ornate trapdoor made of bone and gold.
[SECRET AREA DISCOVERED: THE ARCHITECT'S CATACOMB]
[WARNING: This area is not part of the standard Tutorial.]
"The 7\bigstar God didn't just give me a class," I muttered, walking toward the door. "He gave me a shortcut."
I gripped the handle of the bone-and-gold trapdoor. As it swung open, a cold, suffocating pressure surged out—not the physical pressure of the wind, but the weight of a powerful gaze.
"Stay close," I told Lyra. She didn't need to be told twice; she was already clutching the hem of my jacket, her eyes darting toward the darkness below.
We descended a spiral staircase carved from the same obsidian as the pillar. At the bottom, we emerged into a circular chamber illuminated by a ghostly, golden fire. Standing in the center of the room was a figure.
My heart skipped a beat.
It wore my clothes. It had my height, my build, even the same messy hair. But where my eyes were human, its eyes were hollow pits of flickering 7\bigstar starlight. Its skin was the color of bruised marble, and its left arm—the one I had just healed—was encased in a jagged, crystalline gauntlet that hummed with a violent frequency.
[BOSS ENCOUNTER: THE FAULT-LINE REFLECTION]
Level: ?? (Scales to 200% of Player's Current Power)
Difficulty: DEATH MODE - MANDATORY
Description: To build a tower that reaches the stars, one must first destroy their own shadow.
"It... it's you," Lyra whispered, her voice trembling.
The Reflection didn't speak. It simply raised its crystalline hand and snapped its fingers.
CRACK.
The air behind us collapsed. The shockwave threw Lyra across the room and slammed me into the stone wall. It wasn't just using my skill; it was using the perfected version of it.
I coughed up a mouthful of blood, the "Minor Healing" from my level-up struggling to keep up with the internal damage. I looked up just in time to see the Reflection blur. It moved faster than my eyes could follow, appearing inches from my face.
"So," a voice echoed in my head—the voice of the Architect. "Is your foundation made of stone, or of sand?"
The Reflection's fist, glowing with the power of a collapsing star, drove into my stomach.
[WARNING: CRITICAL DAMAGE]
[HP: 12%]
The blow didn't just hurt; it felt like it was unravelling my very molecules. This wasn't a fair fight. The System had created a version of me that knew my every move before I even thought of it.
"Lyra!" I choked out, sliding down the wall. "The shield... don't let it... touch you..."
The Reflection turned its hollow gaze toward her. It didn't care about me anymore; I was already broken. It began to walk toward the terrified girl, its gauntlet sparking with enough energy to level the entire chamber.
I had to do something. My Architect's Eye scanned the boss, looking for a fault line—a weakness. But there were none. The boss was "perfect."
Then, I looked at my own hands. I wasn't perfect. I was broken, bleeding, and desperate.
If I can't find a fault in him, I thought, a manic grin spreading across my bloody face, I'll have to create one in myself.
I watched as the Reflection raised its crystalline gauntlet to erase Lyra. It was a perfect machine, calculating the most efficient path to victory based on my own biology.
It knows me because it thinks I'm whole, I realized. It predicts me because it thinks I'll play by the rules of a healthy body.
"Hey! Shadow!" I croaked, dragging myself to my feet.
The Reflection paused, its head tilting with a mechanical, eerie grace. It didn't understand why I was standing.
I didn't reach for a weapon. Instead, I gripped my newly healed left arm with my right hand. I looked at the 7\bigstar mark on my skin and channeled every ounce of Ruin-Breaker energy I had left—not outward, but inward.
[WARNING: SELF-DESTRUCTIVE CONDUCT DETECTED]
CRUNCH.
I twisted. The bone shattered again, but this time, I didn't stop there. I used Structural Collapse to grind the broken fragments against each other, creating a chaotic, discordant vibration that rippled through my entire nervous system.
[SYSTEM ERROR: Player status "UNSTABLE"]
[The Reflection is losing synchronization...]
The boss froze. Its hollow starlight eyes flickered. It was designed to counter a Level 4 Ruin-Breaker, but it couldn't calculate the frequency of a man who was actively destroying his own foundation. I was no longer a "structure" it could read; I was a chaotic mess of screaming nerves and jagged bone.
"My turn," I hissed.
I lunged. I didn't use a clean punch. I swung my shattered, vibrating arm like a flail. Because the bone was vibrating at a "discordant" frequency, the Reflection's perfect defense didn't recognize the threat until it was too late.
My broken fist collided with its marble chest.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: DISCORDANT COLLAPSE]
The vibration from my arm transferred into the boss's "perfect" body. I saw the fault lines finally appear—spiderwebbing out from the point of impact. The Reflection tried to raise its gauntlet, but its fingers began to flake away into ash.
"Lyra! Now!" I screamed.
She didn't hesitate. She poured every drop of her remaining mana into a needle-thin barrier, driving it like a wedge into the cracks I had opened.
The Reflection let out a sound like a thousand mirrors breaking at once. The 7\bigstar starlight in its eyes flared one last time before its entire body imploded, pulled into the very vacuum it had used against us.
[BOSS DEFEATED: THE FAULT-LINE REFLECTION]
[TITLE EARNED: ONE WHO SHATTERS HIMSELF]
[LEVEL UP! LVL. 4 -> LVL. 9]
I fell to my knees, my left arm a mangled ruin, my vision fading to black. But as the boss dissipated, a single, glowing object remained hovering in the air where the Reflection's heart had been.
It was a key made of pure, solid starlight.
[QUEST ITEM OBTAINED: ARCHITECT'S MASTER KEY]
Description: Allows the user to bypass one floor of the Tower or unlock any "Death Mode" restricted gate.
Lyra ran to me, catching me before my head hit the stone. "You're insane," she whispered, tears tracking through the dust on her face. "You're actually insane."
"In this tower," I whispered, coughing up a bit of gold-flecked blood, "insanity is the only thing... that's solid."