The second jolt against the door came like a hammer blow, rattling the entire frame and making the barricade groan under the strain. Dust drifted down from the ceiling in faint streams, forcing its way into Kael's eyes and nose, but he held strong to not let out a sneeze. His entire body stiffened, the weight of dread sinking deeper into his gut. His heart, which had been hammering furiously, seemed for a moment to lose all rhythm, as though each beat was forced to claw its way through flesh and bone. He pressed his back harder against the wall, the coarse plaster biting into his shoulders, while the sledgehammer quivered faintly in his grip from the tremor of his own hands.
The silence that followed the first impact was worse than the noise itself. He could hear his own shallow breaths, each one dragged painfully slow through his throat in an effort not to be heard. His ears strained for anything beyond that, scratching, shuffling, the sound of claws. Nothing came. Just when he thought perhaps he had imagined it, a jagged stone blade punched through the wood with a sickening crack, splinters bursting inward and scattering across the dusty floorboards.
The crude axe head jutted through, grinding back and forth with savage force until the wood shrieked in protest. Kael felt his stomach knot. There was no mistaking it now. He knew exactly what was trying to come through. A guttural growl followed, low at first, then rising in pitch until it became a rasping snarl that filled the tiny office. The sound made the hair on his arms stand on end. His chest tightened in instinctive panic, yet alongside that fear came something unexpected.
His pulse slowed. Not out of calm, not exactly, but as though some deeper instinct had taken hold. The frantic pounding within his chest quieted, as if his very body recognized that noise would betray him and forced his blood to flow differently. It was unnatural, disconcerting. The drumbeat in his ears faded into a distant thrum, and the world sharpened. His eyes, heavy with fatigue moments before, now seemed to pierce the gloom with unnatural clarity. The jagged edges of the door frame, the dust motes suspended in the air, the fine cracks along the stone axe, every detail stood out with startling vividness.
Kael pressed the hammer's shaft against his chest, willing himself into stillness. He dug his boots into the floor, becoming one with the wall behind him, his body a shadow among shadows. He forced every muscle to obey the silent command of concealment, even as a faint tremor ran through his legs.
A second blow tore away half the frame, and another ripped through the paneling, scattering shards of wood like brittle bones. The goblin forced its way forward, snarling with anticipation. Its misshapen head and hunched shoulders pushed into the gap, one clawed hand groping at the barricade as its yellow eyes flicked around the room.
"Bleguuhh, kwiik," it croaked, the guttural syllables grating in Kael's ears. Nonsense, yet edged with the cadence of speech. He felt his stomach twist at the alien sound, as though even the mere attempt at language by such a creature carried something profoundly wrong. A voice in his head told him he should be terrified, that this gibbering speech was the herald of his doom. Yet another voice, colder and quieter, pressed against his mind: hold steady.
The goblin dragged more of itself through the ruined doorway, its torso scraping against the splintered wood as it wedged its way inside. The reek of unwashed hide and rancid breath wafted into the room, foul enough to make Kael's eyes water. His throat constricted, but he refused to cough, refused to let the sound escape. His grip tightened on the hammer until the wood dug mercilessly into his palms.
There was no hesitation left when the goblin's head cleared the frame. Before the creature could even turn its gaze toward him, Kael surged forward, muscles fueled by that strange focus. He lifted the sledgehammer high, every tendon in his shoulders screaming from the effort, and brought it down in one clean, brutal arc.
The impact rang out like thunder in the confined space. The goblin's skull exploded under the weight of steel and stone, crushed in a spray of bone fragments and thick, dark blood. The force was so immense that the head separated from the body entirely, sheared away with grotesque ease. The body convulsed, caught mid-spasm, before collapsing limply against the ruined doorway.
A hot spatter of blood struck Kael's cheek, stinging his skin with its unnatural heat. His arms quivered with the recoil of the strike, the hammer trembling faintly as he struggled to steady it. For a heartbeat, he nearly gasped aloud, his chest tight, his throat ready to release the pent-up tension that threatened to choke him. His ears burned, turning hot as if the rush of blood were fighting to escape through them. But he bit down on the sound, clenched his jaw until it ached, and swallowed the cry.
The corpse sagged half inside the room, twitching once before stilling. From beneath its broken frame, something rolled loose with a faint metallic clink against the boards. A sphere, faintly glowing with that same pale light he had seen on the street. His hand darted out before he even thought, snatching the orb and clutching it tightly.
{You have obtained [Soul Orb]}
The glowing letters materialized in front of him, a new window floating in the stale air. His chest still heaved silently, his body fighting the war between terror and exhilaration, but his eyes fixed on the notification.
{[Soul Orb] Miscellaneous item The main currency of the Reverse Tower of the Dead Can be used to trade in all floors of the Tower.}
Kael blinked once, staring at the text. That was all. A few plain lines, but they carried weight heavier than stone. The orbs were not only the keys to survival, but currency itself. The Tower did not recognize gold or coinage. It demanded these, the crystallized essence of death. He turned the orb in his palm, the faint glow painting his dirty fingers in a ghostly light.
For a fleeting instant, Kael almost felt relief. He had survived the first breach. He had killed, and the Tower had rewarded him.
Kael closed his hand around the orb, its warmth sinking into his palm, and for the barest instant, he allowed himself to feel a flicker of grim triumph. One strike, one death. He had not faltered.
Now he was safe...Or so he believed.
The tremor of footsteps from below, heavier this time, more numerous, pulled the fragile sense of triumph from his grasp and dipped him back into the cold and grim reality of survival.