The staircase ended not with a floor—but with a gate.
Unlike the shifting mists and organic madness of earlier levels, this was something entirely different. The gate was a massive slab of brass and obsidian, inscribed with a language that shimmered in silver gears and rotating runes. The moment Veyne stepped forward, the symbols aligned with a harsh click.
A whisper followed, mechanical and deep:
"Welcome to Floor 21: Chronoforge. Begin Synchronization."
The gate hissed open, gears grinding, and Veyne stepped inside.
He blinked. The world before him looked like the inside of a colossal timepiece—towers of spinning mechanisms, bridges made of clock hands, pistons rising and falling in rhythmic bursts. Above him, the sky ticked like a heart, counting time aloud in seconds.
Everything pulsed with perfect order. That, in itself, was disturbing.
[Revelation Instinct Activated]
Floor Type: Construct Arena – Chrono Trial
Boss: The Clockwork Colossus
Objective: Disrupt the Cycle
He didn't like that last part. "Disrupt the cycle?" Veyne muttered. "I barely survived the last one. Now I have to break time?"
No answer. Only ticking.
He stepped onto a platform shaped like a sundial. Instantly, a second version of himself appeared—an echo suspended in golden gears. It wasn't an illusion. It was him—five seconds into the future, watching, waiting.
The moment he moved, it copied him perfectly.
"Another test of self?" he grumbled. "Getting tired of these."
He charged forward.
Except, for the first time, his copy moved before he did. It slashed where he would move. Dodged where he intended to aim. This wasn't a shadow of his past like Nameless Veyne—it was his predictive future.
He was being outpaced by time itself.
Veyne gritted his teeth and activated his thorned whip—a gift from Floor 19. The thorn weapon unraveled and struck—but the echo phased just before it landed.
"Fine," he hissed. "You want unpredictability? Let's go."
He sliced his own leg.
Blood splattered, unexpected.
The echo blinked—hesitated.
That was all Veyne needed. He used the pain to anchor himself, twisted, and delivered a whip crack across the sundial. The echo exploded in gears.
A timer appeared overhead: 00:09:59.
Ten minutes.
Suddenly, the clock's ticking grew louder. Gears unfolded beneath his feet, forming a spiraling descent into the heart of the floor.
A rumble followed. The ground shifted.
And it arrived.
The Clockwork Colossus rose from the center like a titan of brass and fire. Thirty feet tall, crowned with spinning mechanisms, its chest bore a transparent core where time itself was folding—seconds looping, reversing, and fast-forwarding in a chaotic storm.
Its right arm was a blade shaped like a broken pendulum. Its left: a hammer of hours.
"Great," Veyne muttered. "A walking time bomb."
The First Phase – Forward
The colossus struck with precision—each movement synced to the ticking above. It didn't waste energy. Every swing was planned, calculated, and devastating.
Veyne dodged barely, using his surroundings. Revelation Instinct tried to analyze patterns, but the deeper he fought, the more time fractured.
He struck once—only for the wound to reverse. The creature rewound its injury, undoing it mid-fight.
"How the hell am I supposed to kill something that refuses to stay dead?"
That's when the floor offered its first mercy: a glowing gear suspended in the air. As he reached for it, memory flooded in:
A scientist in robes, whispering in a forgotten language.
"The Chronoforge does not reward violence. It rewards understanding."
"Disrupt its pattern. Introduce chaos. Make the machine stutter."
Veyne grinned.
He began fighting out of sync.
He tripped over his own foot. He struck at nothing. He screamed at empty space. And it worked—the Colossus paused, confused, its head rotating awkwardly.
That's when he struck the core.
A fracture appeared.
The time storm inside flickered.
Second Phase – Reverse
Suddenly, time snapped backward.
Everything reversed—wounds unhealed, motions undone, words unsaid. Veyne screamed in frustration as his progress vanished.
But one thing remained: memory.
He remembered what he had done. The Tower couldn't erase that.
So he repeated it—but differently this time.
He carved a new path, leaving unpredictable markers—fake trails of blood, reversed steps, false echoes of motion. The Colossus began to glitch.
Then the floor cracked—and they both fell.
Final Phase – The Stillpoint
Veyne awoke in a chamber deep below.
Here, time was frozen. The air didn't move. Dust hung motionless. Even his heartbeat slowed to a crawl.
The Colossus was waiting—silent, unmoving.
Above it, a massive sundial hovered, still as death.
Veyne took a step. Nothing responded.
Another.
He stood beneath the sundial. His instincts screamed.
And then—he stopped.
Instead of attacking, he stood still.
One second. Two.
Then the sundial ticked once.
The Colossus's chest opened.
He saw it: the true core—a sphere made of pure memory. Not time.
Veyne reached into himself. Pulled a single name from his mind.
"Mael," he whispered.
The sphere pulsed. Glowed.
And then cracked.
The Colossus collapsed without a scream. It didn't need one. It had never lived.
The frozen chamber thawed. Time returned.
Above him, a message formed:
TRIAL COMPLETE – THE CLOCK NO LONGER RULES YOU
REWARD: Passive Skill Acquired – Chronoshard Instinct (Delays one fatal blow per day by 3 seconds)
Dominion Fragment Gained: Stillness of Will
Title Earned: Gearbreaker
Unlocked: Floor 22
Veyne sat down beside the broken machine and laughed bitterly.
He didn't beat the Tower by being strong.
He beat it by being broken in ways it didn't expect.