The silent room held no sign of life. Donghyun sat alone, staring at the screen in front of him.
[An Upper-Rank Monarch from the Higher Floors has shown interest in you.]
[Tap "Yes" to view the request.]
The message stayed there for several minutes. His hand slowly reached out and touched the screen. [Yes]
[Error: Cannot view. System denies request.]
[Current level too low.]
The screen blinked, then vanished. But something else was coming his heartbeat syncing with the timer ticking down.
[Trial begins in 00:52:32]
He stood and searched for a beer. One lay under his bed grabbed it and cranked open the warm can, watching people outside panic and prepare for the trials, some bolting their doors.
"It's bitter," he muttered.
As the seconds slipped away, the timer continued its relentless countdown:
[Trial begins in 00:01:59]
The timer hit 00:00.
The screen lit up brighter than before.
[Trial Start] [Welcome to the Tower of Trials.] [Those who reach the top will be granted anything they desire.] [You have 10 minutes to enter the Tower.] [Press Accept / Decline.]
Joo Donghyun stared at the words. Not because they surprised him. But because for the first time in a long while, something stirred.
Desire. Old, fragile, But still alive. Like a match lit in a room gone cold. His finger hovered, then pressed.
"I'll climb it." A dark void swallowed him whole.There was no sound. No ground beneath his feet only emptiness, stretching endlessly in all directions, in the distance, a faint outline shimmered a door, standing upright in the void like a mirage.
He hesitated.
Then, with slow steps, he walked toward it. But the door didn't get closer. Step after step, it stayed right where it was, like space itself was folding against him.
The void cracked, not with sound but with weight.The silence shattered into color. Crimson moonlight spilled across jagged mountain peaks black winds howled like wolves in mourning.
High above, perched like a wound against the sky, stood the door. But now it was real.
Below it, goblins toiled under chains dragging stone, carving a massive statue of something Donghyun couldn't yet understand. Their green skin glistened with sweat, their eyes hollow, their movements mechanical.A sharp growl split the air.
An ogre.
It lumbered from the shadows, skin like stone, eyes like glowing coals. Its gaze locked onto him.
"You!" it barked, tossing a pickaxe that hit the ground with a dull thud. "Work."
Dust rose.
Donghyun stared at the pickaxe.He didn't speak, just picked it up and swung the sound of metal against rock rang out beneath the blood moon.
The iron chain bit into his ankle, cold and rusted. Joo Donghyun staggered forward, a slab of stone pressed to his back. His shoulders burned, legs shaking with every step on the blood-crusted soil.
"Put more strength into it, You want to fucking die?"
The shout came from a goblin not like the others. This one stood tall, broader, a crooked club resting against its shoulder, its eyes glinted with amusement as it watched him stumble.
Just ahead, the half-finished statue loomed, its arms outstretched like it was begging the sky. Around it, hunched figures toiled chained humans, skin marred with welts. One dropped a stone, and in the next breath, an ogre's whip tore through the air. A scream followed, hoarse and tired. Blood hit the ground.
Donghyun didn't flinch, he just kept walking.
Someone bumped into him another human, barely standing, his ribs showing beneath torn cloth. "Move," the man rasped. "They don't wait."
Donghyun moved.
The goblins worked too, but only the smaller ones, the bigger ones carried clubs. They laughed and drank something thick and black. Every so often, one would drag a human away, and the chains would clink for hours after.
Donghyun felt the statue's shadow fall over him. A wind blew, dry and warm, lifting the dust around his feet.
The statue had no face just a slab of unfinished stone atop a towering body carved by bleeding hands. Joo Donghyun, little more than a skeleton draped in torn cloth, kept working days bled into months. Years, maybe he couldn't remember.
He no longer thought of time , just kept working like a machine.
The pickaxe felt heavier each day, like it wanted to stay buried in the stone his wrists, bound by rusted chains, ached with every swing. Around him, groans echoed not from goblins this time, but humans dozens of them, hollow-eyed, bent, barely alive one collapsed beside him, no one noticed, no one helped.
And still, the statue grew, each piece of stone he placed, each corner he carved, brought the faceless monument closer to completion.
The ogres whipped, laughed, kicked, and killed the workers. There was no rest no room to breathe goblins were yoked to wooden carts like animals, pulling heavy stones under the eyes of roaring ogres. If anyone made a mistake, they were punished. Sometimes, they were tossed to the Howl Wolves and ripped apart as a warning.
A voice slithered in Donghyun's mind low, hungering.
"Forget your past, kill anyone who stands in your way, I'm hungry. Feed me."
Day after day, he refused the whisper. But bit by bit, the memories faded anyway. His name, his mother's face his reasons for climbing the tower. One by one, they slipped into the dust.
At night, the ogres held fights for sport. They forced humans and goblins into a bloodstained pit, there were no rules the loser died, the winner, got to live another day.
Tonight, it was Donghyun's turn.
The blade in his hand trembled, he was too exhausted to lift it properly, his grip barely holding. Across from him stood a goblin scarred, yellow-eyed, breathing hard. It raised its weapon but didn't strike.
Instead, it stared into his eyes then stumbled back like it had seen something monstrous.
"No.. no.. what are you?."
The goblin dropped its weapon and refused to fight. The ogres howled with laughter and crushed its skull as punishment.
Donghyun stood alone in the pit. Alive.
But not sure what part of him had scared the goblin more. The shadow that followed .
He lived another day.
The next morning, a massive boulder was strapped to his back. The rough stone tore open his skin with every step. Around him, people collapsed out of sheer exhaustion no food, no sleep, no mercy.
A goblin screamed nearby not in rage, but in desperation. A mother shielded her small son, bowing again and again at the feet of an ogre.
"Please, he's just a child. He didn't do anything."
The ogre laughed. With one thick arm, he dragged the baby goblin away by the leg, hoisting him high like a prize. Blood smeared his fist as he roared with laughter, waving the child like a trophy.
Donghyun blinked.
For a moment just a flicker he saw something else. A woman's silhouette. Shielding a young boy from a man's fist. Arms wide, voice screaming.
He didn't think.
His body moved on instinct. Shadow surged without his command a black spike shooting from the ground, slicing the ogre clean in half.
Silence.
Dozens stared, Goblins, Humans. Even the ogres.
Then rage.
The others rushed him, fists and clubs slamming down, he didn't scream nor beg. When it was over, they dragged his broken body and chained it to the base of the unfinished statue.
"One ogre spit beside him. 'Why not just kill him now?' Another larger ogre snarled, 'No. He doesn't get to die easy after what he did.'"
Blood pooled beneath him. His face was almost unrecognizable torn, bruised, swollen shut and still,he heard it.
The voice.
"We can kill them all.
Accept me."
He had no strength to speak, nor think.
Soft footsteps approached.
The goblin child the one he had saved crept close, eyes glistening. His mother followed behind, silent and shaken.
The child reached up with trembling hands and touched Donghyun's fingers.
"Thank you," he whispered. "They beat you because of us."
His mother's voice followed, tearful and raw.
"Being kind doesn't mean you're weak."
That phrase.
It cracked something inside him.
The warm room, a soft hum of a lullaby, small hands clutching his arms. A woman standing between him and the world.
"Mom?"
The word left his lips like a breath he had forgotten he was holding.
And in an instant.
Everything came rushing back.
Who he was.
What he had become.
What he had forgotten.
What truly mattered.
The goblin mother looked at him one last time. Her voice, soft but certain, echoed as the world began to vanish.
"I believe you can save our people."
The wind stilled, chains turned to dust.
The statue, the ogres, the blood, the mountain,all of it crumbled into silence.
Only darkness remained.
Donghyun woke with a gasp, his chest heaving. The stone beneath him was cold, cracked, and overgrown with weeds. Around him lay thousands scattered like broken dolls across the floor, some stirred, others wept a few screamed as if waking from nightmares they couldn't shake.
He pushed himself upright. Nearby, a girl clutched her stomach, gasping in pain, another man was still. Blood clung to his lips. He wasn't breathing.
The air reeked of sweat, iron, and something else something old.
From the far side of the field, a man in a tailored black suit emerged. His shoes made no sound against the stone, yet each step pulled the crowd's gaze.
He smiled. Not kindly.
"Well done, humans," he said, raising one gloved hand. "You have survived the first floor."
He glanced around, eyes flickering across the wounded and dazed like he was studying cattle.
"Rewards will be delivered shortly. My best regards, and good luck surviving what comes next."
And then he vanished in a flash, like a shadow blinking out.
A second later, the air shimmered and this time, it wasn't a man that answered.
[First Floor Trial: Echo of Purpose Complete]
[Your will has been acknowledged]
[Reward Granted Shadow Grasp (Lv.2)]
[Shadow Echo (Lv.1)]
Emotions leave traces in shadows, causing enemies to hesitate and revealing recent movements.
[Second Floor locked Entry close]
Donghyun didn't react, not right away. The system flickered before his eyes, but his gaze was elsewhere, drawn to the people still lying on the ground, some breathing Some not.
The system's voice returned.
[Notice: The path to the Second Floor will open shortly]
[Participant count exceeds limit]
[Requirement: Only 800 may proceed]
[Solution: Eliminate the competition]
A beat of silence followed.
[Commencing Culling Phase]
[You have 1 hour]