Time was broken.
The world no longer moved in a straight line. Moments bled into each other — past and future overlapping like shattered glass. Cities rose and fell in a breath. Children aged decades overnight. Entire bloodlines vanished, not from war or plague, but from forgetting to have ever existed.
At the heart of the catastrophe stood a single, unending spire:The Tower Beyond Skyglass.
Its base lay buried in a crater of warped time. Its peak was hidden beyond the ruined sky — unseen by even the gods.Each floor within twisted reality further: trials of mind, flesh, and memory — forged by the Tower's will to find those capable of reshaping fate itself.
Very few climbed it.Fewer survived.None remained unchanged.
Kael stood at the base, eyes cold as cracked obsidian, the wind whispering secrets through torn ruins.
He remembered this place — not from life, but from dream. From the cult that carved his soul hollow and filled it with purpose.
He wore no armor. Only black cloth, a sheath across his back, and the Spiral Cult's mark glowing beneath his skin:The Sigil of Reversal.
A forbidden brand, etched into his heart by force — giving him power over a sliver of time itself.
Behind him, the world was dying.Ahead, the Tower waited.
He stepped inside.
The First Floor: Time's Teeth
The air was stale with echoes — ghost-voices, fractured laughter, the screams of those who died in loops they could never escape.
Stone corridors twisted unnaturally. Doors opened into dead ends or flickering copies of themselves. The Tower was alive, and it remembered.
Kael moved like a blade. Precise. Quiet. Ready to cut through anything that moved.
The first creature found him quickly.
A Fracture Beast, formed from timeline collapses. Its body flickered in and out of existence — wrong angles, repeating limbs, hungry voids stitched together with sound.
It lunged.
Kael didn't move.
Not at first.
Then his eyes flared with silver light. The Sigil of Reversal activated. Time stuttered.The beast's lunge slowed, then rewound — twitching back to its starting position.
Kael was already there.
His sword slipped through the creature's core. It screamed, but in reverse — as though dying before it ever lived.
Ash fell. Time healed. The corridor restructured, stone knitting back together.
He didn't pause. Only kept walking.
Blood and the Sigil
Further in, Kael reached a shifting hall of mirrors — each one showing a version of himself: dead, broken, smiling, burning, forgotten.
"Liora…"
A whisper. A memory.
His sister, perhaps. Or just a phantom.
He turned — too late.
A rival stepped from the shadows, blade drawn. Another climber — cloaked, fast, merciless.
"Spiral dog," the man spat. "You don't deserve to climb."
They clashed.
Metal rang. Sparks flew. The Tower trembled.
Kael fought like a ghost — bending time in micro-movements, dodging blades a heartbeat before they were swung. But his enemy was skilled. Fast. Brutal.
One slash slipped through.A rib cracked. Blood sprayed.
The pain was sharp. But Kael did not flinch.
Instead, he activated his second brand — buried beneath his left sleeve.
The Sigil of the Wound.A forbidden Spiral technique.
He froze the damage in place — then redirected it, wound and all, into his rival.
The man screamed as his chest shattered from within. He stumbled.
Kael slit his throat without a word.
The Tower responded.
A deep voice echoed from the walls:
"Trial Complete.First Floor Conquered.Sigil Unlocked: Chrono Step."
A pulse of power struck Kael's spine — not gentle, but surgical. A new mark burned itself into his flesh.
Chrono Step — a technique allowing him to freeze time for two seconds and move unseen.
He felt the power settle into him like another weapon. Another edge.
He climbed the spiral stairs that formed ahead, ascending into deeper madness.
He did not look back.
Interlude — The Spiral and the Child
Kael was born in Ashreach, a place where time warped so violently that mornings sometimes came before sleep.
His parents were devoured by the time-storms. His sister, Liora, survived with him — two children clinging to sanity in a world where yesterday might be tomorrow.
The Spiral Cult found them.
Kael was taken. They said he had the gift.
They carved sigils into his bones. Forced him to kill to keep his memories. Told him that emotion was a chain. That hesitation was death.
He remembered screaming. Then forgetting. Then screaming again.
By the time he passed his third trial, he had forgotten Liora's face.
But not her name.
Never her name.
Now, Kael climbs.
Not for power. Not even for revenge.
He climbs because the Tower whispers her name.
And because he is the Spiral's blade — forged in suffering, sharpened by time.
And he is ready to cut through the future itself.