The first thing Nate noticed was the sun.

  Real sun. Not the purple bruise of Floor 3 or the pulsing crimson of the ruined city. Actual daylight, warm on his face, filtered through the cracks that still split the sky. He stood at the base of the tower and breathed air that didn't taste like moss or rust or decay.

  Seven days. Maybe more. It felt like a lifetime.

  The area around the tower had changed. The initial chaos was gone—no more bodies in the streets, no more burning cars, no more screaming. Instead, there were barricades. Makeshift walls of vehicles and debris, arranged in a rough perimeter around the tower's base. People moved behind them, organized, purposeful.

  Someone had built a camp.

  A shout went up when they saw him emerge. Nate tensed, hands coming up instinctively, before he realized they weren't attacking. They were just surprised.

  A man approached the barricade, keeping his distance. He was older, maybe fifty, with a baseball bat over one shoulder and the look of someone who hadn't slept well in a week.

  "You came out," the man said. It wasn't a question. "We saw people go in. Most of them didn't come back."

  "Some did?"

  "A few. Early on, before we set up here. They came out stronger. Different." The man studied him. "You were in there a long time. Longer than anyone else."

  "Seven days. I think."

  The man's eyebrows rose. "It's been eight days since integration. You went in on day one?"

  "Yeah."

  Silence. The people behind the barricade were watching now, whispering among themselves. Nate could feel their attention like a physical weight. Not hostile, but wary. Uncertain.

  "What floor did you reach?" the man asked.

  "Three. Cleared it."

  More whispers. The man's grip on his bat shifted, not threatening but nervous.

  "We've had people clear floor one. A couple made it through floor two. Nobody's come back from three." He paused. "What's your level?"

  "Ten."

  The man took a step back. Not fear, exactly. More like respect mixed with something else. The same look Nate had seen on trainers' faces when a fighter showed something special in the gym. Recognition of a different kind of dangerous.

  "There's food," the man said finally. "Water. Medical supplies, if you need them. You're welcome to stay."

  "Thanks."

  Nate walked past him, through the gap in the barricade, and into the camp.

  The camp was bigger than he'd expected.

  Maybe two hundred people, spread across the parking lots and storefronts near the tower. They'd taken over a strip mall—the same one he'd seen on day one, when he'd told that woman to get inside. Tents and tarps covered the open spaces. Cook fires burned in metal barrels. Someone had rigged a water collection system from tarps and gutters.

  People had adapted. Faster than he would have thought possible.

  He got looks as he walked through. Some curious, some afraid. A few hopeful, like they were seeing proof that survival was possible. He ignored them all, scanning faces, looking for—

  "Nate?"

  He turned.

  Mira stood near one of the cook fires, a metal pot in her hands. She looked different than she had in the tower—cleaner, less desperate, but with shadows under her eyes that hadn't been there before. She stared at him like she was seeing a ghost.

  "You're alive," she said.

  "Yeah."

  "We thought—" She stopped, shook her head. "Tyler said you went to floor two. That was a week ago. We thought you died."

  "I went to floor three."

  "Floor three?" She set the pot down, forgetting about it entirely. "That's—nobody comes back from floor three. The people here, they talk about it like it's a death sentence."

  "It almost was."

  She looked at him more closely. Taking in the new scars, maybe. The way he held himself. The something in his eyes that hadn't been there before.

  "You're different," she said quietly.

  "Yeah."

  Before she could respond, another voice cut in.

  "Holy shit. Nate?"

  Tyler limped around the corner of a tent, moving fast despite the bandages still wrapped around his calf. His face split into a grin when he saw Nate standing there.

  "You crazy bastard. You actually made it." He grabbed Nate's hand, shook it hard. "Mira said you were dead. I told her you were too stubborn to die, but even I was starting to wonder."

  "Your leg's better."

  "Yeah, mostly. Still stiff, but one of the people here used to be a nurse. She cleaned it up, stitched it right." Tyler's grin faded a little. "We owe you. For the tower. If you hadn't shown up when you did..."

  "Don't mention it."

  "I'm going to mention it. You saved our lives." Tyler glanced at his sister. "Both of us."

  An awkward silence fell. Nate wasn't good at this—accepting gratitude, making conversation, being seen by people who expected something from him. The tower had been simpler. Fight. Survive. Grow. No social dynamics to navigate.

  "Come on," Mira said, breaking the tension. "You look like you haven't eaten in a week."

  "I haven't. Not really."

  She led him to the cook fire, pushed a bowl of something into his hands. It was simple—canned vegetables heated over the flames, some kind of protein that might have been spam—but it was the best thing he'd tasted in his life. He ate in silence while Tyler and Mira watched.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  "So," Tyler said eventually. "Floor three. What was it like?"

  Nate thought about the ruins. The stalkers. The broodmother pinning him down, needle teeth inches from his face.

  "Hard," he said.

  Tyler waited for more. Nate didn't offer it.

  "Right. Man of few words. I remember." Tyler shifted, wincing as his leg protested. "It's been crazy out here too. First few days were bad—monsters everywhere, people dying, nobody knowing what was happening. Then some guys cleared the first floor of this tower and came out with classes. Started organizing things. Building the camp."

  "They still here?"

  "Some of them. Others went back in, trying to clear floor two." Tyler's expression darkened. "Not all of them made it."

  Nate nodded. He understood. The tower gave power, but it took payment in blood.

  "What about you two?" he asked. "You staying here?"

  Tyler and Mira exchanged a look. Something passed between them—grief, fresh and heavy.

  "We don't have anywhere else to go," Mira said quietly.

  Nate waited.

  "Our parents," Tyler said. His voice was rougher now. "They were across town when it happened. Dad was at work, Mom was—" He stopped, swallowed. "We spent the first two days trying to get to them. The streets were chaos. Monsters everywhere, cars dead, people running. By the time we got to Dad's office..."

  He didn't finish. He didn't have to.

  "We found Mom's car," Mira said. She was looking at the fire, not at Nate. "On the highway. Crashed into a barrier. Blood on the seats, but no body. We looked for her. For days. Asked everyone we could find." She shook her head. "Nothing."

  "Maybe she's still out there," Tyler said, but his voice lacked conviction. "Maybe she found another group, somewhere else. We don't know for sure that she's—"

  "Tyler." Mira's voice was gentle but firm. "We know."

  Tyler's jaw tightened. He looked away, blinking hard.

  Nate sat with them in the silence that followed. He should say something. Offer comfort. Tell them he was sorry, that he understood, that loss was part of this new world and they'd find a way through it.

  But the words wouldn't come. Because the truth was, he didn't understand. Not really.

  "What about you?" Mira asked. She'd wiped her eyes, composed herself. "Do you have family out there? Someone you're trying to find?"

  The question hit harder than it should have.

  "No," Nate said.

  "No one? Parents, siblings, anyone?"

  He thought about his father. The last time they'd spoken—three years ago, maybe four. A phone call that had lasted less than five minutes. You had potential, Nathan. Real potential. And you threw it away for what? To fix cars? The disappointment in his voice, thick as oil. Don't call again until you've made something of yourself.

  He thought about his mother. The way she'd stopped answering his calls after the injury, after he'd washed out of fighting, after he'd become something she couldn't brag about to her friends. The birthday cards that stopped coming. The silence that stretched into years.

  He thought about the guys from the gym. The ones he'd trained with, fought beside, called friends. How they'd drifted away after his knees went, one by one, until he was just another nobody who used to have a shot. They hadn't been cruel about it. Just... absent. Like he'd stopped existing once he stopped being useful.

  "My parents cut me off," Nate said. "Years ago. After I got hurt and couldn't fight anymore. They saw me as a failure."

  Mira's expression shifted. Tyler looked up.

  "That's..." Mira started, then stopped. "I'm sorry."

  "Don't be. It is what it is." Nate set his empty bowl down. "I didn't have anyone before this. No family that wanted me, no friends that stayed. When the integration happened, when I saw that tower..." He shrugged. "I didn't have anyone to look for. Anyone to worry about. So I walked in."

  The words hung in the air. Tyler and Mira stared at him, and Nate realized he'd said more in the last thirty seconds than he had in the entire week inside the tower.

  "That's why you stayed," Mira said slowly. "On floor one. After you cleared the tutorial. That was brave, going deeper when you could have walked away."

  "It wasn't brave," Nate said. "I just didn't have a reason to come out."

  Mira blinked. Tyler looked at him.

  "What do you mean?" Tyler asked.

  Nate shrugged. "You had each other. You had your parents to look for. I didn't have anyone. No one waiting, no one to find. Walking into that tower..." He paused, trying to find the right words. "It wasn't courage. It was just the only direction that made sense."

  The silence that followed was heavier than before. Tyler and Mira exchanged a glance, and Nate saw something shift in the way they looked at him. Not pity, exactly. Something closer to understanding.

  "And now?" Tyler asked. "You've cleared floor three. You could stop. Stay here."

  Nate thought about it. Could he?

  The tower was right there. He could feel it even now—that pull in his chest, that hunger. It hadn't gone away when he'd stepped outside. If anything, it had gotten stronger.

  "I don't know," Nate said. "Maybe."

  He slept that night in a real bed.

  Not a bed, exactly—a cot in one of the tents, with a thin mattress and a blanket that smelled like dust. But it was flat, and dry, and nothing was trying to kill him. That made it the best sleep he'd had in eight days.

  He woke before dawn, muscles stiff but healed. The evolution had done its work. His body felt different now—not just stronger, but denser. Like his bones had been replaced with something heavier. Every movement carried more weight.

  He spent an hour in the empty parking lot, testing his new skills.

  [Impact] worked the same as before, but the drain was less severe. He could use it more often, recover faster. The E-rank upgrade had smoothed out the rough edges.

  [Pressure] was different. The passive effect was always on—he could feel it now, a constant weight behind his strikes that he hadn't noticed before. But the active effect was new. When he focused, really focused, he could pour his intent into a single blow. The air itself seemed to thicken around his fist.

  He punched a dead car and left a dent three inches deep.

  [Killing Intent] was the strangest. It wasn't physical. It was more like... letting go of a restraint he hadn't known he was holding. When he released it, the air changed. The shadows seemed darker. A dog that had been scavenging near the barricades yelped and fled.

  He pulled it back, reined it in. Useful, but dangerous. He'd have to be careful with that one.

  By the time the camp woke up, Nate had made his decision.

  He found the man with the baseball bat—his name was Frank, someone said—and asked about the tower. What they knew. What they'd learned.

  "It's five floors," Frank said. "We think. The people who cleared floor one said the System told them that much. Five floors, then a boss at the top. Clear the boss, clear the tower."

  "Anyone made it that far?"

  "No. Highest anyone's gotten is floor two, and most of them died there." Frank studied him. "You're thinking about going back in. Aren't you."

  "Thinking about it."

  "You know what happens if nobody clears it?"

  Nate frowned. "What do you mean?"

  "The System sent a message. Two days ago, to everyone. Said the towers have a timer. Thirty days from integration. If a tower isn't cleared by then, it... opens. The monsters inside come out. All of them. All at once."

  Thirty days. Eight had already passed. Twenty-two left.

  "How many towers?" Nate asked.

  "In this city? We've counted six. Worldwide?" Frank shook his head. "No idea. Communications are still down. We've got nothing but runners and rumors."

  Six towers in one city. Monsters spilling out of each one if they weren't cleared. Nate thought about the stalkers, the crawlers, the broodmother. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands, flooding into streets full of survivors who could barely fight.

  It would be a slaughter.

  "Has anyone else cleared floor three?" Nate asked.

  "Not that we know of. You might be the only one."

  The only one. Twenty-two days. Five floors.

  He'd have to go back. He knew that. But part of him wanted to rest longer, to eat real food, to remember what it felt like to be human before he threw himself back into the grind.

  One more day, maybe. Then he'd—

  The first scream came from the eastern barricade.

  Nate's head snapped toward the sound. More screams followed. Shouts. The crash of something heavy hitting the barricade.

  Monsters. Had to be. Something had found the camp, broken through the perimeter—

  But the sounds were wrong. No roars. No clicking. No chittering.

  Voices. Human voices.

  "Get them open! Now!"

  "They've got food in there! Water!"

  "Kill anyone who fights back!"

  Nate stood frozen for half a second, his brain struggling to catch up. People. Not monsters.

  People were attacking the camp.

  But why?