He moved through the dark like he owned it.

  A hand grabbed for him. He caught it midair, pivoted, and used the momentum to send its owner crashing into the wall. The stone rang with the impact. Another swung blindly; Ash ducked under the arc and drove an elbow into the man’s ribs. Air whooshed out in a broken gasp.

  Boots pounded somewhere above—more coming.

  Behind him, Red’s voice cut through the chaos. “Don’t overextend.”

  Ash didn’t look back.

  “Where’s the fun in that?”

  He surged upward again, taking the remaining steps in a blur, breaking through the stairwell entrance into the night beyond.

  Smell of Ale. Smoke. Shouting men.

  And Ash in the center of it—grinning like this was exactly what he’d been waiting for.

  The grin faded only slightly when he took in the room properly.

  Half the tavern was wrecked from the earlier pillar of light. One entire section of the ceiling had been blown open, exposing the circular stone interior of the tower beneath the decorative wood. The outer walls — thick, old stone — were intact, but scorched. A support beam near the bar had cracked almost through.

  The wooden balcony of the second floor wrapped the inner circumference above them.

  And it was filled with armed men.

  “Up top!” someone shouted.

  Boots thundered along the balcony railing. Crossbows leveled downward.

  Ash rolled his neck.

  “Now that’s better.”

  The first bolt snapped downward.

  Red moved before it reached him — blade flicking up with a sharp metallic crack as she deflected it aside. The bolt ricocheted into a wall.

  “Balcony!” she called.

  “I see it.”

  More bolts fired.

  Ash grabbed a heavy oak table and flipped it on its side, shoving it forward as a makeshift cover. Bolts thudded into the wood inches from his face.

  A man rushed from the right, trying to take advantage of the distraction.

  Ash kicked the table into him.

  It hit hard enough to send the man skidding backward across spilled ale. Ash vaulted over it, landed on him, and drove a punch into his jaw that silenced him instantly.

  Dust sifted down from the exposed beams overhead.

  “Something’s off,” Malachai muttered near the base of the stairs leading upward.

  He wasn’t engaging recklessly. He stood just out of immediate range, tracking angles, watching the staircase to the second floor — the real choke point.

  A heavyset man leapt from the balcony railing, dropping toward Ash with a raised axe.

  Ash looked up just in time.

  He stepped aside.

  The man hit hard, knees buckling on impact. Before he could recover, Ash caught him by the collar and used his momentum to hurl him into the nearest support beam.

  The already-cracked wood splintered further.

  The tower groaned.

  Red’s eyes flicked upward at the sound.

  “Careful.”

  Ash glanced at the beam, then at her.

  “Relax. It’s holding.”

  Another bolt snapped down, grazing his shoulder. He didn’t flinch — just looked up at the shooter and smiled wider.

  “Your turn.”

  He grabbed the fallen axe, spun once for momentum, and hurled it upward.

  It clipped the balcony railing and struck the crossbowman in the chest hard enough to knock him backward out of sight.

  A scream followed.

  Then a body hit the ground floor with a sickening thud.

  The men on the balcony hesitated.

  That hesitation cost them.

  Red moved toward the staircase in a straight line, heading to the second floor. She cut down the first man descending before he cleared the final step. Stepped over him, advancing.

  Malachai followed her up, keeping the flank sealed.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Ash remained below, drawing attention.

  “Come on!” he shouted upward. “You were louder a second ago!”

  Two more jumped down at once.

  He met them head-on.

  Meanwhile Behind the bar—

  Samael was on his hands and knees, palms sliding through spilled ale and grit, shards of glass biting into his skin. His breath came shallow and uneven. Every impact above him sounded like the world ending in segments.

  He peeked over the counter just in time to see Ash drive a man headfirst into a pillar hard enough to make it split.

  What the hell.

  That man hadn’t screamed. I don't think he even processed what was happening.

  Ash had moved like it was muscle memory.

  How does he know to fight like that?

  Another body flew across the room and slammed into a table.

  Can they all do that? Red too? Malachai? Is that normal? Is that training? Are they all just built like that?

  A crossbow bolt shattered a bottle inches from his head.

  Samael flinched violently and ducked back down.

  This is insane. I should not be here. I should be anywhere else.

  A hysterical laugh bubbled in his throat, and he swallowed it down.

  After this is over, if it’s over, I’m taking one of those beer barrels. Minimum one. I deserve it. Hazard pay. Psychological compensation. Maybe two. I’ll roll it out myself._

  Dust sifted down from the cracked ceiling where the pillar of light had blown through earlier, leaving scorched stone exposed beneath decorative wood paneling.

  His attention dragged back to the System overlay flickering at the edge of his vision.

  Ever since the sync — ever since it had finished integrating with whatever this world ran on — it had been feeding him things.

  Maps.

  Structural diagrams.

  Names of materials he’d never studied but somehow understood.

  Fragments of historical events tied to this region.

  Power classifications.

  Path hierarchies.

  It had been showing him… weird things.

  Not hallucinations, at least he hoped not.

  Data.

  _World information,_ it had labeled it.

  As if he’d downloaded a partial manual for reality.

  He still didn’t understand most of it.

  But right now—

  One thing was painfully clear.

  [Weapon Structure Detected]

  [Bound Authority: T1 – Black Rose]

  [Structural Weak Point Identified]

  A faint overlay traced through the tavern floor in his sight — highlighting old stone beneath the wood. The tower’s original framework.

  A narrow channel where authority flowed upward from the foundation to the core.

  [New Skill Generated: Hack]

  [Function: Allows the user to interfere with authority structures and foreign systems.][Override Pathway Available]

  [Blood Medium Compatible]

  He stared at the spreading stain creeping between the floorboards from the bodies Ash and Red had left behind.

  Hack ?

  Another crash — louder — from the staircase.

  Red had pushed upward. Malachai followed. Ash laughed again somewhere in the chaos.

  “Balcony!” someone screamed.

  Boots pounded above.

  They were moving to the second floor.

  Samael stayed low until the immediate crossfire thinned.

  Then he risked a glance.

  Ash vaulted onto the staircase railing, using it like a ramp to gain height.

  Red was already halfway up the spiral steps along the wall.

  Malachai covered behind her.

  They were leaving the ground floor.

  Which meant if I stay down here and something collapses, I die alone.

  Samael shook the thoughts out of his head and raised his palm against exposed stone and immidiately used the new Skill.

  “Hack.”

  For a heartbeat, nothing.

  Then every smear of blood on the tavern floor stopped spreading.

  The stains thinned.

  Across the room, along the walls, beneath broken tables — red lines shifted direction at once.

  And sank.

  Into the stone.

  Not just behind the bar.

  All sides.

  The walls darkened briefly as the blood vanished into hairline seams carved through the tower’s structure.

  The System pulsed hard.

  > **[Medium Integrated]**

  Upstairs—

  The Black Rose reached for control.

  The tower answered.

  Then stuttered.

  The air inside the structure tightened.

  Her authority met resistance.

  Behind the bar, Samael felt the pressure climb through the wall under his hand.

  That’s when the battle for the tower began.

  Like two hands gripping the same blade.

  Samael’s vision blurred for a second as something pushed back through the wall. The System overlay fractured into lines before stabilizing.

  > **[Authority Conflict Detected]**

  > **[Competing Signature: T1 – Black Rose]**

  Upstairs, Black Rose didn’t move at first, confused, but then suddenly.

  She was in a panic.

  A swift command was sent — reinforce the western wall.

  The stone responded.

  Then stuttered.

  She narrowed her eyes while she gritted her teeth.

  Someone was touching her weapon.

  On the second floor, Ash pushed a man into the railing. The balcony shifted under the impact.

  He paused.

  “…that wasn’t me.”

  Red felt it too. The floor beneath her boots vibrated with uneven tension.

  “Something’s wrong,” she said flatly.

  Malachai glanced toward the upper staircase.

  Behind the bar, Samael clenched his jaw as heat crawled up the stone into his palm.

  The blood inside the walls wasn’t just sitting there.

  It was moving.

  Thin crimson threads ran through the tower’s structure, climbing toward the third floor.

  The System recalculated.

  > **[Override Stability: 61%]**

  “She’s fighting it,” Samael muttered.

  Upstairs—

  Black Rose pressed both her hands against the core pillar in the third-floor chamber.

  The air around her tightened.

  She drew fully on the bond she had forged.

  The tower surged in response.

  The crimson threads inside the walls flared brighter.

  Downstairs, Samael gasped as the backlash hit harder this time. The pressure shoved against his skull like a migraine trying to split him open. He immediately threw the connection to the Creation Fragment.

  The System compensated instantly.

  > **[Stabilizing Host]**

  **Black Rose POV**

  She had only just stabilized her foundation.

  Two weeks ago, she had been forced to burn more than half the tower’s stored energy during an ambush. More than fifty percent. Some might think it was reckless, but it was necessary.

  She had known the risk.

  Overdrawing weakened the tower's foundation. Strained the refinement. It always took time to settle after that.

  But what choice did she have?

  They had come prepared.

  And she still didn’t know who tried to take her life.

  It couldn’t have been the eastern faction; her protection gig didn’t overlap there should be no territorial friction.

  Which meant someone had come after her deliberately.

  She stood in the third-floor core chamber, palm resting lightly against the pillar as she monitored the fight below.

  Then she felt it.

  Her connection to the tower thinned at the edges.

  She frowned.

  She issued a minor reinforcement command.

  The tower responded—

  Slowly.

  Her expression hardened.

  Something was interfering with her control.

  The control she had refined through blood and years of consolidation began to disappear slowly at first.

  Her pulse spiked.

  *Are we under attack again? Couldn't be those guys down there, right? But there is not even a t1 among them?*

  *Then why am I losing control?*

  The flow through the tower’s core shifted again, this time sharper. A section of authority she reached for did not respond at all.

  Her breath shortened.

  *Don’t tell me it’s them.*

  The same unknown force from weeks ago?

  No.

  This felt different.

  She pushed harder, forcing her authority down the channels.

  The tower resisted.

  Not fully.

  But enough.

  Panic threatened to break through.

  She crushed it down.

  If she lost focus, she would lose everything.

  Her reputation.

  Her stronghold.

  Her business.

  More importantly, her weapon.

  She centered herself and drove deeper into the bond.

  But no matter how she pulled—

  The control did not return.

  It slipped further from her grasp.

  And she understood something she had never had to consider before.

  She was losing, and she didn’t know how to stop it.

  The uneven pull in the structure vanished.

  Red felt it too. The tension in the wood evened out.

  Malachai glanced upward.

  “What is happening?”

  Ash tilted his head slightly.

  The oppressive pressure that had been riding the walls was gone.

  They quickly made their way to the third floor, And They entered the core chamber.

  The Black Rose stood near the core.

  But she wasn’t commanding it anymore. She was just staring at it.

  Ash stepped forward slowly.

  Red moved first, blade at the Black Rose’s throat.

  The former tower owner didn't resist.

  Her weapon was silent.

  A T1 without her structure was just flesh and bones.

  On the first floor, Samael staggered as the System flared.

  > **[Authority Transfer Complete]**

  > **[Tower Control: Assigned]**

  His head pounded.

  Then

  > **[External Threat Approaching]**

  > **[Impact Estimate: 00:01:37]**

  His stomach dropped.

  “Oh, I forgot about that…”

  He ran for the stairs.

  Malachi heard him before he saw him.

  “How long?” Malachai asked, already calculating.

  update: Clarified when Samael acquires Hack.