The guards on the ninetieth floor stared down into the abyss, their faces etched with tension. The feathered monstrosity, whose horrific screams had filled the tower, had not reappeared since being shot down.

"I’ll send a pursuit team," one of the guards announced.

"No." The senior necromancer in charge shook his head. "Our only mission is to protect the ninetieth floor. Focus on nothing else."

"Yes, sir!"

The senior necromancer’s eyes narrowed as he peered into the depths.

’I saw it.’

It had been for a split second, but as the creature was struck, he had seen it eject something, like a cell dividing. What had it released? With their enemy’s objective and methods still a mystery, this was no time to lower their guard.

A moment later, his premonition proved true.

A series of deafening collisions, like mountains of scrap metal smashing together, erupted from below. The impacts were so powerful that the very walls of the tower trembled. The guards on the ninetieth floor tensed.

"Is it an anomaly?"

"It sounds like it’s coming from the lower floors."

The explosions grew more violent, drawing closer with each blast. As unease spread through the ranks, the senior necromancer turned to his men.

"Calm yourselves! All units, hold your positions and prepare your black magic—!" He cut himself off, whipping his head back around. With a roar that split the air, something shot up to the ninetieth floor and slammed into the wall.

A deep gash scarred the stone. Below it, a man in a robe and mask crumpled to the ground, gasping for breath.

But the guards had no time to spare him.

"Incoming!" one of them screamed.

Out of the darkness, massive pillars and pipes came hurtling toward them.

The projectiles shattered the platforms where the guards stood, embedding themselves in the ceiling and walls. Robbed of their footing, the men screamed as they plunged into the void.

"It’s—it’s Gildon!"

Gildon was ascending, flying through the air. A few guards raised their staffs and unleashed bolts of black magic, but he absorbed the spells with his bare body as if drinking them down. It was the worst-case scenario they had imagined.

Gildon landed on the ninetieth floor with a heavy thud.

[Where is he?] he rasped, his head whipping from side to side. He paid no mind to the fallen guards, sniffing the air before striding purposefully into the interior of the floor.

’Sacrifice.’

A blinding light erupted from the tip of the senior necromancer’s staff as a jet-black curse shot forth. Even Gildon couldn’t ignore such an attack. The back of his head morphed, opening into a hollow ring that allowed the curse to pass harmlessly through.

[Unexpected,] Gildon growled, his head reforming as he turned. [I didn’t think anyone in the Ivory Tower could wield a curse of this level.]

The senior necromancer, the very man who had shot down Akemus, offered a faint smile. "To assume the Ivory Tower is weak to curses is a common prejudice."

A murderous glint ignited in Gildon’s glowing eyes.

[Do not interfere! Kizen must be wiped clean from this world!]

"If you mean Simon Polentia, our guards have him cornered on the lower floors. I believe you’re mistaken." Jet-Black flickered at the tip of the necromancer’s staff.

A sound like grinding metal erupted from Gildon’s throat.

[You foolish dog of the Ivory Tower! The one you saw before was from Kizen!]

"Even if the one who fled was indeed Simon Polentia, a single student is of no consequence. The one who must absolutely not be allowed to reach the top floor is..." The necromancer’s staff leveled at Gildon’s head. "You. Gildon, the Sin of Space."

[Get out of my way!]

Without another word, the two powerhouses unleashed a torrent of black magic upon each other.

---

The sounds of battle raged at the entrance to the ninetieth floor. Simon paid them no mind as he sprinted forward.

[Khahaha! It’s going according to plan!] Pier’s voice echoed in his head. [Gildon and those Ivory Tower bastards are tearing each other apart!]

’Yes, they are.’ The Ghost of Time’s hint had been crucial. By marking Gildon’s location on the eighty-eighth floor, he had set this all in motion. As a master of spatial magic, Gildon posed a direct threat to the tower’s integrity, making him a target the guards could not ignore. While they fought tooth and nail, Simon followed the trail of rabbit masks the ghost had left behind.

’Is this it?’

A rabbit mask hung on a door in one of the rooms. Simon immediately pushed it open to find what looked like an ordinary office.

It was empty. After a quick scan, he noticed a section of one wall that bulged outward. The mask was hanging right there. As he calmly ran his palm over the surface, shouts erupted from outside.

"There’s an intruder on the ninetieth floor!"

"Find him! Find him at all costs!"

’Of course, they wouldn’t just let me go.’ It seemed the guards fighting Gildon had called for reinforcements. He had to hurry.

As Simon frantically felt the wall, his fingers brushed against something that felt like rough glass. A barrier.

He immediately raised the Greatsword of Ruin and tore through the ward, revealing a magic circle etched into the stone. It had once been sealed, but the sigils had been removed, no doubt the Ghost of Time’s handiwork.

’This is it.’

Simon placed his palm on the circle. With a low rumble, the bricks slid inward, revealing a small, dark space.

’Ah.’

A hidden fireplace. Bending down, Simon peered inside and saw a gaping hole leading straight up.

’A secret passage known only to the Ghost of Time!’

He channeled Jet-Black into his legs and began to climb. Clad in Pier’s Bone Armor, scaling the chimney was effortless. The entrance sealed itself behind him, plunging him into absolute darkness.

Almost simultaneously, a door banged open, followed by the clamor of heavy footsteps. The Tower Master’s soldiers had arrived. Simon froze, holding his breath.

"He’s not here!" a soldier called out.

"Move to the next location!"

The sound of footsteps receded. Simon let out a sigh of relief and resumed his climb.

’How far up will this passage take me?’ If he could just skip five floors, he was confident he could handle the rest on his own. Since the situation had already gone to hell, he was prepared to unleash his full power as a Legion Commander.

When he finally reached the top of the passage, he found it blocked.

’Hmm.’

He tapped the ceiling with the back of his hand. Then, bracing his feet against the chimney walls, he planted his hands firmly on the ceiling and pushed with all his might.

With the sound of stone grating on stone, the ceiling began to lift. Once it started moving, it continued to rise on its own. A sliver of light pierced the darkness.

’Thank goodness.’

Covered in dust, Simon pulled himself out.

And then he saw it.

In the center of the room stood a massive clock, completely encased in ice.

’Don’t tell me this is...’

He was certain of it. This was the source of the entire catastrophe, the infamous dungeon master that the Tower Master from three hundred years ago had sacrificed his life to seal.

The ’Frozen Clock’.

’Which means...’

This was the one-hundredth floor.

Feeling goosebumps prickle his arms, Simon got to his feet. The fireplace he’d just climbed through had sealed itself, leaving a perfectly smooth floor without a trace of an opening. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

’It’s cold.’

He rubbed his arms, his breath misting in the air. The chill was radiating from the Frozen Clock, coating every surface in a layer of frost, like the inside of a freezer. He glanced around before speaking into the silence.

"I came to the top floor as promised! Where are you?"

He called for the Ghost of Time, but only silence answered. After leading him here, the ghost himself was nowhere to be found. After a few more futile calls, Simon gave up and turned back to the Frozen Clock.

’What am I supposed to do with this?’

He was two days ahead of schedule. He still had more of Meirin and Serne’s past to witness, and he hadn’t yet learned the ’secret of the Ivory Tower’.

’Do I have to make a decision based only on what I’ve seen so far?’

He raised the Greatsword of Ruin. The flashbacks had offered no information about the Frozen Clock. Wary of touching it with his bare hands, he cautiously prodded the ice with the tip of his sword.

’It’s solid...!’

Even the Greatsword of Ruin couldn’t cut it. Sawing at it did nothing; he couldn’t even leave a scratch. It was like an indestructible mineral, and he doubted heat would do anything to melt it. He stood motionless, a scholar stumped by an unsolvable riddle.

"Oh my, the star of the show has finally arrived."

The sound of high heels echoed through the chamber. Startled, Simon looked toward the sound. A figure was approaching from the distant shadows.

He recognized the silhouette instantly. The flowing ivory hair, the fluttering white feathers, the regal gait of a queen.

"Serne."

"Hehe. It’s been a while," she said, offering a bright smile and an elegant curtsy.

Simon remained on guard.

"You should be in the middle of your mission evaluation. What are you doing here?"

"Oh, Simon, don’t be like that." She winked. "It’s not the first time I’ve gone off-script, is it? During our last mission, I abandoned my own objective to come see you in Tarados. Just think of this as more of the same."

Simon let out a short sigh.

"I’ll ask you straight. Are you and the Tower Master working together?"

"Yes," she replied, so matter-of-factly that it made his heart sink.

"Then it’s my turn to ask a question." Her slender, white finger pointed at his chest. "Are you and Kizen headquarters working together?"

When Simon only bit his lip in response, she flicked her tongue.

"As a spy, for example, digging up our tower’s secrets behind our backs."

She knew everything. To ask anyway was her way of drawing a line in the sand. ’We are enemies.’ She might as well have said it aloud.

Simon no longer saw a reason to hide the truth.

"Kizen believes the Ivory Tower is plotting something."

"Yes, that’s right."

She admitted it so readily that he was the one left stunned. Serne raised her hand.

"Are you curious about our plan, Simon?" She opened her clenched fist, revealing a few crumpled white feathers. When she blew on them, they danced into the air, forming images. "You rode the ’tourist train’ on your first day, didn’t you? For two thousand years, the Ivory Tower moved all across the continent."

The feathers formed pictures: the tower in a jungle, on an island, in a desert—all images he had seen on the train.

"This tower, our home for over a millennium, once had a teleportation function. Thanks to that, we could relocate every thirty years or so."

"But after we moved here, to the edge of the Dark Alliance, to secure a wealth of magic stones, the ’Dungeon Gate’ incident occurred." As she lowered her hand, the images vanished. "The situation was contained, but the tower’s teleportation magic, along with countless other recorded spells, was lost or thrown into chaos. We couldn’t abandon our home. So, we built a new tower nearby, took in the local tribes, and gave them the technology to build a new city."

"And that became the Ivory Tower Metropolitan Area."

"Exactly." She walked slowly toward the ’Frozen Clock’ and reached out a hand.

Simon flinched.

"Wait, Serne! Don’t touch that, you’ll get frostbite—!"

She merely smiled and placed her bare hand on the ice. It had to be intensely cold, yet she stroked it as if it were nothing.

"You’re as kind as ever, Simon." She gave him a foxy smile. "And I don’t dislike that consistency."

Simon bit his lip hard.

She removed her hand from the clock and turned away, clasping her hands behind her back. "But let’s return to the present. The Ivory Tower has finally restored the Tower of Time’s teleportation function."

"What?"

"And we have a grand plan, one that existed long before Meirin and I were even born: to return to our true home, the Tower of Time. After the Gate incident, the era of necromancers and priests had dawned, dividing the continent. The Ivory Tower was left trapped in the Dark Alliance, forced to play second fiddle to Kizen. But if they could move the tower again, everything would change."

"We’re going to the neutral zone, Simon."

For centuries, the Ivory Tower had been steadily working to secure its interests there. They had already concluded talks with the zone’s most powerful figures and even with the Holy Federation. It was the three-way division of the continent that Serne had always dreamed of. The Ivory Tower would move to the neutral zone and seize control.

Currently, the region was little more than a battlefield between the Dark Alliance and the Holy Federation, and its people were exhausted. The Ivory Tower would use its vast wealth and technology to develop the area into a metropolis even greater than their own, winning the people’s support and establishing a new kingdom in the heart of the continent. The birth of a new power, positioned between the two superpowers. The neutral zone was ’neutral’ only because it was weak; a powerful faction like the Ivory Tower declaring neutrality was another matter entirely.

"Two great powers and one neutral nation. What do you think happens then? Whichever side the Ivory Tower supports will win. We’ll hold the spotlight. We’ll be the kingmakers. The Holy Federation is already extending its hand, hoping to win that contest."

The shocking revelation made Simon’s pupils tremble.

"Do you really think... that’s a realistic plan?"

"The Ivory Tower is serious. We’ve been investing in the neutral zone for over three hundred years. However," she paused, "my father, myself, and the few radicals in power have a slightly different idea."

"What?"

"Even if we successfully relocate, we’ll still be bowing and scraping to Kizen. And as you said, it’s far too optimistic. I don’t like that. The radicals’ true goal is to divide the continent in two." A smirk played on her lips. "We are going to move the Tower of Time to the very heart of Roc Island."