There was no "wind-up." No warning. One moment Kael was standing, the next, the floor slammed into his cheek so hard his vision flashed. His helmet clacked against stone. His gauntlets scraped as his hands reflexively tried to catch him, but even that felt like lifting against a collapsing ceiling.

"F-fuck!" Kael cursed as he couldn’t move, he desperately tried to lift his body up, but no amount of strength was going to help him do that.

It wasn’t just his limbs refusing. It was the space itself saying "no." His ribs compressed. His lungs struggled to expand. Even his tongue felt heavy in his mouth, like speaking was something he had to purchase with pain.

Kael felt fear, real fear, that Climbers were dangerous, this man was dangerous, deadly even.

Not the kind of danger Kael could outthink with a rune trick. Not the kind he could outrun with [Momentum]. This was the kind of danger where your options stopped existing.

His heart rate began pumping faster, higher, and more pitched. For a second, the pressure slightly, ever so slightly, reduced. He gripped the floor and tried to push himself up, but the pressure became twice as much, so he fell on his face and almost chipped his teeth.

The shift was tiny; he tried to force himself up again. Kael felt it like a crack of mercy. He tried to capitalize on it, palms digging into dirt and soot and cold stone.

Then the pressure slammed back down harder, punishing the attempt.

Blood surged out from his nose as his entire body felt like it was being crushed.

Warmth ran across his upper lip. His mouth tasted iron, sharp and bitter. His eyes watered, not from emotion but from the simple act of existing under that weight.

"That’s enough, ye’ll kill the lad."

Andre’s voice cut in, annoyed again, like someone had spilled ash across his newly-cleaned floor. But there was something else too: a warning edge. A line Andre didn’t want crossed in his forge.

"One moment," the man said as he further increased the pressure.

Kael’s vision tunneled. The world became a circle of stone and grime and the horrible realization that if the man kept going, Kael would simply stop. No dramatic end. Just... crushed. Like a bug.

Kael’s heart, which was pumping like it was not going to do it anymore soon, suddenly throbbed, no, more like, calmed down, and the moment that happened, His palms pressed hard on the ground, and he pushed himself, albeit not enough to stand up, but to be able to simply lift his head.

It wasn’t courage. It wasn’t some heroic surge. It was that weird thing Kael had noticed in himself since the tower, his body hitting a ceiling, then snapping into cold control. Like something inside him refused to keep panicking once it realized panic was useless.

His chin lifted off the floor by a finger’s width. Enough to breathe. Enough to speak.

"The fuck... you want..." he said, gritting his teeth as blood poured from his nose and mouth.

The words came out thick and ugly, but they came out.

"Good!" the man said as a wide smile appeared on his face, and immediately, all the pressure disappeared as if it was never there.

The relief hit so hard that Kael almost choked on it. Air rushed back into his lungs. His limbs stopped being pinned. The floor stopped trying to eat him.

Only then could Kael take a breath, only then was he able to move.

He coughed once, wiping blood with the back of his glove, then forced himself up onto one knee. His entire body trembled like he’d been deadlifting a building.

"Did I wrong you?" Kael asked, as he struggled to stand up, every muscle in his body felt like it had torn from overwork.

"You did, very much so," the man said.

Kael stared at him, genuinely baffled. His brain tried to find the missing link and came up empty.

"How come? We’ve never met." Kael said.

"It’s because we didn’t meet earlier that I feel wronged; now you have to make up for it."

Kael’s face twisted. The tower was full of lunatics, but this one didn’t sound insane. He sounded... decided. Like this was logical to him.

"The fuck is that reasoning, old man?" Kael said.

"Be my disciple."

Andre’s head snapped toward the man like he’d been slapped. "Are you serious, Fist?" Andre asked.

The giant’s smile didn’t move. "When have I ever joked about such things?" the man who was called Fist replied.

Kael wiped his mouth again, tasting blood, tasting humiliation, tasting anger. He’d been forced onto the floor like a dog and then offered a collar with a grin.

"Not the best way to ask someone to be your slave, I refuse, you didn’t show any goodwill, why would I be your... disciple or whatever."

"Well, it isn’t like you have a choice in the matter," the man shrugged.

"Choice? Why are you going to force me?"

Kael’s hands curled slightly, instinctively. He had weapons. He had runes. He had tricks. But every part of his body remembered that pressure and knew exactly how meaningless those tools were in front of this man if he decided to be serious.

"No, I don’t have to, because if you don’t become my disciple, you’ll die," the man said.

The words were calm. Not a threat. A statement.

"He won’t kill ye, that much, ye don’t need t’ worry about," Andre said as he snatched the bottle from the man’s hand.

Kael’s eyes flicked to the bottle. Andre held it like it was a treasure, fingers tight, already mentally drinking it. The dwarf looked annoyed, but the fact that he’d stepped in at all said enough. Andre wasn’t letting this go fully out of control.

"What do you mean, I’ll die? I didn’t make any enemies. And I’m sure I’m not hostile toward you or Andre."

Kael’s voice came out rougher than he wanted. He hated sounding confused in front of people like this. Confusion was weakness. Weakness got exploited.

"No, you got that wrong," he smiled, "That," he pointed at Kael’s chest, "Is a ticking time bomb. A man can’t simply use the Nine Yang Destruction Body and expect to live a comfortable life." He said.

Kael’s stomach sank, not because he understood, but because the man spoke like he was diagnosing something. Like Kael wasn’t being threatened, he was being informed.

"The what now?"

"No need for me to tell you, in one day, you’ll understand what I mean. I’d recommend you not go out until then. Andre, I’ll be leaving my gloves here."

Andre’s eyes narrowed, the bottle half-forgotten for the first time. "Hold a moment, old fool," Andre said, "You cleared the floor yet?" he asked.

"Nope, still stuck on the same floor, no one worthy," he then looked at Kael, "Yet." And then simply disappeared.

There wasn’t a flash. There wasn’t a ripple. One blink and the space where he’d been standing was just... empty. Like reality had edited him out.

It was like he used the presence rune, more like he himself felt like the rune.

Kael’s map didn’t update with movement. No green dot sliding away. No dot at all. The man simply stopped being a thing the world acknowledged.

Kael stood frozen for a second, then sucked a careful breath through his nose, only to wince because the inside of it still hurt.

"Who the fuck is that man?" Kael said as he turned to Andre.

Andre took a sip from the drink and said, "Hnh... looks like I can’t be lettin’ ye leave just yet." he sighed.

Kael’s patience was thin enough to slice steel. "What’s going on, old man? Explain."

Andre rolled the bottle in his hands like he was deciding which truth to give first. Then, with the reluctance of someone admitting the sky was blue,

"Ye just met the Fist King... or that’s what they called him back in his world."

"And who is this guy?"

Andre’s gaze sharpened, less drunkard now, more smith, more survivor. "Oh... he’s the strongest bastard in the Tower o’ the Dead. Highest climber there is, floor eighty-nine." The number hit Kael harder than the pressure had.

Floor 89.

Not just "strong." Not just "dangerous." That was a distance so obscene it didn’t even feel like a place Kael could eventually reach. It felt like a different universe.

And apparently, that universe had just walked into Andre’s filthy forge, called Kael a ticking bomb, and decided he belonged to him.