Kang Joon-ho stood atop the final floor of the Tower, his breath ragged, his blade slick with blackened ichor. Around him, the remnants of a battlefield stretched endlessly—shattered stone, corpses of monsters, and the lingering traces of the countless challengers who had perished before reaching this point.
The world was silent.
He had won.
Joon-ho's grip on his sword tightened as he gazed at the empty sky above. There was no cheering crowd, no celebration. No surviving comrades. He was the last. The only one left.
Then, the voice echoed. Deep, omnipresent, laced with an unnatural calm.
"Congratulations, Kang Joon-ho. You have conquered the Tower."
Joon-ho turned sharply. A figure stood before him, materializing from the darkness. A being clad in flowing robes of shifting constellations, its face obscured by a golden mask that reflected nothing.
The Tower Owner.
Joon-ho's blood ran cold. He had come face to face with many horrors—ancient gods, primordial beasts, warriors of legend—but nothing felt as unknowable as the being before him.
"Is this it?" Joon-ho's voice was hoarse. "I climbed. I fought. I bled. And for what?" He spread his arms wide, gesturing at the ruined world beyond the Tower's peak. "There's nothing left."
The Tower Owner tilted its head, as if amused.
"Indeed. The world has perished."
Joon-ho's fingers twitched. He had suspected it for some time. The higher he climbed, the more signs of reality's collapse he had seen—entire cities reduced to dust, continents swallowed by abyssal voids. His victory had come too late.
He sheathed his sword. "Then what was the point?"
The Tower Owner raised a hand. A single, golden key materialized between its fingers.
"As the one who has reached the peak, you are granted a single wish."
A wish.
Joon-ho exhaled, his mind racing. He could ask for the world's restoration. He could demand omnipotence, to rebuild everything from the ashes.
But deep down, he already knew the truth. The Tower would never allow it.
It was watching. It always had been.
His fingers clenched into a fist. He had climbed for years, suffered through betrayals, endured the deaths of allies and enemies alike. Every victory, every skill he had acquired, had been earned through blood and fire.
And it had all led to nothing.
His lips curled into a smirk, cold and sharp. "Fine." He met the Tower Owner's empty gaze.
"I want to climb the Tower again."
For the first time, the Tower Owner paused. A flicker of something—curiosity?—crossed its masked face.
Then, it nodded. "So be it."
The world shattered.
Pain unlike anything Joon-ho had ever known surged through him, twisting his very existence. His body burned, his mind unraveled, and then—
Darkness.
—
Joon-ho woke with a gasp.
He was not at the Tower's peak. He was not holding his sword, nor standing upon a battlefield.
Instead, he found himself lying on his old bed, in his cramped apartment in Korea.
His breathing hitched. He sat up abruptly, his hands shaking as he touched his face, his chest, his arms. He was young again. No scars. No calloused hands from years of wielding a blade.
His eyes darted toward the mirror. A face he hadn't seen in years stared back.
The Tower had not merely restarted him at the base.
It had sent him back before the Tower even appeared.
All his strength. His stats. His weapons. His skills. Gone.
Everything he had suffered for—erased.
Joon-ho's breath steadied. A cold, razor-sharp determination settled in his gut.
It doesn't matter.
The Tower would descend soon. He knew exactly when.
And this time… he would not climb the same way.
This time, he would break the Tower itself.