The staircase ended in sky.
But not sky as Kael knew it.
He stepped out onto a floating shard of stone drifting through a spiraling vortex of red clouds and exposed architecture—walls torn apart mid-construction, rooms looping into themselves, and bridges leading to nothing.
Sael stepped out behind him, breathing carefully.
"The Third Stratum," she whispered. "The Tower's nervous system."
Kael scanned the storm. Every floating platform pulsed like a heartbeat, leaking tendrils of energy from their undersides. In the distance, he saw impossible creatures moving sideways through time.
Not up. Not down.
But through.
"Stay close," he muttered. "This isn't a floor—it's a rupture."
Sael tapped her crystal.
A faint path flickered into view—a spiraling bridge made of script, visible only through memory.
They stepped onto it.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then—
"Climber Kael."
"Timeline: Fractured."
"Permission: Revoked."
The Tower's voice—flat, synthetic, emotionless—boomed across the Spiral.
Kael drew his blade.
A rift tore open beside him.
And something fell through.
Not a beast.
Not an echo.
But a Watcher.
It had no body. Just robes, drifting like they were filled with water. Where its face should be, a spinning circle of script: thousands of languages spelling one word over and over.
CORRECTION.
The Watcher raised a hand.
Reality bent.
Sael screamed, flung backward. Kael slammed his blade into the bridge and held on as the Tower itself tried to erase him from the present.
"Not this time," he growled.
"Not again."
He reached into himself—
And pulled.
Not memory.
Not power.
But the weight of everything he had refused to let go.
Lira. The cult. The mirror fight. The knife at his throat.
He didn't suppress them.
He offered them.
The Watcher recoiled—screaming in a thousand tongues—unprepared for a climber who weaponized his own trauma.
Kael leapt forward and cut the Watcher across its spinning face.
Light exploded.
The Wound Spiral twisted.
The Watcher disintegrated.
[System Notice]
Watcher [CORRECTION UNIT: CLASS 1] destroyed.
This action is not permitted.
Tower Core alerted.
Sael crawled to his side, bleeding from her eyes.
"You're breaking it," she whispered. "The Tower... it's starting to come undone."
Kael looked up.
And saw it.
High above them.
A window in the sky.
A figure behind it.
Not part of the Tower.
Something watching the Tower.
A figure in black robes, with no face—just a single golden eye.
Watching him.
"What is that?" Sael whispered.
Kael didn't answer.
Because deep down, he understood.
That wasn't part of the Tower.
That was the true architect.
And it had finally noticed him.