A few older mbers shuddered when they heard the na.
It wasn’t dramatic. It was small and involuntary. Shoulders tightening. Fingers flexing. The kind of reaction n had when they rembered pain they hadn’t earned.
That caught Iori’s attention.
He’d seen fear before. He’d caused it. But this wasn’t fear of a monster in front of them. This was fear of a concept.
"About this Murim...place thing, or whatever, what makes it so special?" Iori asked.
"Its pretty ancient. Far older civilization than ours, but not nearly as advanced, they still use swords and fight with martial arts."
"How are we losing to these primitives?"
The words ca out sharper than he intended, more insulted than curious. Iori had lived in a world where guns, tech, and modern tactics mattered. Hearing "swords and martial arts" sounded like hearing soone brag about sticks.
"I doubt that the word primitive fits them," he said. "They never needed to evolve or advance their technology. We did that for survival; they had all they needed to survive, their bodies. And that man was apparently a legend where he ca from, and beca another legend when he got here... eighty-ninth floor, the highest climber of the Reverse Tower."
Iori swallowed hard, "That’s... pretty high."
The swallow wasn’t fear. It was the body reacting to an uncomfortable truth: there were heights he hadn’t imagined, and n who lived there.
"Matthew is still stuck on the fifty-second floor; that’s how strong that bastard is."
That one stung even more. Matthew Roberts wasn’t just a na to Iori. That title, Immortal King, carried weight. Hearing "stuck" attached to it felt wrong, like hearing a mountain called small.
"Why is he here then? On the second floor, I doubt there is anything interesting here." Iori asked.
"We heard news that the Eighty-Ninth floor has two bosses. They have to be killed at the sa ti. And that’s the reason he’s stuck; he’s just absurdly strong. Several other climbers from older and now dead or dissolved clans had tried to help him clear it. But they always tid it wrong, even when he slowed down on purpose, the other room never cleared in ti.
After a dozen or so years of trying... he gave up and ca down, he never left the second floor ever since... blasted bastard is a scary motherfucker... I’m not saying this because I’m scared, but because he really is stupid strong..." The senior explained.
The explanation had a rhythm like a story told too many tis. The kind of tale that beca a warning everyone repeated to newbies who thought strength solved everything. Even "absurdly strong" apparently didn’t solve timing.
"I heard even the guards avoid him..." One of the other mbers said.
"Yeah, apparently, one year, he went on a massive killing spree, even the city guards who enforced law, and were unaffected by level restraint, were killed like they were toddlers."
"Level restraint?" Iori asked.
The question earned him a look, half irritation, half pity. The senior didn’t answer with mockery, though. He answered like a man teaching a child where the cliff edge was.
"Oh, you didn’t know, it’s similar to the normal tower. High-level climbers get heavily punished in terms of stats; the higher you went the stronger the suppression. I can barely use a fifth of my power now. That old man, Fist King, it’s like he was never weakened. The restraint doesn’t affect him at all... I hope he just gets stuck in a Vanitas floor and makes our lives easier..." The man sighed as they reached the clan gate.
The gate rose ahead, sun crest carved into stone, guards posted with practiced boredom, eyes that scanned for threats out of habit rather than fear.
Iori felt the familiar shift in atmosphere as they crossed into "ho." The sa kind of safety that wasn’t safety at all, just rules and predators that wore your colors.
Once they walked in, several mbers spread out, leaving Iori alone with the senior mber.
The noise of the city beca muted behind the gate. Inside, it was quieter, but the quiet had edges. People watched from windows. Movent happened in pairs. Conversations stopped the mont soone unfamiliar passed.
"Don’t go on after that kid. He got protection, and if you really want to kill him, do it in a way that the Fist King can’t know it’s you. By the way, the mont you kill him, do us all a favor and remove that armor you’re wearing. The Sun Clan does not stop one’s vendetta, but we’ll not take unnecessary heat if need be."
The advice wasn’t moral. It wasn’t even caution. It was procedure, how to commit violence without dragging the whole clan into consequences. Iori heard it and felt, briefly, like he’d returned to sothing familiar.
Iori felt that he was back where he belonged, a den of backstabbers and untrustworthy, unreliable allies.
Just like ho.
He didn’t smile at that thought. It wasn’t comforting. It was simply... true.
"Before you go... what’s a Vanitas Floor? I heard soone selling torches back at the information guild, and others all over the place."
"That’s... sothing you’ll have to ask Lucas about. You probably won’t need to worry about it now, a Vanitas floor is rare to appear. So rare that you’d have to have been Satan himself in your past life to see it on your first ten floors. But, there’s always a chance."
The senior looked into the guild’s hall and noticed Lucas walking down the stairs with another mber; both of them seed in an agitated state.
"Talk to him once he’s done. He’ll explain. After all, that bastard encountered a Vanitas floor on the eleventh floor. Almost killed him too...He already went through four of them..."
Iori looked at Lucas, one of the people that’s been under him before, the sa man who brought him from the floor’s newbie area, and walked toward him.
If this Vanitas floor was this dangerous, might as well know all about it.
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