Runebound Reverse Tower of The Dead

[Congratulations! You have defeated the Floor Boss {Ifrit}]

[You have successfully beaten a Floor Boss by yourself]

[You have received the title [I’ll Do it Myself]

+3 to all Stats!]

[You have obtained {Medium Soul Core}- [Infernal]-]

[You have completed the required condition to leave the first floor and proceed to the Second Floor of the Tower of the Dead.]

[Several constellations have noticed you]

[You have unlocked Level up!]

[You can no longer purchase stats from shops.]

[Calculating your lethality score]

[You have slain...

13 goblins.

16 Basilisk Hatchlings. (Wipeout)

1 Basilisk of Getava. [Hidden Boss]- Extermination-

6 Atrax Spiders

4 Zombies

1 Ifrit [Floor Boss]

[Your experience has been deferred and will be obtained soon after you arrive on the second floor.]

***

The street felt wrong without the Ifrit’s presence filling it.

Not cool, nothing here ever became cool, but the air stopped pressing down like a furnace door held half-open. The heat still shimmered over the asphalt, and the nearest buildings were still coughing smoke like wounded lungs, yet the intent was gone. No hovering silhouette. No hungry, sentient flame watching the block for movement.

Just rubble. Smolder. A few embers tumbling in the wind like lazy fireflies.

Kael stood there with his chest rising and falling in a controlled rhythm, forcing his breath to behave. His armor did its job, but the warning from earlier still clung to him like a bad smell. Overheating didn’t care about resistance, it cared about time. He could feel sweat trapped under leather, pooling at his back, sticking to him where it couldn’t evaporate fast enough.

He flicked his eyes to the minimap almost on instinct.

The city had heard.

Red dots were starting to shift. Green dots too. Loot had a scent, and it wasn’t just monsters that followed it. The moment the Ifrit dropped, this street became a dinner bell for everyone desperate enough to answer.

The list of notifications ended right there and once Kael was done skimming through them a few green dots approached him.

He didn’t turn right away. He didn’t have to. Their dots moved with the same cautious eagerness he’d learned to recognize, like people trying to look casual while walking straight toward a corpse with valuables on it.

Kael grabbed his belt from the flames, or whatever remained from it, and checked them out.

The leather was cooked through. The metal head was warped and blackened, and the little mechanism he’d worked so hard on was basically a ruined lump now. Still, he snatched it like it mattered, because it did. Not for the belt itself, but for what it represented.

He made it work. He made it kill a boss.

He wasn’t letting anyone step on that.

"What?" he asked as the two looked rather untrustworthy. Not that anything was worth trusting in this dammned tower.

They stopped a few paces away, close enough to talk, far enough to pretend they weren’t afraid of getting punched. Both had that look, eyes darting to his hands, to his armor, to the smoldering remains behind him, then back to his face. Trying to calculate the cost of being greedy.

"Ah, just wanted to see the guy that killed the floor boss. I mean, sure you got some good loot there," he said.

Kael didn’t react. No nod. No grin. Just that blank stare that promised problems.

The other one seemed more adamant on approaching far closer than what anyone would deem safe. "I’m sure you got some extra cores to spare?" he said.

That one didn’t stop at "conversation distance." He kept creeping like he thought friendliness was a shield. Kael could already picture the follow-up, we’re all in this together, the kind of line people said right before sticking a blade in your ribs.

"I can spare these fists up your ass if you want some of this heat?" Kael said as he slammed both fists together, the sound of metal hitting metal and a spark of the Fire rune was enough to make the guy who approached too close stop and step back.

The spark was tiny. Barely even a real flare. But it was enough. It wasn’t the fire that scared them; it was the idea that Kael didn’t need permission to make it worse.

"Just- just kidding man..." he said.

His voice cracked a little on the last word. He backed off like the air around Kael had teeth.

Immediately, a rift in space right above the ifrit’s remains opened up.

It didn’t tear with dramatic lightning or a long build-up. It simply appeared, like reality got bored and decided to fold. The air warped into a clean, violent seam, hanging above the scorched street like a doorway cut into the world.

Torrac appeared from it.

His red eyes were almost fuming at what had just happened.

Even from a distance, the rabbit felt like authority given shape. Not physical strength, something worse. The certainty that the tower would back him if he decided to ruin your day. His twin-tailed tux floated oddly crisp despite the ash in the air, and his monocle glinted like it was mocking the scene.

"Looks like you made it." He said.

Kael’s lips twitched. Not quite a smile. More like a grim acknowledgment that the universe had finally shown up to collect the bill.

"Looks like you didn’t want me to make it, Torrac," Kael replied in snark.

The Rabbit snorted and put his hand forward, "Hand over the cost of passage."

Kael didn’t move.

He didn’t even pretend to reach for his inventory. He just stood there, letting the silence stretch long enough to be irritating. He’d learned something important on this floor: rushing because someone demanded it was how you got played.

"Do you not want to go to the next floor?" The rabbit exclaimed.

Kael’s gaze flicked to the portal, then back to Torrac’s eyes. The rabbit wanted him gone. That much was obvious. The faster Kael left, the fewer problems he could cause on the first floor’s dying corpse.

"Gotta wait for the notification," Kael smiled.