The Villain's Story

?I simply stood there for a few seconds. In a daze, and wondered whether my eyes were playing?tricks on me.

[Welcome to the one-hundredth floor.]

No matter how many times I gazed at that announcement, no matter how many times I read it, carefully, as to not miss a single word.

It didn't change. It was still there.

"... What?"

Finally, after what seemed like minutes of silence, I muttered, my voice laced with confusion, and suspicion.

"One...hundredth floor?"

It was surreal. Just a moment ago, I believed I would be entering the seventy-first floor. But why is the announcement showing the one hundredth floor?

Am I simply hallucinating? That's probably true. The darkness may have messed with my brain a little bit.

'Yeah...that's right.'

I thought, as I massaged my head and took a breather. In an attempt to relieve myself from fatigue.

However, even after an hour, it was still there.

"Why is it not...starting?"

I wondered, even if this was the last floor, why is not starting? All floors would have started pretty soon after the announcement was made. Maybe the tower would delay them a little, but never for this long.

Or maybe it would...to mess with me. Or just provide the last floor with some significance.

But...what if it is the former? What if it is messing with me? It likes to do that? What if it is toying with me and the exact objective of the trial is for me to not be tricked?

Hesitant, I used [Dragon Eyes] and with them, I was able to confirm that the announcement before me was real.

There was no doubt in my mind left. The skill was absolute. Lanesha and Suleras had always told me that the skill was absolute, that nothing could deceive it besides a higher ranked [Dragon Eyes]. Therefore, peace and tranquillity returned to my mind.

The tower cannot tamper with this skill, it can disable it, but never can it change it.

"Alright... So somehow I am at the last floor."

I said, as I examined the area. It was similar to the place I woke up in. No, wait. Forget similar, it was exactly the same.

The blank white walls, the blank ceiling, and the marble floors. The same width and height. Everything was the same.

Only the blue display in front of me was different.

Shortly after I walked through it, expecting to something, something did happen.

[Would you like to challenge the final trial?]

A massive display, which completely made me feel like an ant, appeared in front of me. The words were so large on it, but were so clear to me.

The voice echoed once more, but it was different now...it was...glitching. It failed to completely say the sentence accurately, and after many, many attempts did it succeed.

But it didn't stop, it continued to repeat the exact same sentence, repeating its mistakes sometimes, and sometimes it would move on to other mistakes, forgetting the previous ones.

It was like it was broken, and the voice, which once belonged to a woman, was now distorted. It was like the horrid sound of sharp nails clawing out a chalkboard.

An absolute trauma for the ears, and for my sensitive ears it was hell.

"Yes, make it stop!"

I yelled as I clutched my head, trying to dampen the screeching noise that reached my ears. Thankfully, it listened and stopped. The place was tranquil once again.

Until the sound of glass shattering could be heard. All around me, the floor changed from marble to cracked glass, the walls and ceiling complied as well.

With the Ame-no-Sakahoko, I remained vigilant, ready for anything to come my way, but the space was distorting itself. The spatial mana I possessed within my body and my affinity for it was screaming at me.

It was changing, everything was changing but my mana, my affinity and my understanding of space telling me...

'It is flawed.'

It is imperfect, it is a glitch. A distortion unfit to be within the realm of space. Like it was performed by an amateur.

The space, regardless of the imperfection, expanded, I could see my self within the shattered glass that surrounded me. Not just one, but countless, some whole, and some broken into pieces, all malformed in their own way.

It was disgusting in its own way. But, the glass disappeared, and something else took its place.

Like it was being painted, or replaced. The floor turned into a stadium, with hard, dense, and perfect little squares. The ceiling was made of cement, and there were stands where the walls were supposed to be, like it was meant to watch this fight.

But who would watch it here? The tower? He doesn't need that! And as far as I recall, I am the only one here. The only one left in the tower, and the only one who has managed to get this far. Even if someone had entered after me, it would be nigh impossible for them to reach to my floor. I was not praising myself, but was just stating the facts. But...

But, my skin developed goosebumps as I remembered this place. It was a vivid memory of mine, filled with regrets and a part of the reason why I had to go into this tower.

No, it was not a part...but it was the majority of it. The place filled with such regret, and hate for my own weakness. It was the sole reason for Samantha's prolonged period of torture and suffering from that curse.

It was this very place where I lost the first hope to cure Samantha. Where I was deprived of my capabilities and had to accept using the help of another to survive, but even then I lost due to my own weakness. It was this fucking place. I grit my teeth as the shattered glass reappeared and combined to form the figure of a person I hated to a certain degree.

Where I lost to Ezra Fornum.

[The Final Trial.]

[Defeat the Undefeated.]