"Come on, you slugs. I know you want to rest some more, but we're on Floor fifty-one," Rachel called, her voice cutting through the groggy silence like a whipcrack. She stood at the base of an arched stone doorway, arms crossed, sabre strapped tight against her hip. "We just passed the halfway mark. Let's get a move on."

A chorus of groans answered her.

It wasn't rebellion. It was exhaustion—pure, bone-deep weariness that none of them could truly shake after weeks, possibly a month, spent climbing the Tower of Draumheim. Their faces were harder now, eyes sharper, gear worn but reinforced, bloodstained in places where even the System's repair functions couldn't quite erase the imprint of real fights.

Rachel showed no sign of slowing. She never did. Not outwardly.

To the others, she was tireless—unyielding steel that never bent, never faltered. But Paul, walking just behind her, knew the signs. The way her knuckles stayed clenched too long after a fight. The rare moment she looked at the crystal on each rest floor with something like longing. She wore her endurance like armor, and for now, it was holding.

Today's floor was another insult to their sanity.

They stepped through the arch and immediately found themselves in a space that felt like a nightmare geometry puzzle. The stairwells twisted around one another in spirals, loops, and contradictory directions. Archways opened into walls, walkways bent in gravity-defying arcs, and more than once they stepped through a door and emerged on a ceiling, the world below them now their sky.

Diana tapped a stair tread and watched it ripple, shifting orientation as if the space itself had blinked.

"I hate this place," George muttered, knocking an arrow and not even trying to hide the tension in his shoulders.

"You're not alone," Rachel replied. "I've seen old books with illustrations like this. Where nothing lines up unless you're in the illusion yourself. Escher-style stairs. Just don't trust where your feet are going, and never, ever, shoot unless I say."

George rolled his eyes, but nodded. Nearby, Nathan cast a glance his way—pointed and full of dry resentment. His left leg still had a faint scorch mark where one of George's explosive arrows had ricocheted off a staircase and detonated beside him.

"That was one time," George muttered.

"One time's all it takes to get a fireball up your ass," Nathan shot back.

They pushed deeper into the twisting maze, weapons drawn, minds alert.

The floor's quest had been infuriatingly vague:

Tower of Draumheim – Level 51

Objective: Hunt the Shadow Between Paths. It stalks what moves and hides where angles break. No map will help you here.

Reward: Access to Floor 52

For the last hour, they'd followed looping staircases, peered through strange portals leading to sideways corridors, and navigated terrain that refused to stay still. The walls had no consistency—sometimes cold stone, other times impossibly smooth like glass or bone. But the worst part wasn't the layout.

It was the thing hunting them.

They hadn't seen it. Not clearly. Just flickers at the edge of perception. A blur of motion that vanished the moment you turned your head. A glimmer in a mirror that didn't belong. Once, Felicity thought she saw its eyes—four pinpricks of red hovering upside down across a stairwell... then gone.

They only knew it was real by the results.

Evelyn had nearly lost a hand when a tendril of black smoke coiled around her from a wall that hadn't been there seconds before. Charles's shield had a deep groove carved across it from a strike that landed from behind, even though he'd been at the rear.

"Where the hell is it?" Diana hissed, daggers ready, her knuckles white around the hilts. "It's like it uses the doors like water, slipping between spaces before we can track it."

"It does," Rachel said tightly. "It's not just using this layout—it knows it. Like it was born in it."

They stopped on a landing that bent in three directions at once.

"Fan out," Rachel ordered. "Pairs. Stay in line of sight. Charles, Evelyn—take high left. Paul, you're with me. Nathan, Diana—right side loop. George, Felicity—watch the midline. Arrows only on confirmed hits. I'm not losing anyone to an echo shot again."

The team moved. Every footstep echoed in unnatural ways—sometimes loud, sometimes swallowed instantly, like the space around them chose what to acknowledge.

And then it struck.

A blur of motion erupted from a shattered doorway, moving at an impossible angle. Before Rachel could shout, it was on Felicity, claws extended from limbs that looked too thin to hold any weight. George screamed and fired point-blank, the arrow tearing through one arm—but the thing twisted around it, vanishing mid-lunge through a side portal.

Felicity hit the ground hard, bleeding but alive. Evelyn scrambled to her, hands already glowing with healing magic.

Rachel turned, face grim. "It's fast. And smart. And it knows this place better than we do." She lifted her blade, voice sharp and steady. "Did we anyone get a chance to identify the thing?"

Paul did thankfully. He read out the description that came to him.

New Monster: The Anglisk

Description: A native of broken dimensional spaces, the Anglisk moves along alternate planes folded into the architecture of reality. It can see through non-Euclidean corridors and slip through minor rifts to reposition at will. Its body appears humanoid at first glance but unravels mid-movement into spiderlike limbs and smoke-laced tendrils. Known to strike from impossible angles, its senses are drawn to motion and heat.

Rachel stared into the shifting halls and clenched her jaw.

"Now we know what we're dealing with," she said. "Set the trap. We finish this thing now."

They gathered in a looping atrium nestled at the center of Floor 51—a cavernous space where staircases folded impossibly over one another and archways opened to nowhere. From the outside, it looked like three separate rooms tangled into one; from within, it was an endless stage for the predator still stalking them.

Rachel crouched beside Paul, laying out the components of their plan across a square of etched stone.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"We bait it here," she said, tapping the floor. "Motion triggers it. We've seen that again and again. So we give it motion—without a body to chase."

George unwrapped a worn bundle of shimmering fabric from his inventory and held it up. The Mirrorveil Cloth from Floor 34 shimmered like oil on water, its surface rippling to reflect the far side of the atrium. When suspended, it mimicked whatever was directly behind it—like a window into space that wasn't there.

Diana grinned. "Still creepy as hell."

They had almost passed over the cloth when they found it in an abandoned illusionist's study three floors below a cursed menagerie. Back then, they didn't know if it would be useful. But now?

"Wrap that over one of the supply poles," Rachel said. "And hang the canteen strap across it like it's a shoulder. From a distance, it'll mimic us perfectly."

"Flicker runes too," Evelyn added, holding up a small crystal ring she'd looted from Floor 45's echo maze. "I've got just enough mana left to simulate breathing or twitching movement. Won't hold long, but it'll shimmer just enough to look alive."

They worked quickly. Charles posted up high with his new gilded sabre, gained after clearing Floor 48's armory puzzle. Having swapped to the same setup as Rachel with sword and small shield, he felt more comfortable now. Diana and Nathan flanked opposite ends of the atrium. George primed two of his concussive arrows and handed one to Felicity. Paul and Rachel positioned themselves forward, central, shield, and sabre at the ready.

They had each leveled five more times since Floor 1—not from experience alone, but from the constant, grinding pace of battle, puzzle-solving, and adaptation.

Rachel had gained Spatial Awareness, letting her track motion even when it wasn't in her direct line of sight. Evelyn's Mana Pulse Sense allowed her to detect ambient shifts when magic moved unnaturally. Nathan's Momentum Burst let him close the distance on a target in a heartbeat, while George's Aether Mark lit up a tracked enemy through obstacles—once seen, always seen.

Rachel gave the signal, and Evelyn activated the illusion. The Mirrorveil cloth rippled, casting a perfect image of Rachel shifting her stance—subtle, swaying, alive.

For two full minutes, nothing happened, and then the temperature dropped.

Rachel's eyes snapped to the upper left archway—an impossible corner just above their elevation.

"Left angle," she whispered. "It's watching."

A shimmer of shadow slid between two stairways. It paused and lingered. Its form rippled like a reflection on water, barely more than suggestion. Then it moved, too fast for the eye to follow, diving toward the illusion.

The Anglisk came through the wrong doorway—its motion skipping logic—and lunged toward the decoy with claws outstretched.

Evelyn dropped the illusion.

Rachel shouted, "NOW!"

George's arrow struck first, piercing one of its shoulder joints. Aether light bloomed from the impact. George fired again in rapid succession, followed by Felicity. The concussive blasts detonated a breath behind the creature's dodge, knocking it sideways into Nathan's path. He collided with the thing like a battering ram, slamming it to the ground in a tangle of smoke, limbs, and bone.

Diana was already behind it. Her blades came down in a clean, X-shaped strike across the back of its many-eyed head.

The Anglisk shrieked—not aloud, but inside their minds—then began to fold in on itself. The spatial integrity around it fractured, as though it were trying to escape again.

Rachel stepped in and activated her sabre's charge.

The weapon, infused with Floor 49's stored kinetic enchantment, glowed bright white as she plunged it directly into the creature's core.

The Anglisk convulsed.

And then it dissolved—folding inward, swallowed by the very geometry it once used to hunt them.

Followed by a soft ding as the System recognized their success.

Tower of Draumheim – Level 51 Complete

Portal to Level 52 Unlocked

Bonus Objective Achieved: Decoy-Based Elimination

Reward: +5% Progress Toward Skill Evolution

Rachel let out a slow breath, hand resting lightly on her sabre hilt.

"Well," she muttered, turning to the others as the portal shimmered to life behind them, "we finally outsmarted the damn thing."

Nathan huffed. "Let's not make a habit of fighting shit that thinks in fourth dimensions."

George wiped sweat from his brow. "Amen to that."

And with a final glance at the fractured space behind them, they stepped through the portal—into whatever impossible battlefield Floor 52 would offer next.

The portal flared behind them, casting long shadows over twisted tree trunks and thick coils of vine before closing with a quiet snap. Heat hit them like a wall.

Before anyone spoke, the smell made itself known—heavy, wet, and rotten. The air clung to their skin, thick with humidity and the acrid scent of stagnant water and decomposition. Low croaks echoed somewhere in the distance, punctuated by insect hums and the occasional slosh of something unseen moving through the dark.

What lay before them was a swamp. And not just any swamp—a steaming, fetid mire that seemed to stretch in every direction, dense with gnarled trees and thick fog. Tangled roots clawed out of the water like skeletal fingers, and slick green scum floated atop still pools that looked far deeper than they should have been.

Nathan let out a theatrical groan and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Rachel, I want to clear this place as much as the next person, but don't you think we should consider turning back soon? We've got those teleport-out stones now—cleared them back on Floor Fifty."

His voice wasn't confrontational, just weary. Everyone had voiced similar thoughts every five floors or so. The difference now was simple: for the first time, they had a real way out.

Rachel didn't answer immediately. Instead, she glanced toward the front where Diana was carefully picking her way across what looked like a partially submerged causeway. The stones weren't consistent—some were moss-covered, others looked deliberately shaped—but there was a path winding through the mire, if one could find it. Diana paused to poke at the water with a stick, testing depth before stepping forward.

Rachel adjusted the strap on her shoulder and turned toward Nathan, her boots squelching slightly in the mud.

"We can put it to a vote," she said evenly. "I'm not going to drag anyone farther than they're willing to go. But if this really is a System tutorial—and if what Virial told us is true—then we've got a once-in-a-lifetime chance here. Every floor is pushing us, yeah, but it's also preparing us. Grinding us down into something sharper. Something ready."

She glanced over the group.

"I think we should finish what we started. There's still a little over a month left before we have to return to Earth. If we leave now, we'll be better off than most. But if we finish this? We could be a whole different tier of strong by the time we get back. That's not nothing."

She looked each of them in the eye as she asked the question. "So what's it going to be? Yes, we return now. No, we keep climbing."

George was the first to speak, brushing his fingers over his bowstring with a casual nod. "No. I'm not done here. Not while there's more to earn."

Paul chimed in right after, his shield resting comfortably on his back. "Same. We've come this far. Might as well bleed the tower dry before we leave it."

Diana and Felicity glanced at one another and almost laughed. "We've already fought lava worms, possessed statues, and a screaming eyeball floor," Diana said with a shrug. "No point quitting at a little water."

Felicity just gave a quiet, "No," with a tired but resolute smile.

That left Nathan and Charles. The two exchanged a look—one of shared fatigue and battle memory—then sighed nearly in unison. Charles gave a half-hearted shrug and nodded. "Would be a shame to stop halfway through a story."

Nathan exhaled. "You people are going to kill me, but fine. I'm in."

Evelyn was the last. She stood off to the side, quietly adjusting the straps on her potion satchel. Her face was drawn—exhaustion written plainly across her features—but she had held her own on every floor, even when it nearly broke her. She looked up slowly, saw the others watching her, and offered a small, reluctant smile.

"No," she said softly. "We need to finish this out."

Rachel gave her a respectful nod. "Alright then." She drew her sabre, the steel catching what little filtered light pierced through the swamp canopy. "Let's kill some monsters and get paid for our trouble."

The group pressed forward, sticking close to Diana as she led them across the narrow path of raised stones and half-sunken flagstones that wound like a serpent through the mire. The fog thickened as they went, reducing visibility to a few dozen feet. Vines hung low like curtains, and gnarled roots jutted from the water in unpredictable places.

It didn't take long for the swamp's tricks to reveal themselves.

Step off the path even a few inches and you risked sinking waist-deep in muck that tugged at your boots with leechlike hunger. More than once, someone misstepped and had to be hauled out, armor slick with black water and algae.

At one point, Charles slipped, nearly vanishing into a mire pit before Paul hooked his arm and dragged him back, soaked and grumbling. George tried to step around a patch of brambles only to fall into a water-logged sinkhole that swallowed him to the chest.

"Seriously," he grumbled, spitting out moss. "This floor is the worst."

And it wasn't just the terrain. Movement stirred at the edges of the fog—slithering shapes and low groans that made the hairs on their necks stand up. They weren't alone.

Not by a long shot.

Rachel kept her sabre loose in her hand and her eyes scanning the twisted roots ahead. Whatever waited for them in this swamp, it wouldn't be simple. But they'd voted, and the course was set.

They would see this through.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.