"You have to keep moving forward, no matter what the cost. The Tower won't wait for the weak." —
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After Jude found himself in the house Zeke had built on the first floor, he stayed there for three years—absorbing everything he'd gained, meditating on power that tasted like ash.
In the third year, he rose from his meditation pose.
A single step carried him above the kingdom where he and his brothers had once lived.
He summoned a rain of swords.
Each blade fell with surgical precision, targeting every living thing in the kingdom below. New governance, new citizens—it didn't matter. None of them would walk away.
After the last body fell, he began his climb toward the fortieth floor.
This time, he formed no faction. Every organization that had wronged him and his brothers—he found them. And he destroyed them.
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Thirty years passed before he reached the fortieth floor.
