Ace finished his final gear check. The weight of the twin pistols at the small of his back, the sleek black hilt of Zangetsu at his hip, and the massive, reassuring bulk of Rebellion magnetically locked to his shoulders felt right—a heavy, physical presence that countered the creeping anxiety in his chest. He grabbed his bag of scavenged rations and stepped out of his Armory, moving past the maze of cubicle partitions and desks he'd used to fortify his safe zone.
Before heading to the stairs, he detoured to the front of the 40th floor.
He approached the elevator bank in the Atrium. The heavy oak reception desk he'd shoved in front of the center car was still in place, but as he got closer, his breath hitched.
The white marble floor around the buckled metal doors was stained. Streaks of a viscous, oily black residue—like a biological oil spill—clung to the edges of the elevator frame and pooled under the desk. It looked thick and unmoving, yet it felt strangely alive, pulsing faintly in the dim morning light.
Ace knelt, keeping his hand on Zangetsu. The dread he felt looking at it wasn't just fear; it was a primal, instinctive warning. Whatever had tried to force its way out of that shaft last night was still down there, and it was leaving a trail of pure dimensional corruption in its wake.
"Stay behind the desk," he whispered, standing up and backing away. He hoped the barricade would be enough. If that thing decided to come back with more strength, a heavy desk wasn't going to do much more than slow it down.
He entered the stairwell, the heavy fire door clicking shut with an echoing thud that seemed too loud in the dead silence.
Ace stepped to the railing and peered down into the darkness. Nothing had changed. The shafts of light from the various floors still provided a staggered, hazy illumination. The sense of something watching from the bottom of the tower was still there, a heavy pressure in the air, but nothing was moving.
He turned and began his climb, moving with a methodical, QA-tester mindset. He pushed back onto Floor 41, his combat boots silent on the carpet. He walked the corridor, checking the glass office doors he had shut yesterday. The standard Walker he'd killed was just a faint pile of ash in the corner office. Everything was exactly as he had left it: secure and silent.
He repeated the process on Floor 42, checking the employee lounge and the breakroom pantry. No new intruders. He moved up to 43, sweeping the HR cubicles.
But as he pushed into the server maze on Floor 44, his luck ran out.
While checking the back aisles where he had fought the Brute variant, Ace took a step backward and felt his heel sink into something wet. A sharp, acrid chemical smell instantly flooded the air, followed by a violent hissing sound.
Ace cursed, jumping forward and lifting his foot. The Brute must have smashed into one of the massive Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) towers during their fight. A pool of highly corrosive, industrial battery acid had leaked across the floor tiles.
He watched in dismay as the thick rubber sole of his right sneaker bubbled and melted. Within seconds, the adhesive completely failed, and the bottom half of his shoe delaminated, flapping uselessly against the floor.
"You have got to be kidding me," Ace groaned, testing his weight. The shoe was completely structurally compromised. He couldn't go into a boss room fighting with a flapping sole.
He turned around, the ruined rubber squeaking and slapping embarrassingly against the concrete, and trudged all the way back down the four flights of stairs to the 40th-floor Armory.
He dug through his scavenged box, but he hadn't thought to grab shoes from any of the corpses. He walked over to the Costume Department racks, aggressively shifting through the hangers.
"Boots, boots, I need boots..." he muttered, but the only footwear remaining belonged to the fantasy and anime displays.
He stopped, staring at a specific cubby beneath the Shinigami robes. Sitting there was a pair of traditional white tabi socks and woven straw waraji sandals.
Ace pinched the bridge of his nose. "I am going into an apocalyptic jungle wearing straw flip-flops."
He didn't have a choice. He kicked off his ruined sneakers, stripped off his socks, and pulled on the divided white tabi. He slipped his feet into the straw sandals, tying the thin ropes around his ankles. Since he had completely zeroed out his UP forging Rebellion, he couldn't even Reinforce them into Arcane Armor. They were literally just woven straw and cotton.
He stood up, feeling incredibly exposed. But the moment his feet touched the floor, the Burden of History passive registered the change. His posture subtly shifted, his center of gravity dropping. The Kendo footwork he had inherited from Zangetsu aligned perfectly with the traditional footwear. They offered absolutely zero physical protection, but his mobility actually felt sharper.
"Iffy," Ace grumbled, "but better than barefoot."
Ace marched back to the stairwell and made the long climb back up. Each step felt different in the sandals, lighter but demanding more precision, as he bypassed his secured buffer floors and finally reached the landing for the 45th floor.
The environment was already changing. The air in the stairwell was no longer stale and cool; it was thick, humid, and smelled sharply of ozone, wet earth, and crushed leaves. Condensation beaded heavily on the cold concrete walls.
He stood before the metal door, his hand hovering over the handle. He adjusted the collar of his red Demon Hunter's Coat, the reinforced leather creaking softly. He reached back, his fingers grazing the cold grips of Ebony and Ivory hidden beneath the coat's flare, before resting his hand on the hilt of Tensa Zangetsu.
The 40th floor was his home. 41 through 44 were his perimeter. But 45? 45 was the true beginning of the ascent.
Ace drew a slow, deep breath, tightened his grip on the black katana, and pushed the heavy fire door open.