Chapter 319: Anastasia
Yenna said nothing.
But she listened.
Kael looked toward the darkness.
"I was only able to leave this floor a month ago. And I spent that month outside."
Yenna’s jaw tightened.
A month.
To someone trapped inside the Tower of the Dead, that single word probably sounded like a feast described to a starving prisoner.
"How?" she asked.
"I was invited to Floor Ten early," Kael said carefully. "Not cleared. Invited. Something happened there. I was sent outside for one month and told I would be brought back when the time ended."
"That is impossible."
"Yeah," Kael said. "I’ve heard that a lot."
Yenna leaned back slightly, suspicion still there, but now tangled with something else. Hunger. Not for food. For answers. For a door. For the idea that the Tower might not be a sealed coffin after all.
"And you came back willingly?" she asked.
"No." Kael gave her a flat look. "I was lying in bed. In pajamas. Does that look like willingly to you?"
Her gaze flicked down toward his slippers, which were still technically equipped until he removed them.
"Fair."
Yenna’s eyes returned to him. "Who are you?"
"Kael Ardent."
"I didn’t ask for your name."
"I know."
He looked at her carefully now.
"And I know who you are."
Yenna’s hand went for her weapon.
Fast.
Kael did not flinch.
"Don’t worry," he said. "I’m not an enemy."
Her fingers closed around the grip anyway. "That is exactly what enemies say."
"True. But I’m not smart enough to open with something better."
Her eyes narrowed.
Kael leaned slightly forward, elbows resting on his knees. "Actually, the reason I’m in this damn mess is because of the same motherfucker that probably caused the mess you’re in."
Yenna’s expression changed.
Only a little.
But enough.
"And who do you think it is?" she asked.
Kael looked at the lantern flame.
Then at the darkness beyond it.
Then back at her.
"The one who killed you," he said. "Asher Vylan."
Yenna went still.
Not frozen.
Not shocked in the dramatic way lesser people might be.
Still.
Like a beast hearing the snap of a trap it had once survived.
Kael continued, voice low. "He was the reason I got here in the first place. And he’s the person whose neck I’ll personally wrangle once I’m strong enough."
Yenna stared at him for a long moment.
The blue lantern popped softly between them.
Somewhere beyond the safe zone, something scraped against stone.
"You know that name," she said.
"I know enough."
"You have no idea what enough is. He’s not someone you can mess with."
"Probably."
Her grip tightened around the weapon. "What do the people outside the tower think of my disappearance."
"They still think you’re in the tower of trials. Stuck, maybe lost and some think you’re dead."
The words struck harder than he expected.
Yenna’s expression did not break, but something in her eyes did. A tiny fracture. A quiet confirmation of a fear she had likely carried too long to admit.
"And Vylan?" she asked.
Kael’s jaw tightened. "America’s Shield. Public hero. Demigod to everyone watching. Still smiling for cameras."
Yenna laughed once.
It had no humor in it.
"Of course he is."
Kael nodded. "Yeah."
The silence that followed was heavier than the darkness.
Yenna looked away first, staring out beyond the lantern’s boundary. The ruined street curved between broken buildings, swallowed by black. Vanitas waited there with all its teeth hidden, patient and awful.
"How did he send you here?" she asked.
"He didn’t know he did."
Kael gave her the short version.
Not everything. Not yet.
He told her about the construction site. About working there unofficially because no one else would take him without proper paperwork. About Annie Bers, the reporter. About seeing enough to know Vylan was involved. About being thrown into the Hudson and waking in the Tower of the Dead. About surviving floor after floor, about being sent out for a month and returning to Earth changed enough that even the Association could not ignore him.
He did not speak too loosely.
Even with the Tower’s permission, caution sat in his bones now.
He explained the world outside in careful pieces. His mother. The Elixir. The auction. The record. Vylan coming to the Association because Kael had broken his rookie physical output number, not because he recognized the man he had tried to kill.
At that, Yenna’s expression sharpened.
"He didn’t recognize you?"
"No."
"That sounds like him. Though if you said your appearance changed from when you were back on earth, it’s understandable."
Kael looked at her. "You knew him well?"
Yenna’s mouth curled.
Not a smile.
An old wound remembering the shape of a knife.
"He tried to recruit me to America’s Shield. Quite the audacity since I’m not from that country. Though..."
Kael waited.
She did not continue.
Not yet.
That was fine.
He had secrets too.
The lantern flame flickered again, and Kael checked the map on instinct. No nearby green dots. Red marks shifted far beyond the safe radius, too distant to threaten immediately, but Vanitas had never needed to hurry. This floor liked pressure. It liked hunger. It liked mistakes.
"I see that you’re peering to your left, are you looking at your mini-map? It’s not going to work here." She said.
"Well, kinda..." He was surprised that she was able to deduce that form just how his eyes moved.
Her eyes narrowed. "You are very annoying."
"I get that a lot."
"You show up in pajamas, carrying proof of Earth, with a forbidden exemption from the Tower, and now you tell me you have a map."
Kael shrugged. "I also brought three Torches of Vanitas."
Yenna stared.
This time, the composure cracked properly.
"You what?"
"I bought them outside."
"Bought them," she repeated slowly.
"Yeah. For one hundred and twenty dollars each."
Yenna closed her eyes.
For a second, she looked like she was physically holding back violence.
Kael almost smiled.
Her eyes opened. "Do you have any idea how many people die because they cannot get one?"
"Yes. That was almost me. I got invited three times on sub ten floors..."
The humor left him quickly.
Her eyes widened, "Three?! This is my third time and I’m at the twenty seventh floor! How unlucky are you?!"
Kael shrugged.
"I know right," Kael said.
Yenna looked at him again, and the anger in her eyes shifted into something more complicated.
"Then why are you telling me all this?"
"Because Torrac said this might be good for both of us."
"He is not wrong." Yenna leaned forward slightly. "You can leave."
"Not whenever I want."
"But you did leave."
"Yes."
"And came back."
"Dragged back."
"Still." Her eyes burned now, not with rage, but with an old impossible hope she clearly hated herself for feeling. "If you can go back again..."
Kael held up a hand. "I don’t know if I can take anyone with me."
"I didn’t ask that."
Her jaw tightened. But she couldn’t say anything.
Kael sighed. "Look, Yenna. I’m not promising anything. I don’t know the rules. I don’t even know why the Tower lets me do half the things it lets me do. But I remember you saying you have unfinished business back on Earth. Need my help with that?"
"And why would you?"
He shrugged. "It’s good helping others I guess."
Yenna stared at him for a long time.
"Anastasia..." she said quietly.
"Who is that?"
"My younger sister, she’s the only one I have left. She doesn’t know where I am. And she awakened something dangerous and Asher wants it badly."
"How dangerous?"
She looked at Kael, as if he heard he too might want it.
"I’m your only ticket out of here, I don’t know when I could go back, but I might be. So if you have anything to tell me. It better be now."
"She awakened something called Modulation. She’s able to re-arrange a person’s energy channels, mana and physical prowess included to become smoother, swifter and much more powerful. She’s awakened it when she was six years old, and thanks to her I became who I am..."
"You mean... she can alter a person’s body?"
"Not the physical sense... I can’t explain it well, but basically she can make one reach their optimal form with little to no consequences. And Asher seems to be interested in that ability."
"He wants to be stronger than he is..."
"He’s a madman who’s completely obsessed with power. He has a godcomplex, a megalomaniac... egotheist bastard...."
"I see... and how come he didn’t get his hands on your sister yet?" Kael asked.
"I’ve made sure to make all information regarding her ability to be unknown to the public. Asher knows that I have awakened to what I am by alteration but has yet to find it was my sister, if he does... only god knows what will happen to her."
"So, you want me to talk with her."
"Take her somewhere safe, somewhere he can’t touch... is all I’m asking you, I’ll give you several of my codes, I left the majority of my wealth, stocks and bonds in those safes. I unfortunately made it so she cannot use them until she is eighteen but I doubt she’ll live long enough to make use of that money to hide. Or at least leave the country."
"I can handle that..."
"You can also take as much as you need from those, just leave enough for her to survive and live comfortably. Can you do that?"
"I’m not touching your sister’s money, I’m well off as I am now."
"How well off?" she asked."
"I just bought my mother a penthouse in Manhattan. And have a couple million left, good enough to help her for a long time."
"My total fortune is worth about two billion dollars, are you sure you don’t want some?"
that felt like an anchor dropped on Kael’s head.
"Ahem... well..." He thought a bit about the rune Form he saw in the auctionhouse the 60million dollar rune.
With some of Yenna’s money... he could buy it.
"Fine, I’ll help out then."
"Greed is mankind’s worst enemy."
"It’s not for just the money." Kael said.
"Your eyes say otherwise..."
"I need to buy something," Kael said as he looked at his gauntlet.
"Now that I look at it, you’re one of those insane people who use runes... Are you thinking of buying that Rune in the auction house?"
"You know of it?"
"Yeah, I was there when it was uncovered, expensive trash is what it is, or what everyone thinks, but seeing that you’re able to use them..."
"He isn’t just able to use them..." they both heard, and then finally something emerged out of Yenna’s hair.
It was the same red furred creature. The honey badger.
"He’s able to use the Tongue of Gods... the very person we were looking for Yenna..."