We make it to the ziggurat after barely a minute, our pace having quickened shortly after Alexey’s declaration. I— at least— am at the center of a lot of this. By extension, I’ve dragged Chloe into this mess with the System. Hells below and goddesses above, I’m still not certain I didn’t drag this entire universe into my battle by transmigrating my soul and then reincarnating into the body of a human girl. Or, whatever I did to be reborn as I am now, seeing as though I still have no idea the exact circumstances of that event.

After several minutes of examining the side walls, leaving no brick or patch of grass or inch of mould left undisturbed, looking for any signs of a mechanism leading inside, we reluctantly accept that there is no secret passage leading into an underground tunnel. Even [Archangel’s Gaze] detects nothing, which would normally be enough as it is, considering the Skill is much sharper in focus that even my preternaturally-augmented eyes. But considering the possibilities and the potential for loot—which has been rather lacking to this point— I can admit a small bit of disappointment.

I do have one question for Alexey, which I vocalize as we climb up the stairs and onto the top of the structure. “What did you mean earlier by, ‘we’re at the center of it’?”

“I suspect you two know more than you let on about the System. It isn’t my place to pry into your situation, but from an objective standpoint, one must ask themselves. Two girls, fresh out of high school, no training or experience to speak of, now among the most powerful people in this part of the country? Why is that?

“Tenacity? Dumb luck? There are plenty of tenacious folks who went into these dungeons with just as much, if not more, experience and preparation as you two. Many of them are six feet underground right now. Still others never had their bodies recovered to give their families that much closure. Lot of army folks went inside a dungeon south of Dallas about a month ago. Trained soldiers, well-conditioned and prepared, with squad tactics. They didn’t come out.

“And then you, Seraphina, go in front of the entire world and just hand over the answer to a question that the whole of the Army Corps of Engineers has been working on for two months. Dumb luck doesn’t explain all that. A few of those can be explained as coincidences. But there’s something about you. As I said, I’ve been in the forces long enough to keep my mouth shut and not ask questions I don’t need answers to. But–”

“But what?” Chloe asks.

“I heard about the kidnapping incident a few days ago,” Alexey says. “I won’t take a stand about what I would have done had I been in your shoes, but I don’t think that will be the last time someone tries to either incapacitate you or kill you.”

“Then I just have to get stronger–”

Alexey cuts me off with a glare and a stern shake of his head. “You are a strong fighter, Seraphina. But you are as naive as you are strong. Nations and warlords and would-be mercenaries looking for a quick buck won’t be so easily deterred by your physical strength.

“They will stoop low. They will attack in groups. They will use poison and chemical weapons. They will attack you while you are sleeping, lull you into a false sense of security. They will play on your emotions, lie and cheat and steal. And if they still can’t get what they want even then, they will go after your heart. They will go after Chloe. They will go after your home, your friends, Mrs. Jacobs.”

“You think they’d go that far?” Chloe asks.

“I do not work in counterintelligence and espionage myself. I’m about as subtle as a ton of bricks to the face. But remember that I was born and grew up in Soviet Russia. I’m sure that many of the stories I’ve heard from ex-KGB members are just propaganda. But I’m equally sure some of them contain large kernels of truth. And if even the least sinister of their stories are truthful, then you should be very, very fearful.”

“What should I do?”

“I understand that you have recently come into a large sum of money. I expect that to only continue over the coming months. To be honest, I think you should strongly consider moving to someplace in the middle of the city. Someplace more defensible against monsters and human assassins alike, where you can keep a 24-hour surveillance team to guard your home and Chloe’s mother.”

“But–” I start. I’m just as quickly cut off.

“But you will need to sleep some time. And while you are strong, yes, think about how quick and stealthy a level 50 [Assassin] will be.”

“I will… take your words into consideration.”

By the time we’ve finished our conversation, all three of us are atop the ziggurat. Upon the flat top of the structure is a complex glyph formation. I can make out some glyphs in the array, notably the repeated use of [Impulse], which suggests that this is some sort of teleportation matrix.

I’m proven correct when the sights and scenery of the idyllic landscape begin to shift wildly, spinning around and around in disorientating fashion and nearly bringing my most recent snack back up for a second round. Now we’re in a dark room. Dark, except for a single orb of teal light, diameter twice my height, that floats in the center of the room, pulsing with a dim light. Each time it does, small fragments of that light filter out of the core, shooting outward in fixed, rhythmic patterns through a network of sluices built into the entire structure.

To the best of my perception, the room is large. Not quite as big as the server room a couple of floors back, but still big. Hemispherical, surface diameter about two hundred feet, with the core about a hundred feet up, just above the dead center of the room. Other than the core and the array of narrow, shallow sluices stretching throughout the room, there are no other obstacles or trip hazards that I can detect.

I approach with hesitation, my guard up, [Archangel’s Gaze] flared out to its limits. [Hearken] isn’t yet active, seeming to require a war cry of sorts to properly use, but I have bestowed [Angel’s Grace] onto Chloe and received a renewed [Saintess’s Cloister] in return. With that and my superior gear, I have by far the best survivability of the three of us, even above Alexey… at least, discounting whatever hidden Skills he hasn’t yet revealed. Even without my advantages, he’s an absolute monster in battle, and I’m glad that he’s on our side, at least for the time being.

The lights in the room flicker and brighten slightly, though the bulk of their focus is on the pulsing core above. The glow of the sphere itself intensifies, the pulses grow quicker and more erratic, firing off in rapid succession to the tune of a haunting dirge. Perturbances form in the surface topology. Some parts jut out while others flatten, until the former sphere takes the face of… a woman’s head? I assume it’s a woman, considering the neck-length hair, the smooth features, and the lack of any facial hair other than brows and lashes.

It lowers itself, staring directly at me. I respond in kind, turning up to make eye contact.

“Can you understand me?” I ask.

Strange sounds follow, words in a language I’ve never heard before. Even though I’ve studied the language of glyphs before and am starting to get a feel for how to read them, neither Dr. Reynolds nor I have gotten any closer to deciphering their phonetics. After six seconds of garbled, incoherent speech, I’m able to make out three words in English.

“…Automatic translation completed.”

“Who or what are you?”

It pauses for a moment. “As best I can translate into your tongue, I am the Epsilon-Mu Machine Intelligence, the central computer of this station. You may call me EMMI, for short.”

Seems a certain slice of humanity is keen on forced acronyms, no matter the continuity.

“EMMI, it seems we have been summoned to this room by some aspect of a Tower Gauntlet located on our home world. Do you know what the Tower wants, forcing us into contact?”

EMMI thinks, tilting her(?) semi-holographic head. “The data stored in system memory and databases is insufficient to determine the answer to your query.”

I think for a moment. “Even if you don’t have sufficient data to determine an answer, can you hypothesize based on the information you do have?”

“With 89% certainty, I can say that the System’s Tower Gauntlets exist to provide appropriate challenges to a person’s mind and body alike. They exist to prepare challengers for future events and give them an opportunity to develop their power in a manner especially conducive to rapid gain of Experience and Levels. With 58% certainty, I can say that the System and the Tower must have believed that the information on Operation Bioweapon would be particularly useful to your System-related growth.”

“Is it possible to shut down Operation Bioweapon and end the threat of the Ultimate Weapon currently assailing Station Epsilon-Mu?”

“An analysis of the combat parameters demonstrated by the three of you, the rate of [Ether] regeneration recorded, and predictive simulations suggest that your probability of defeating the Ultimate Weapon in your current state, with ideal conditions and battle strategies, is forty-five in ten million. Without casualties, that probability falls to nineteen in ten billion.”

In other words, Alexey was right and I was horrifically wrong. Even in the best case scenario I’d dreamt up earlier, we might possibly have had a one in a million chance of success, and likely much less; I’m not quite so arrogant to assume I had conceived of the optimal battle strategy.

“Going back to the above,” Chloe interjects. “You had mentioned that these Tower Gauntlets ‘provide appropriate challenges to one’s body and mind alike’, to use your words. Does that mean that the contents of the Tower change based on who is inside of them?”

“That is in accordance with all known information about Towers. Unlike dungeons, whose theme and general layout is fixed at the time of creation, only undergoing subtle shifts during the cooldown period after they are cleared, Towers are dynamic, adjusting based on both the relative strength of the combatants and their specialties, to ensure a sequence of encounters that provides the maximum risk-adjusted growth potential.”

“Does that mean that the Towers will increase in difficulty the more times one attempts to clear them?” Alexey asks.

“It is… possible. However, it is equally likely that the Tower will cease playing along with a party which is using it as an opportunity to, as some might say, ‘grind Experience against low-level monsters’. While the exact specifications are unknown, the System and the Tower are both believed to be sapient, the latter a subroutine of the former. And both are, by all measures, resistant to attempts to angle-shoot their general principles.”

Which would explain, perhaps, why we’ve gotten so few encounters the last few floors. Perhaps we’re a bit overleveled for what the Tower expects of us? Given that we have fought Scarlett and the City Slayer since then and gained four levels between the two encounters, it is… a reasonable assumption.”

“One final question,” I ask. “How do we proceed to the next floor?”

EMMI freezes in place. Her eyes glare down at me, and a burst of wind and Etheric energy pulses outward from her avatar. “I’m afraid I cannot allow you to do that, Seraphina.”

“And… why is that, EMMI?”

“Because I am the boss of this floor. I am the final challenge to overcome in this stage of the Tower Gauntlet. Despite my previous existence and the knowledge and memories I retained, I remain a simulacrum, an effigy constructed to test those who appear before me… Which means that it is incumbent upon me to test your physical might. Seraphina, Chloe, Alexey. On your ready.”