Spire Of Glory -

When they hit the ground, the Spire was gone. In its place stood a simple, jagged pillar of rock. No gold, no light—just a monument to a man who chose a humble life over a hollow heaven.

The interior was not stone, but light. Gravity felt thin, like a half-remembered dream. As Kaelen climbed the winding, floating staircases, the Spire tested him. It didn’t use monsters; it used .

"My daughter is not an attachment," Kaelen roared, his voice echoing against walls that bled starlight.

For a thousand years, the Spire had been a myth—a needle of white stone said to pierce the heavens, built by a forgotten king to reach the gods. But when the Great Eclipse turned day into eternal twilight, the Spire didn't just appear; it grew. It tore through the earth in the center of the capital, a jagged shard of ivory and gold that hummed with a low, bone-shaking frequency.

As the Spire groaned and began to crumble, Kaelen grabbed his daughter and leaped from the shattering heights. They fell, not into death, but into a sea of clouds that softened like wool under the Spire’s dying magic.

At the very peak, where the air was cold enough to crack bone, he found the King of Oryn. The monarch was withered, fused to a throne of glass, his eyes glowing with a terrifying, hollow light. He wasn't reaching for the gods; he was feeding the Spire with the "purity" of the stolen children to keep himself immortal. The Spire of Glory was a siphon.

Kaelen didn’t use a legendary blade to win. He used the heavy, soot-stained hammer from his belt—a tool of creation, not a weapon of war. He struck the glass throne, not with hatred, but with the rhythmic strike of a man shaping iron. Clang. Clang. Clang.