The gate followed Ethan home in his thoughts. Not literally. No haunting. No dream. Just ten sockets. Two glowing. Floor One Hundred. A long-term mechanic the old game had never publicly used. Ethan sat at the kitchen table drawing it from memory. His father passed. Father: New door? Ethan: Unfortunately. Father: Brass key? Ethan: No. He explained enough. Not hidden-key ownership specifics. Just that the brass key opened an Original Reality supply cache placed by Elias. His father listened. Father: So I wasn't secretly a guardian. Ethan: Elias specifically wrote that you weren't.&nbs

After Floor Twenty-Five, the Tower became quieter for a while. Not easier. Quieter. Floors Twenty-Six through Twenty-Eight contained no continuity archive, no hidden-key activation, and no identity mechanism. They were current combat floors designed around things Ethan's old experience only partly understood. That was exactly what Last Dawn needed. Floor Twenty-Six was an underground river. Floor Twenty-Seven used moving towers connected by temporary bridges. Floor Twenty-Eight forced two teams to defend a supply caravan through a monster migration. Routine by the standards of a thousand-floor Tower. Important by the standards of current people still learning how to work together. These weeks did not need to turn every floor into a revelation. The path tha