TORTURED ME, TO AWAKEN AS AN SSS DRAGON

Chapter 7

Home tasted like fresh bread and fried herbs.

Moonlight came through the small kitchen windows in silver strips, and the apartment smelled the way it always did on nights when Gianna cooked like she was trying to hold the world together with food. Dante sat at the table and let the warmth of it settle into him, into the places that had been cold since the hospital, since the road, since the golden light behind his eyes went dark.

"Dante, wash your hands before you sit down. I can see the city on your fingers from here."

"They're clean, Mamma."

"They're clean when I say they're clean. Go."

He went. When he came back, Lucia was emerging from her room in an oversized shirt and shorts, her hair still damp from a shower. Her smile was genuine when she saw him, wide and easy, but worry still lived in her eyes like a tenant who refused to leave.

"Look who survived the bureaucracy," she said, dropping into the chair across from him. "How was registration?"

"Long. Boring. Someone tried to bully a kid in line and got thrown out."

"Please tell me you weren't involved."

"I was a little involved."

"Dante."

"She was fifteen, Lu. They called her a cockroach."

Lucia opened her mouth, closed it, and shook her head with the expression of someone who had decided arguing was a waste of calories. Gianna set a plate of fried zucchini flowers and bread in the center of the table and sat down between them.

"Eat before it gets cold. Both of you."

They ate. For a few minutes there was nothing but the sound of forks and bread tearing and Gianna humming something old under her breath. Then she pointed her fork at Lucia.

"Do you remember the time you two tried to make me breakfast?"

Lucia groaned. "Mamma, no."

"You were nine. Dante was eleven. You decided to make eggs and toast for my birthday." Gianna's eyes crinkled at the corners. "I woke up to smoke coming under my bedroom door. The kitchen looked like a warzone. There was egg on the ceiling. On the ceiling, Lucia. How did you get egg on the ceiling?"

"That was Dante."

"That was absolutely not me," Dante said. "You were the one who said we didn't need a pan."

"I said we didn't need a big pan. I wanted the small one."

"You wanted to microwave the eggs."

"That works in some countries!"

"Name one."

"I don't have to name one. The point is, I wasn't the one who set the toast on fire."

"The toaster was broken."

"The toaster was fine until you shoved four slices into a two-slice toaster and walked away."

Gianna laughed, the kind of laugh that comes from the belly and fills a room, and for a moment they were just a family eating dinner and telling old stories and none of the rest of it existed. Dante flicked Lucia's forehead across the table and she swatted his hand away without missing a bite.

Then Lucia's face changed.

The teasing fell away like a coat slipping off her shoulders, and what was underneath was serious. Focused. The face she wore when she talked about training or combat theory, the face that had made guild recruiters take notice.

"Dante, do you know about the Tower?"

"I've heard the name. Never looked into it."

"You should. Only real Awakened are allowed inside. Not ranked civilians, not support staff. Awakened with combat classifications and verified power." She leaned forward, and her eyes had that light in them, the one she got when something fascinated her enough to make her forget everything else. "It's not just a building. It's ten floors, and each floor is its own universe. Different rules, different creatures, different challenges. The tests change every time someone enters. Two people can walk in together, side by side, and face completely different worlds on the same floor."

"Different worlds," Dante repeated. "How is that possible?"

"The Mother System designs it. Nobody understands the mechanics, but the theory is that each floor adapts to the person entering. It reads your class, your rank, your weaknesses, and builds a trial around them." She tore a piece of bread in half but didn't eat it. "The strongest Awakened on the planet, S-rank, Legendary, people who could level a city block with a single ability, they're stuck on the tenth floor. Nobody has ever conquered it. The Guardian Council officially declared it impossible six years ago."

"But?"

"But the Mother System says otherwise. If all ten floors are conquered, the dungeons stop appearing. Dimensional breaks stop happening. The rifts close permanently." She looked at him, and the light in her eyes wasn't just fascination anymore. It was hunger. "The world could be saved, Dante. That's what the Tower is. It's not a challenge. It's a promise."

"What do you get for clearing floors?"

"Everything. Power, treasures, skills you can't learn anywhere else. Some floors give you items that upgrade your entire class. There are records of people entering the Tower at C-rank and walking out at A-rank because of what they found inside. Hidden talents, dormant bloodlines, things the normal awakening process doesn't touch."

Dante leaned back in his chair. The bread in his hand had gone cold. "What about the Celestial Domain? I saw it mentioned in my registration materials."

Lucia's expression shifted again, from hunger to something closer to reverence. "The Celestial Domain is another world entirely. Think of it as a giant lobby between dimensions. After you conquer the first floor of the Tower, the Mother System grants you access. It's where Awakened from all races gather. Humans, elves, beast races, intelligent demons. Hundreds of species, all in one place."

"All getting along?"

"All competing. The big guilds have bases there. It's full of resources and training that can't be found anywhere else on Earth. Rare materials, ancient techniques, instructors who've been alive for centuries." She paused, and the reverence faded into something harder. "But it shows no mercy. Power is the only currency that matters. Humans grew strong enough over the last fifty years to take control of major territories, but that kind of expansion made enemies. We're one of the most hated races in the Celestial Domain. Other species see us as parasites. Invaders. Insects who multiplied too fast and grabbed too much."

Dante laughed. The sound was quiet, and something dark lived underneath it, something that recognized the pattern from school hallways and registration lines and every place where strength decided who mattered and who didn't. "We shouldn't expect less from power-hungry creatures like ourselves."

Lucia watched him for a moment, her head tilted, like she was trying to read something written on the inside of his face. Then Gianna returned from the kitchen carrying a plate of sliced fruit and a pot of tea, and whatever question was forming behind Lucia's eyes dissolved.

"More food, Mamma? We're going to explode."

"You're too skinny. Both of you. Eat the fruit."

"I'm not skinny. I'm lean. There's a difference."

"Lean is what butchers call meat that has no flavor. Eat."

Lucia threw a grape at Dante. He caught it in his mouth and she clapped like she was twelve again.