Regression of the Tower's Final Survivor-Chapter 106: The Parting

The gate to Floor 17 opened at dawn.

Golden light spilled through the archway as the crystalline barriers that had marked Floor 16’s boundary dissolved into nothing, revealing a path that led upward into territory most climbers never reached. The Lightbreakers stood before it, fully equipped and rested after a night of celebration and quiet conversation.

"Ready?" Astrid asked, bouncing slightly on her heels with barely contained energy.

"Almost." Dante didn’t move toward the gate.

The team noticed his hesitation. After everything they’d been through on Floor 16, after the trials and confessions and the battle against their own reflections, they could read him better than before. Something was wrong.

"Dante." Ravenna stepped forward. "What is it?"

He looked at them: seven people who trusted him, who had bled beside him, who had shared their darkest secrets because he asked them to. What he was about to say would feel like betrayal, and there was no way to soften it.

"I’m not coming with you."

The words landed like stones in still water.

"What do you mean you’re not coming?" Ren’s voice carried more confusion than anger. "Floor 17 is right there. We cleared Floor 16 together. Why would you—"

"There are things I need to do alone." Dante kept his voice steady, but he could feel Ravenna’s demon sight cataloging every shift in his emotional state. "Hidden dungeons, knowledge that can only be accessed by solo climbers, paths that don’t appear for teams."

"Then we wait." Astrid’s hand moved to her sword, not in threat but in the unconscious gesture of someone preparing for a fight. "However long it takes, we wait for you."

"That’s not..." He paused, searching for words that would make them understand without revealing everything. "The things I need to find aren’t on Floor 17. They’re scattered across multiple floors. It could take weeks. Months, maybe."

Leon frowned. "Months of solo climbing? That’s suicide. Even with your abilities..."

"I’ve done it before."

The admission hung in the air, carrying implications none of them could fully grasp. In his first timeline, Dante had spent years alone after his team fell apart. He knew how to survive without backup. He knew how to thrive in the isolation that killed most climbers.

That didn’t make this feel like less of an abandonment.

---

Vex was the first to speak past the shock.

"You planned this." His magitech eye scanned Dante with analytical precision. "From the beginning. Floor 16’s trials, the confessions, the team bonding... you were preparing us to function without you."

"I was preparing you to be stronger." Dante met his gaze without flinching. "With or without me. The True Tower breaks teams that depend too heavily on any single member."

"Including their leader?"

"Especially their leader."

Sera shook her head slowly. "This doesn’t make sense. You built this team. You recruited each of us specifically. Why go through all of that just to leave?"

"Because the team needs to exist whether I’m here or not." He looked at each of them in turn. "In my... experience, the biggest weakness any group can have is a single point of failure. If the leader dies, the team collapses. If the strongest fighter falls, everyone panics. I’ve seen it happen too many times."

"So you’re stress-testing us." Ravenna’s voice was flat. "Seeing if we can survive without you before the stakes get higher."

"I’m trusting you to climb without me while I handle things that have to be done alone."

The argument continued for nearly an hour. Astrid wanted to fight someone, preferably whoever had convinced Dante this was a good idea. Ren tried to propose alternatives: taking turns, splitting the team, finding some way to stay connected. Leon pointed out the medical risks of solo climbing with no healer backup. Sera mostly watched, her expression unreadable.

Vex stayed silent, processing.

Ravenna waited.

Finally, when the others had exhausted their objections and stood in frustrated silence, she spoke.

"Everyone give us a moment."

It wasn’t a request. The team looked at her, then at Dante, and something in their expressions shifted. They understood what this conversation really was, even if the words hadn’t been spoken.

"We’ll be at the gate," Astrid said quietly. "Don’t take too long."

They walked away, and Dante was alone with Ravenna for the first time since the trials began.

---

"You’re going to miss everything."

Her voice was soft, and the words weren’t an accusation. She stated a fact, the same way she might observe that the sky was golden or the path ahead was dangerous.

"Not everything. I’ll find you at Floor 25."

"That’s months away. Assuming nothing goes wrong. Assuming we make it that far without you."

"You will." He reached out and touched her shoulder, a gesture so unlike his usual reserve that she went still. "You’re stronger than you think. All of you are."

"And if we’re not?"

"Then I trained you wrong, and I’ll have to live with that."

She laughed, but there was no humor in it. "You’re an ass."

"I know."

"You’re leaving me with a team full of broken people and complicated dynamics and at least two relationships that are probably going to explode before we hit Floor 20."

"I know that too."

"And you’re still going."

He didn’t answer, which was answer enough.

Ravenna stepped closer until they were barely a foot apart, and her demon eyes burned with something that might have been anger or might have been something else entirely.

"I could make you stay. You know I could. A few carefully placed emotional suggestions, some manipulation of the others’ reactions... I could turn this into a fight you couldn’t win."

"You could."

"But I won’t."

"I know."

She reached up and touched his face with one hand, her fingers tracing the line of his jaw like she was memorizing it.

"Come back to me."

The words were simple. They carried everything she couldn’t say in front of the others: the fear of losing him, the frustration of being left behind, the trust that made her let him go anyway.

Dante covered her hand with his own.

"Always."

They stood like that for a long moment, two people saying goodbye in the shadow of a gate that led to different paths. Then Ravenna stepped back, and the mask she wore for the world slipped back into place.

"I’ll keep them alive," she said. "Don’t make me regret it."

"I wouldn’t dare."

She walked toward the gate where the others waited, and Dante watched her go with something heavy sitting in his chest. This was the right choice. He knew it was the right choice. The hidden dungeon on Floor 18, the Ego weapon waiting to be claimed, the first Limit break that would change everything... none of it could happen with the team present.

But knowing something was right didn’t make it feel any less like he was cutting off a piece of himself.

---

The team gathered at the gate one final time.

"Floor 25," Dante said. "The Crossroads Hub. That’s where we reunite. However long it takes, however hard the climb gets, that’s the meeting point."

"And if something happens to one of us before then?" Leon asked.

"Send word through the Steel Covenant network. They have agents on most floors. They’ll find me."

Ren stepped forward and offered his hand. "You’re an idiot for doing this alone. But you’re our idiot, and we expect you back in one piece."

Dante clasped his arm. "Try not to get killed while I’m gone."

"No promises."

Astrid punched his shoulder hard enough to bruise. "If you die out there, I’ll find a way to resurrect you just so I can kill you myself."

"Noted."

Vex simply nodded, mercenary professionalism masking whatever he actually felt. "The contract remains in effect regardless of physical proximity. I expect full compensation when we reunite."

"You’ll get it."

Leon and Sera offered their own farewells, and then there was nothing left to say. The team turned toward the Floor 17 gate, and Dante turned toward the path that led deeper into Floor 16’s hidden reaches.

He didn’t look back.

The Lightbreakers walked through the gate without him, and the barrier sealed behind them with a sound like breaking crystal. Dante stood alone in the ruins of Floor 16’s trial grounds, surrounded by the echoes of everything they’d survived together.

Then he walked.

The hidden dungeon was three days away, buried in a section of the floor that most climbers never explored. He had maps from his first timeline, memories of a place that should still exist if the Tower’s structure hadn’t changed too much. And at the end of that dungeon, waiting in darkness for someone worthy enough to claim it...

Eclipse.

The Ego weapon that had carried him through floors 40 to 60 in his original life. The blade that whispered secrets about the Tower’s true nature. The companion that had been with him when everyone else was gone.

He was going to find it again.

This time, he was going to be ready for what came after.