Eldritch Assassin: Reincarnated With An SSS-Rank Devouring System
Chapter 77: Seventh Floor

Chapter 77: Seventh Floor

The light vanished.

Kael’s body hit solid ground, his knees buckling as he landed in a crouch. The pressure changed instantly. Gone was the primal mist, replaced by an eerie stillness. Not quiet—just contained. Like power waiting to burst free.

He didn’t stand right away. His breath was ragged, chest rising and falling in sharp jolts. Every muscle screamed. The Eldritch Reversal had faded, and the price of its surge was now etched into every inch of his flesh.

But it wasn’t the pain that held him down, It was the space.

He lifted his head.

A vast stone hall stretched before him. Smooth obsidian tiles formed the floor, each engraved with ancient runes that pulsed faintly—pale blue veins of light threading through them like lifeblood. Dozens of floating orbs hovered near the high ceiling, flickering with spiritual flame.

A platform rose at the far end, covered in interwoven sigils.

And at its center—

A formation circle. No, not just a circle. A puzzle. Runes layered upon runes, shifting and realigning with each pulse of energy. Spiritual threads wove between focal points, unstable and volatile.

Kael exhaled.

[System Notification: Floor 7 – Trial of Energy Control.

Objective: Solve the Formation Puzzle. Constraints: Spiritual Suppression Active. Time Pressure Enabled.

Condition: Solve the formation in 300 seconds. Failure will result in trial expulsion.]

And then—

[Warning: Suppression Zone Initiated. Core Access Locked. Spiritual Circuits Sealed. Manual Manipulation Only.]

Kael blinked.

"Locked?" He opened his palm, trying to channel energy.

Nothing.

His essence didn’t move. Not sluggish—it was completely sealed. His core pulsed, but the threads that normally responded were inert. Like trying to clench a fist and finding the muscles limp.

"Of course it’s sealed," he muttered, wobbling to his feet.

He approached the formation slowly. Each step felt heavier. Not physically, but mentally. As though an unseen hand pressed down on his thoughts, dulling them. His breathing quickened.

This suppression... it wasn’t just spiritual.

It attacked awareness. Mental cognition. The very thing he needed to read the formation.

His eyes scanned the platform.

There were five anchor nodes and eight pulse points. A central weave that shifted every few seconds. Dozens of lesser channels spiraling outward like spiderwebs.

This wasn’t a formation to power something. It was alive. A spiritual construct in flux—ever-changing, reacting to the room itself. This trial wasn’t just about raw power, It was about rhythm. About control.

Kael stepped into the outer ring.

The moment his foot touched the tile, the puzzle shifted violently.

[Timer Started: 300 seconds remaining.]

A hum rose, sharp and disorienting.

Kael flinched. A thread of spiritual force whipped past his cheek. It was not physically visible—but present. The kind of thing a cultivator felt in their bones, even without sight.

One of the anchor nodes blinked red. Then another. Then a third.

He acted.

Kael reached for the nearest node—his hand jolting the moment he touched it. Pain lanced up his arm.

He gritted his teeth. "Less force. More precision."

He changed approach, two fingers extended, not pushing through the node but gently brushing over the surface. The rune flickered. It pulsed once, matching his breath.

The red blinked to orange.

Better.

He repeated the process, moving to the next one.

[Time Remaining: 279 seconds.]

A sharp spike of pressure descended. Kael staggered. The suppression twisted, thickening around his skull like a vice. His thoughts slowed, clarity fuzzed by invasive fog.

He pressed two fingers to his temple. "Focus. Flow with it."

He closed his eyes and breathed in. One with the thread.

He moved to the third node, tracing the outer rim before shifting inward.

The pulse didn’t flicker this time. Instead, the rune pulled. Energy surged up his arm—wild, desperate, trying to drain him.

He bit down on the inside of his cheek. Blood welled up, grounding him.

With a burst of instinct, he directed the pull away from his core and into his limbs, letting it bleed into the floor.

The rune quieted.

[Anchor Node 3 stabilized.]

[Time Remaining: 262 seconds.]

Kael exhaled hard. "Not just reading the pattern. It’s feeding on me."

The puzzle wasn’t passive. It wanted input from a source. It demanded calibration. He wasn’t solving a lock—he was syncing to a living machine.

He stepped toward the fourth node.

This one resisted his touch outright. A pulse of rejection pushed him back. Kael narrowed his eyes, stepping again with a different foot pattern—this time spiraling inward, not direct.

The node accepted him.

He knelt before it, fingers weaving between runes and adjusting the energy threads. But he wasn’t just doing that. He was also learning its pattern.

Click!

The fourth anchor turned blue.

[Anchor Node 4 stabilized.]

[Time Remaining: 240 seconds.]

A loud crack echoed through the hall. A fissure split the ceiling. Dust rained down.

Kael looked up. The orbs above flickered.

[Warning: Formation Instability Detected. Puzzle Overload Imminent.]

’So they added sabotage, too.’ he thought. "Of course they did."

He rushed to the final anchor.

This one glowed with inverted colors—black and violet instead of gold and blue. Its pulse was erratic.

Kael hovered a hand above it, not touching. He let his own spiritual frequency flare just enough to test the reaction.

The node bit back.

Energy surged up his arm, stabbing needles of pain into his shoulder.

He didn’t retreat.

Instead, he twisted the channel, not suppressing it, but redirecting its pulse back into itself. Like a loop or a mirror.

The rune jerked, fighting him.

Kael bared his teeth. "Come on..."

Whrrmmm—

The node finally stabilized.

[Anchor Node 5 stabilized.]

The ground shifted beneath him. The inner circle flared, glowing bright.

[Main Puzzle Core Exposed. Begin Phase 2.]

Kael didn’t have time to react.

The formation exploded into motion.

Dozens of runic threads launched upward, spiraling through the air, weaving a sphere above him. Like a map of a world in flux—alive, moving, untamed.

Three of the threads snapped and sparked, spiraling out of control.

Kael raised his hands.

"Come here, then."

He stepped into the eye of the storm.

[Time Remaining: 200 seconds.]

The real test had just begun.