Ascending the tower with my SSS class

At last, help had arrived—but it was already too late for Uriel. He would never be the same again. In fact, spending so much time here had stripped him of all motivation. If he kept thinking, it was only because he couldn’t stop himself, nothing more.

Uriel couldn’t see, but he felt—or rather, Soliel, somehow, made him feel—that she was there with him.

"Young Uriel, I have arrived. It is time for you to leave this place."

He had longed to hear those words before, when he still held hope of being rescued. Yet now that he finally heard them, he felt nothing. As time passed, he had grown accustomed to his new existence. He stopped missing the things he could no longer do and embraced the void.

The lights seemed to understand what Uriel was thinking. They moved sadly, almost devoid of the energy they had the first time he saw them.

"Things are not as you believe. A long time may have passed here, but in the tower, only a few hours have gone by. You can still return to your life."

But even hearing that, the harsh truth was that it barely moved him. His fire, his determination, had long since faded. Nothing mattered anymore—not even that. In his current mental state, he couldn’t take responsibility for anything or anyone.

This time, the lights flared violently. Uriel understood that Soliel was not pleased.

"Is that all?! Is an eternity enough to erase everything you once were? Was that fire inside you nothing but embers that could be extinguished by hardships like these?!"

Uriel was unmoved by her words. Soliel was right. There had once been a time when he wanted to fight for something, but that had been lost long ago. She was right—whatever fire he once had was completely gone. He didn’t mind admitting it; it was the truth. Painful, but true.

The lights froze in place.

"Are you going to break your promise to me, Uriel? I am a god. Has my kind façade made you reckless toward the danger I represent? If I wished, I could inflict far greater suffering upon you than what you are experiencing now."

It was true—Uriel had made a promise, that he would climb that tower. Ha, what a joke. In the end, he had failed on the very first floor—or at least, according to Soliel, perhaps he hadn’t. But none of that mattered anymore. Did Soliel want to hurt him? So be it. Time had taught him that anything could be endured if borne long enough.

"I will kill every person you once loved. I will incinerate your world and burn your mother and your sister alive for all eternity. I will also destroy that world and its weak gods, to teach them a lesson for meddling in my affairs."

Uriel felt that the goddess was completely serious. The kind image he once had of her shattered, but he wasn’t surprised. He had long assumed that this was what gods were truly like.

Even so, though he no longer cared about anything related to himself or his feelings, he still felt the need to prevent the painful fate Soliel promised for his family. He had grown numb, yes—but he still remembered what happiness once felt like when he thought of his mother and sister.

Fine. He would leave. He only hoped Soliel could forgive him.

At last, the lights moved again, their radiance restored.

"I will take this as a moment of weakness, not a breaking of our promise, Uriel... But I cannot send you back like this... This is also my fault, so all I can do is try to fix it."

Uriel felt the lights begin to shine brighter and brighter.

"If you have forgotten the light, then let this goddess remind you. Who knows? Perhaps this is your chance to finally take a step forward—to become a flame... a true paladin of Soliel."

The light swallowed Uriel’s consciousness, and for the first time in a long while, he was enveloped by sensations he believed he would never feel again.

"I am the light, the sun, the cataclysm’s flame,

All who seek shelter from evil, follow my name.

Your blade will stay steady, unyielding and true, 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

It will never falter in all that you do.

There’s only one path that you must embrace,

Follow your heart, and none can replace."

The sacred words echoed in Uriel’s mind. The moment had come. He could feel reality shifting.

"Uriel, from the bottom of my heart, I hope that in the world where I was born, you—just as I once did—reach that light you have lost and rise as the powerful warrior you are meant to be. And do not worry—your world will be waiting for you exactly as you left it. Farewell, and good luck."

Finally, Uriel vanished into nothingness.

...

The sensations Uriel was experiencing now were ones he had felt thousands of times years ago. And yet now, they seemed strange—almost alien. At last, he could feel again... and he felt many things. One of them was the ground beneath his feet.

But something had changed.

First, he tried to open his eyes. Nothing happened. He was still in complete darkness. Though it was strange...

Uriel raised his hands to his face, but the sensation wasn’t that of flesh.

His skin was smooth, like a piece of freshly polished marble, yet somehow, when he pressed hard enough, he could feel it give way. In fact, comparatively, he needed far more strength in his arms now than he did in his old body.

It was a rough body, one that seemed accustomed to hard labor.

And speaking of that... where was he?

Uriel focused more intently on his surroundings and struck a nearby stone with force. Somehow, his strength was immense, because the stone shattered instantly.

To his surprise, it had been pulverized by his blow. Another thing he noticed was that his arms were much longer than before.

Where the hell was he... and what was happening?