This is really not mechanical ascension - Chapter 878 - 454 Negotiation: Azure Dragon’s Intervention

Listen here, because I've seen it with my very own eyes.William Oh was born on the hundredth floor of The Tower, to the greatest Climbers of the ancient world, steeped in the Tower's lethal miasma from the moment he drew breath, giving him strange and unnatural powers.They say he is an immortal being who circles the dreams of mortal men, resurfacing wherever the need is greatest. Those who disparage him will fall into despair, but if you're a Climber in a tight scrape, look to the sky and say a little prayer.Maybe he will appear?Odds are probably better if you pay for my drink.- Rumor overheard on a 1st Floor Tavern. Originator did not pay his tab.

Everything was over. Everything had stopped.The clanking, the rattling.Even if I seemed lifeless, I still had a life.Crackle! Snap! Crack!I failed to protect Lady Succubus. I failed to defend the dungeon. I was shattered into pieces, completely destroyed.[Succession Complete!]“Succession…? Assimilation…?”Broken and broken again. With each downfall, the world’s true nature begins to reveal itself.

“I was scared!” she cried, interrupting him. “You're a married man, you have a wife now, and I didn't want to ruin that. I didn't know how you'd react. And I didn't want my children… our children… to be caught in the middle of more pain.”He looked at her in shock, breath caught in his throat. “You just said… our daughter earlier,” he said slowly.Yes,“ she answered. Jasmine and Hanith. They're yours.”Aaron's breath hitched, stumbled back a step, staring at her like he was seeing her for the first time again.“You told me they weren't mine,” he whispered.“I lied,” she admitted. “Because I was scared. I wanted to protect them. I thought if you knew, you'd take them away. And I also thought you wouldn't want them because you are married now.”“Five years,” he murmured, his voice barely audible. “I had children... and never knew.” He clenched his jaw, struggling to process everything.“They are your children,” she said softly. “And now your daughter needs you.”~**~A single mother, Katherine Prescott was the perfect definition of a B3 classy lady—beautiful, brainy, and brave. She worked her ass off to ensure her children never lacked, building a name for herself while running from the unwanted attachment of the past.But when the past she thought she'd left behind the day she fled with her babies came crashing against the walls she'd built—six years later—everything she buried resurfaced.What if the forgotten spark and desires kept pulling her back into the very past she wanted to forget? What if her babies wouldn't stop asking about their father? Can she really give him a second chance at love… and risk losing herself to passion again?Aaron Knight was a celebrity. He never believed he'd see her again. But there she was—still breathtaking, still beautiful as ever. He wasn't letting her go this time. He would get her back, by hook or by crook.Two problems: he was married… and she was already a mother.

After being torn from the only life she knew, 16-year-old Margo is forced into a new home with strangers who call themselves her parents. Haunted by memories of her past and consumed by feelings of isolation, she struggles to adapt to her unfamiliar surroundings. School offers little relief—until she meets Lucien, a mysterious boy who appears just when she needs a friend the most.Gabriel is everything Margo needs: kind, attentive, and always ready to whisk her away from her troubles. Each night, he invites her to secret places—an abandoned playground, a fog-choked garden, a crumbling train station at the edge of town—each more unsettling than the last. Yet with every chilling rendezvous, Margo feels more alive... more seen.But something isn’t right. Gabriel never comes to school during the day. Her adoptive parents never see him. And when they catch her talking to thin air, their concern deepens into fear. They say Gabriel isn't real—that he’s a figment of her imagination. Margo wants to believe them, but Gabriel feels real. More real than anything else in her life.As the nights grow colder and more twisted, Gabriel’s true nature begins to surface. Shadows move where they shouldn’t. Time warps in his presence. And the places they visit seem to echo with whispers from another world. Margo is forced to ask herself: Who—or what—is Gabriel? Why does he only want her? And what will happen on the final night he asks her to come with him?As the line between reality and delusion begins to crumble, Margo must make an impossible choice: stay in a world where she feels loved, or return to one that barely feels real.But one thing is certain—some friendships never let go.