DEBT OF A RANKERE

BURB He died on Floor 99. Nobody knew that. Nobody was supposed to. Ten years ago, the man they called Void Reaper was the most feared Ranker alive — undefeated, untouchable, and utterly alone at the top of a world that worshipped him from a distance. Then Floor 99 swallowed him whole, and the world mourned for exactly three weeks before moving on. He did not stay dead. He came back as Ash Vale — twenty-five years old, broke, running food deliveries in the Vancouver rain, living in a basement apartment that smells like damp concrete and other people's cooking. This time, no guild, no rank. No memory of why he came back or what he is supposed to do about it. Then the Tower appeared in False Creek. And everything he buried came with it. Now his stepfather is selling him into a betrothal contract to secure a business deal with the most powerful guild in the city. His mother is caught in the middle with no way out. Three rival guilds are circling him like they already know something he doesn't. And the System — the same one that registered his soul ten years ago — has just reactivated his account with a message that leaves no room for argument: Clear Floor 66 in 45 days. Or the contract binds you forever. He has 10% of his former power. A body that has never been trained for this. Two strangers who followed him into the dark for reasons he hasn't figured out yet. And a secret that would collapse every government, every guild, and every carefully constructed lie that humanity has built around the Tower's existence. The Tower is not a dungeon. It is a cage. And whatever is inside it has been waiting for him specifically. TOWER ASCENSION: THE DEBT OF A RANKER is a dark fantasy novel about a dead man climbing back to the top of a world that already forgot him — and what it costs to save people who never knew they needed saving. He did it once alone. This time he has people worth coming back for. This time he intends to finish it.