My Charity System made me too OP

The scaffold pulsed like a heartbeat.

Dozens of floating platforms spiraled upward into Floor 334's sky chamber, suspended by Choir-forged tempo lines—threads of rhythm designed not to support, but to challenge.

At the base, Leon stood with arms crossed, studying the pattern.

"This isn't just a climb. They're forcing her to match their tempo to progress. Each platform runs a different beat."

Kael tapped into the scaffold's anchor points. "If she misses a beat, she drops."

Roselia scanned the nearest glyph node. "No traps. But no guides either. Just a message."

She read it aloud.

"One rhythm survives. One rhythm ascends."

They all turned as Aris stepped forward, baton in hand, expression calm.

She looked at each of them.

"Stay here. Secure the floor."

Leon's brow tightened. "You don't have to do this alone."

"I know," she said. "But they want me. Not us. If you follow, they'll use you against me."

Kael didn't argue. "We'll hold the base. If you don't come back in an hour—"

"I'm not dying on some twisted music tower," Aris said with a smirk.

She turned toward the scaffold and stepped onto the first platform.

It reacted instantly.

A pulse rippled through it, matching her stride. The beat was simple—two-step tempo, base rhythm. She adjusted instinctively, her body syncing with the pattern.

She leapt to the next.

The beat shifted—off-rhythm triplets. Harder to read.

She landed and kept moving.

The scaffold was testing her rhythm mastery, layer by layer.

No enemies.

Just the Tower itself, bent into the Choir's design.

Fifteen Platforms Up

Aris was sweating.

Not from exhaustion—but from focus.

Each jump was different. Some required silence. Others required her to play beats mid-air. One demanded a moment of absolute stillness before it would move.

She landed on a platform that didn't start moving.

She waited.

Then a projection flickered to life.

A figure formed from mist and red light.

A Choir mask.

But different from Renic's.

This one was tall. Graceful. Almost elegant.

A woman's voice—soft, slow—spoke.

"You're early."

Aris didn't flinch. "I was invited."

The Choir Voice tilted its head. "I am Lira, Fourth Voice of the Choir. They sent me to measure your echo."

"Then measure it."

Lira didn't attack.

Instead, she snapped her fingers.

And the scaffold began to fall apart beneath Aris's feet.

Aris leapt.

No time to think.

Platforms dropped out of sequence, breaking the rhythm pattern. She was forced to improvise—spin midair, hit a chord pulse from her baton, land sideways on a moving block.

Lira hovered beside her, walking calmly in the air.

"No Sovereign has ever made it past the Twenty-Third Step," she said softly.

"Then it's time someone did," Aris growled, flipping over a collapsing segment.

She landed on the twenty-fourth platform.

It stabilized.

A silence followed.

Even Lira stopped walking.

"You are not Sovereign," Lira said. "You are something... smaller. More dangerous."

Aris readied her baton.

"I'm rhythm born," she said. "Not Choir-made. That's what scares you."

Lira's tone shifted.

"No. That's what makes you ours."

She lunged.

Lira lunged without a sound.

Her Choir robes didn't ripple. Her feet never touched the ground. She glided forward like a wraith, one hand glowing with pulsing red rhythm energy.

Aris stepped to the side—barely—feeling the force of the attack tear past her.

The platform beneath her cracked and vanished into the void below.

No time to recover.

Another platform floated in. Aris leapt to it mid-air, baton flashing as she struck back.

Lira blocked with a single graceful motion—her forearm encased in shimmering pulse energy. The baton bounced off, sending sparks across the space.

"You fight like a Sovereign," Lira said as she drifted backward.

"I fight like me," Aris shot back, launching herself forward again.

She struck high, feinted low, spun through midair to sweep toward Lira's left side.

Lira floated up and over her, the edge of her heel brushing Aris's shoulder. With a flick of her wrist, she sent a wave of distorted rhythm toward Aris—red threads lashing out like a whip.

Aris ducked, dropped to the platform, and slammed her baton down.

A burst of her own blue-white rhythm shattered the incoming wave.

Lira's eyes narrowed.

"Your echo is unstable," she said.

Aris grinned, standing again. "That's what makes it mine."

Above Them

The scaffold shifted. The final ring of platforms hung like a halo over the center of the Tower's ceiling—suspended by the same Choir glyphs that powered the collapse thread.

One platform lit up.

Lira moved toward it without speaking.

Aris followed.

They landed together.

A stage.

No tricks.

No drops.

Just rhythm.

Just battle.

Lira's stance changed.

She raised both arms now, and the platform beneath them began to pulse in slow, syncopated beats. Her body moved like a conductor—every motion tied to the tempo. Aris could feel the pressure rising.

Lira was using Conductive Rhythm—an advanced Choir technique.

The platform itself was her weapon.

Aris didn't wait.

She charged in—baton high, focused.

Strike to the wrist—blocked.

Follow-up to the ribs—dodged.

She ducked a counter, kicked off the edge of the platform, spun, and landed with a sliding strike that knocked Lira off balance for half a second.

Lira responded by clapping her hands together.

A shockwave exploded outward.

Aris was blasted across the platform, almost thrown into the void. She rolled, boots grinding against the edge, and barely caught herself with one hand.

She looked up.

Lira was floating again.

Calm. Cold. Perfect.

"You can't hold this rhythm forever," she said.

Aris stood slowly, panting.

"I don't have to. I just have to break it."

She closed her eyes for a second.

And then, her rhythm changed.

No more matching tempo.

No more playing the game.

She moved off-beat. Wild. Unmeasured.

Her strikes came too fast, too jagged. Lira tried to match—but her technique depended on predictability.

Aris swung upward.

Lira blocked late.

Another strike—Lira parried, but staggered.

Then Aris feinted left, twisted her grip, and slammed her baton into Lira's sternum with a final, brutal blow.

The platform cracked.

Lira coughed, stumbling back. Her rhythm shattered—her glow fading.

She looked at Aris, stunned.

"You—"

"I know," Aris said, stepping close. "I'm not supposed to exist."

And she struck once more.

This time, Lira fell—off the platform—vanishing into the rhythm void below.

The scaffold stopped pulsing.

The red threads dimmed.

And silence fell.

Aris stood alone on the final platform.

Her breath ragged.

Her body bruised.

But her rhythm burned brighter than ever.

She looked out across Floor 334.

"You called me out," she whispered. "Next time… I'm coming to you."