Chapter 8: Floor 8 – The Iron Puppeteer

The stairwell to Floor 8 throbbed with the pulse of machines.

It wasn't carved stone this time. It was steel—polished, precise, cold. The walls ticked with gears, steam vents hissing at intervals like the breaths of something alive. Strange runes glowed dimly along the handrails, pulsing like a heartbeat synced to the rhythm of the Tower.

Eren stepped carefully. This was not a place for mistakes.

Behind him, Rorik and the remnants of the Royal Guard followed in silence. Only eleven remained now—hardened, hollow-eyed survivors of seven brutal floors. The porters had dwindled to three. Their silence spoke louder than any scream.

At the stair's end was a gateway of brass, sculpted with images of string-bound marionettes kneeling before a towering, crowned figure. The inscription above the door read:

"Serve or Snap."

The doors hissed open on their own.

And they entered the workshop of the Iron Puppeteer.

A massive chamber stretched before them—circular, domed, and lined with mirrors that reflected them a thousand times over. But in the reflections, something was off—a twitch, a glance, a step out of sync. The air smelled of oil, smoke, and scorched flesh.

Hanging from the ceiling were hundreds of puppet-like bodies—humanoid, some armored, some dressed in noble robes, all connected by thin silver strings that ran upward into darkness.

In the center of the room stood a figure draped in crimson wires and bone-plated robes, its face a porcelain mask with no mouth.

It turned as they entered.

The Iron Puppeteer bowed with slow, deliberate grace.

Eren's shard flared in warning.

"Artificial entity: Sovereign Construct. Core Directive: Enslavement. Sublevel Mindlink Network Active."

"Avoid entanglement. Mental and physical subjugation imminent."

"Welcome," came a voice—not from the figure, but from everywhere.

The mirrors spoke in unison, each reflection of the Puppeteer moving slightly differently as it spoke. "I have waited. You are early."

"Early?" Rorik spat. "For what?"

"Your conversion."

The strings fell.

Dozens of puppets dropped to the floor with terrifying grace. They twitched, jerked upright, and began to move in perfect coordination—swords extending from forearms, jaws snapping open with unnatural speed.

Eren didn't wait.

He raised the shard—and the floor lit up beneath him. A sigil burst into blue flame. The puppets staggered for a brief moment, their strings burning away from their spines.

But then the Puppeteer raised its arm.

And reattached them.

With a flick of its wrist, three porters were seized by invisible threads, lifted into the air screaming. Their limbs twisted, bones popping, eyes going glassy as the Puppeteer rewrote their bodies.

Rorik charged with a roar. He cut down two puppet-soldiers, but a third nearly skewered him before Eren blasted it back with a pulse from the shard.

"Cut the strings!" Eren shouted. "They're bound through the ceiling!"

Rorik threw a dagger upward—but it simply hung in mid-air, held by some unseen force.

The mirrors laughed.

"Strings are not bound. Strings are truth."

The shard pulsed. It wanted to interface. But it needed more.

"Tower permissions required: Sovereign Override. Access possible via Core Control Mirror."

Eren looked around. One mirror stood still while the others moved—no reflection in it at all. Just darkness.

He ran for it, dodging a lunging puppet, then slammed the shard into the glass.

The room shuddered.

The reflections screamed.

The Puppeteer snapped its head toward him. Its mask split down the middle. Beneath it, dozens of eyes blinked into existence—tiny, metallic, moving in sync.

Eren screamed a single word:

"Release."

And the shard obeyed.

All at once, the strings burned away in a white flash. The puppet army collapsed like marionettes dropped by careless hands. The captured porters fell limply to the floor—only one of them still breathing.

The Puppeteer staggered, sparks flying from its joints. It reached for a new set of threads—but the Core Control Mirror shattered.

The shard emitted a hum that split the air.

The Puppeteer froze.

Then crumbled, its strings unraveling into dust.

Silence.

Only the whir of dying gears remained.

Rorik limped to Eren's side. "That thing… it was using souls."

Eren nodded. "It wasn't just puppets. It was reanimating people. Controlling their minds."

He looked to the ceiling—where the strings had vanished into blackness.

"The higher we climb," he said quietly, "the more the Tower plays god."

The survivors gathered, shaken but alive. The exit door opened on its own, revealing a narrow metallic corridor ascending like a ribcage toward Floor 9.

Eren stared up.

The Tower was watching.

And it knew his name now.