The rose was still warm in his hand.
Erevan walked with silence coiled around him like a second skin. Behind him, the Garden of the Forgotten had crumbled into stillness, its beauty devoured by memory and fire. The white rose nestled in the folds of his suit, pulsing faintly with a heartbeat not entirely his own.
The door to the next floor stood ahead. It wasn't made of wood or steel. It was carved from solid, cracked obsidian, etched with patterns that made the eye ache to follow. Old runes. Dead language.
One he used to know.
> [Floor 22: Catacombs of the Rewritten]
[Trial Type: Echo Recovery]
[Warning: Temporal Instability Detected.]
> [Remembrance: 3%]
Unlock threshold for truth: 10%.
Still too low.
Still... too far from who he once was.
The obsidian door opened with a sound like bones grinding together, revealing stone steps that spiraled downward into dark.
Erevan descended.
---
The catacombs were ancient. Older than the Tower, maybe older than the stars. Torches lined the walls, but their flames burned blue, casting shadows that flickered and moved just a little too slowly.
Sarcophagi lined the walls—coffins of glass and metal, filled not with corpses, but echoes. Memory fragments suspended in liquid time. Faces he didn't recognize stared at him with wide, silent mouths. Some wept. Some smiled. A few had no eyes at all.
And all of them felt... familiar.
He kept walking.
> [Trial Activated: Echo Sequence I]
The first echo stirred.
A young woman stepped from one of the coffins. Her hair was white, braided with silver cords. Her voice echoed not through the air, but directly into Erevan's mind.
"You swore you'd never let them rewrite us."
Erevan's breath caught.
"I don't know you," he said flatly.
"You did once." Her smile was broken. "You were my commander. My friend. You told us to remember even when they tried to burn our names away."
She raised her hand. A blade of crystalline light formed in her grip.
> [Combat Initiated: Memory Duel – Valen of the First Rebellion]
She moved like a storm.
But Erevan had become something far crueler than time.
Their blades clashed—hers sharp with conviction, his heavy with resolve. She bled starlight when he struck. But she smiled as she fell, whispering as her form unraveled:
> "You fought the Tower for love, Erevan. Don't let it rot you into a tool."
She was gone.
And something cracked in him.
> [Remembrance Increased: 4%]
[Memory Unlocked: Fragment I – "The Circle of Nine"]
The name echoed like thunder.
Nine rebels. One plan. One war.
His war.
His failure.
---
He descended deeper.
Each echo was a trial.
A boy with broken horns who called him "Brother." A woman made of flame who cursed him for letting her die. A man who used to laugh and now only screamed.
> "You promised us a future."
> "You said we could break fate."
> "You said you'd remember."
Each one fell beneath Erevan's blade.
Each one carved away at the ice he had become.
> [Remembrance: 6%]
> [Fragment II Unlocked: The Day the Tower Broke]
He saw fire. Chaos. The Tower's heart ripped open by something he had created. A machine? A weapon? No—an idea. Something pure, before it was corrupted.
The seed of rebellion.
> "We were gods, Erevan. Until we bled like men."
---
At the deepest level, the stone gave way to metal.
An altar stood before him, carved from moonrock and stardust. Upon it, a mask rested.
Not ornate.
Not beautiful.
Just... familiar.
When he reached out, a voice stopped him.
"I wore that first."
He turned.
The figure in front of him was tall, armored in shadows. No face beneath the hood—only a mirror of Erevan's own.
"Who are you?" Erevan asked.
"I'm who you were," the mirror said. "Before you let the Tower win."
Erevan's fist clenched. "The Tower didn't win. I'm still climbing."
The figure laughed, bitter and cold.
"You're climbing it. Feeding it. Every floor you clear makes it stronger."
> "You became the very thing we swore to destroy."
Erevan lunged.
But his blade passed through the figure like mist.
"Kill me if you like," it whispered. "But when you remember what you truly did—what you sacrificed—you won't be able to forgive yourself."
The mirror faded.
The mask on the altar dissolved into light.
And in its place…
> [New System Branch Acquired: Echoborn – Path of the Unforgiven]
You gain power by reclaiming memories and confronting the sins tied to them.
[Ability: Shatter Echo – Consume a memory fragment to boost a stat temporarily. WARNING: Costs Remembrance.]
Erevan stood still.
He could feel the cold again.
Not from the catacombs—but from within.
> [Remembrance: 8%]
Next Threshold: 10% – Identity Fragment: ???
He turned and climbed the steps in silence.
The echoes behind him whispered.
Not in accusation.
But in mourning.
---