The tower no longer felt like a fortress.
It felt like a mirror.
Every choice Riven had made — every path he had followed or abandoned — now watched him from the shadows of his own mind.
And the shadows were growing louder.
---
It began at dusk.
Mira collapsed in the war room.
Her eyes rolled back. Her voice shifted into chords that were not hers.
> "This is not the path."
"This is not the truth."
"Remember the fork. Remember what you denied."
Riven held her, heart racing.
The System flashed a crimson warning.
---
> [Memory Integrity Breach Detected]
Source: External Conceptual Assault – Avatar-Class Intrusion
Target: Host (Riven Valen) & Companion (Mira)
Objective: Alter past decision threads.
---
Yra burst in.
"Enemy sighting?"
"No," Riven said grimly. "Worse."
"Internal?"
"Temporal."
---
Mira's voice became her own again.
She gripped Riven's hand.
"I saw us," she whispered. "I saw a life where you… never fought for the Eastern District."
"I never—?"
"You accepted the Circle's offer. You became their Warden. And I became… silent."
Her tears were not of fear.
They were of recognition.
---
Eron arrived, breathless.
"South corridor. Scout team reports a figure moving against the natural light. No entry, no breach."
"An intruder?"
Riven stood.
"No. An echo."
---
They gathered at the courtyard.
The figure stood still.
Tall. Robed. Its face… familiar.
Too familiar.
His own.
But older.
Eyes silvered. Skin patterned with the symbols of absolute obedience.
---
> [Entity Detected: Avatar of the Forgotten Choices]
Thread Origin: Kael-Riven Loop Two
Purpose: Enforce acceptance of suppressed decision trees.
Threat Level: Conceptual / Physical Hybrid.
---
The Avatar spoke.
Not in words.
In certainty.
"You would have ruled with peace.
You chose war.
Your mind must be corrected."
---
Riven drew no weapon.
Not yet.
"I made the choices I had to."
"Then see what you abandoned."
---
The world fractured.
The courtyard dissolved.
And Riven stood alone in a new place.
The air smelled of incense and still water.
Riven stood in regal armor — black and silver.
Before him stretched a city unscarred by war. Streets orderly. Faces calm. Soldiers in matching uniforms.
And at his side, Mira.
But not the Mira he knew.
Her eyes were hollow.
Her smile… practiced.
A Mira shaped by obedience.
---
> [Reality Fragment: Decision Thread 2 – Warden Path]
Status: Invasive Construct
Risk: Memory Assimilation / Identity Drift
---
The Avatar approached.
"This is what should have been."
Riven shook his head.
"No struggle. No choice. Just control."
"Order."
"Stagnation."
---
Behind the Avatar, banners rose.
The Circle's sigil glowed on every wall.
Children recited doctrine.
Men and women labored without question.
Peace.
At a price.
---
Mira spoke — the hollow Mira.
"Why resist when all suffering can end?"
The System pulsed.
> [Fragment Thread Recognition Lv.1 Active]
Integrity Scan: False Memory Construct
Suppress or Accept?
---
Riven closed his eyes.
His real Mira.
Her fire. Her doubt. Her refusal to submit.
That was choice.
This… was a cage.
---
"I refuse," he whispered.
And spoke the command:
"Fragment Anchor – Memory Correction."
---
> [Command Executed]
Suppressing Decision Thread 2…
Success.
---
The false world shattered.
Glass and ash scattered into the void.
The Avatar staggered.
---
But did not fall.
Instead, it grew brighter.
"You rejected one thread.
Fourteen remain."
It raised a hand.
Riven's body burned with the weight of unlived choices.
---
> [Memory Correction Skill Cooldown Active – 10 minutes]
Defensive Measures: Limited
---
"Then I'll fight without correction," Riven growled.
The void reshaped.
Stone formed beneath Riven's feet — not the courtyard of the Eastern Tower, but a battleground forged from forgotten choices.
The Avatar summoned blades.
Each one bore a name.
"Mercy."
"Compromise."
"Surrender."
"Obedience."
They weren't weapons.
They were regrets.
---
Riven summoned his bow.
But the System hesitated.
> [Warning: System Instability – Combat Functions Limited in Conceptual Space]
Alternative: Will-based Manifestation
---
Fine.
He didn't need the System.
He needed resolve.
The bow crystallized from sheer will.
His arrows — forged from the choices he had made.
"Resistance."
"Sacrifice."
"Hope."
"Freedom."
---
The Avatar attacked.
Slicing with regrets.
Riven met each strike.
Blocking not with steel — but with memory.
---
He remembered the child he saved in Sector 3.
The merchant he spared despite betrayal.
The spy he forgave.
The healer he elevated.
---
Each memory formed a shield.
The blades of regret shattered against them.
---
But the Avatar adapted.
It summoned a final blade.
One without a name.
A decision he had never made — and could not remember.
---
Riven's breath caught.
His greatest unmade choice.
What was it?
The System refused to answer.
---
> [Data Redaction Active – Layer 0]
"Choice classified by the Circle Beneath All."
---
The Avatar struck.
The blade pierced Riven's shield.
Pain surged.
Not physical.
Emotional.
Existential.
He felt himself unravel.
---
But Mira's voice cut through the storm.
"You chose us."
The voice wasn't an echo.
It was real.
Mira's real self.
Anchored beyond the false world.
She stood at the edge of the conceptual space, a thread of light binding them.
---
> [Thread Anchor: Mira – Established]
Memory Correction Cooldown Bypassed.
---
Riven seized the blade of his forgotten choice.
He didn't need to know what it had been.
Because he knew what it was now.
"I choose freedom."
He turned the blade.
Not against the Avatar.
Against the very thread of control that bound them both.
---
> [Manual Thread Severance Executed]
---
The Avatar's form cracked.
Its regrets dissolved into dust.
Its voice faded.
"Peace… was never the answer."
---
The world fractured again.
Riven fell.
And awoke.
---
He lay in the real courtyard.
Mira knelt beside him, her eyes fierce.
Yra and Eron stood ready, weapons drawn — though no enemies remained.
Only clarity.
---
The System pulsed softly.
> [Memory Assault Neutralized]
Avatar-Class Threat Eliminated
New Skill Unlocked: Thread Anchor – Memory Correction Lv.2
Effect: Instant recognition and severance of false decision threads.
---
But a final message lingered.
Not from the System.
From the Circle.
> "You reject the past.
You will not escape the future.
We have seeded more than one Avatar."
---
Riven stood.
"We'll face them."
Mira nodded.
"Together."
---
> Synchronization: 95.2%
Current Status: Divergent Thread – Stabilized
Next Threat Level: Multi-Avatar Convergence Forecasted