The door hissed open with a sound like a sigh from a forgotten god, and Veyne stepped through.
Immediately, the world blurred.
It wasn't a physical fall, but something far stranger—like plunging through layers of story, memory, and meaning. He felt his name pulled from him like loose thread from a tapestry. He tried to grasp it, to hold it in his mind, but it slid away, dissolving like smoke.
He hit the floor hard.
The ground was smooth stone that shimmered like glass, reflecting not his body, but fragments of other versions of himself—some stronger, some nobler, others broken beyond repair. The Tower had led him into a place that was neither a room nor a trap.
It was a mirror.
The air rippled. From the far side of the chamber, a figure approached.
It was him. But refined. Confident. Clean. Dressed in robes that looked tailored by ambition itself. His eyes burned with clarity. His posture spoke of control.
The false Veyne smiled with teeth too perfect.
"I kept the name warm for you."
Veyne's heart stuttered.
This wasn't an illusion. It was worse. This was what the Tower believed he could have become—should have become—had he made different choices. A version of himself who hadn't cracked beneath the weight of grief. Who had ascended with purpose, not rage. Who had never become hungry.
Devouring Insight pulsed.
Truth flooded in.
This wasn't merely a test. The Tower wanted to rewrite him. To trade what he was becoming for a polished lie.
"Do you remember her?" the false Veyne asked, stepping forward. Images flickered in the air around him: Veyne's mother laughing by firelight, his little sister drawing in the dirt, his father hammering wood.
A life that never shattered.
"None of that is real," Veyne hissed.
"But it could have been," the doppelgänger said. "You don't have to carry the burden. You don't have to keep devouring. Come. Let go."
The images pressed in, warm and golden. The false Veyne opened his arms. The Tower made a soft, melodic sound—like the lullaby of something ancient that wanted him to rest.
Veyne didn't move.
He clenched his fists.
"You want to overwrite me?" he asked.
The false Veyne didn't respond. But his smile faltered.
Veyne's voice sharpened. "You're not truth. You're a sedation."
The doppelgänger's form flickered. His smile sharpened into mockery. "And you're broken. Unstable. You kill to grow. You'll consume yourself."
"So be it," Veyne whispered.
Devouring Insight: Reality Rend.
Veyne struck first.
His fist tore through not flesh, but narrative. The false Veyne screamed as his chest burst with ribbons of unspun story. Light bled from him like steam.
The illusion around the chamber shattered.
The perfect memories? Gone.
The warmth? Vanished.
Only cold stone remained—and the Tower's hum, now angrier.
The false Veyne attacked, wielding stories like blades. Each strike was a version of life Veyne had lost. Each parry was filled with doubt.
"Don't you want to be loved again?" the false Veyne roared, slashing through the air with a golden chain made of his sister's laughter.
Veyne caught it—and devoured it.
"No."
"I want to be me."
He slammed his palm against his counterpart's head.
Hunger of the Endless: Essence Inversion.
The false Veyne exploded into a mist of light and memory. The Tower screamed in symbols. Letters of fire etched themselves into the walls:
[Falsehood Consumed: Self That Never Was]
[Essence Gained: Identity Reforged]
Veyne collapsed to his knees, chest heaving. He felt the change. Not in muscle. Not in magic.
In resolve.
He had refused the perfect lie. And in doing so, the Tower had been forced to acknowledge that he was a version worth keeping.
But he wasn't alone.
A girl stood nearby.
Young. Red-haired. Eyes hollow like tunnels in deep mountains. Her dress was simple, scorched at the hem. Her voice was distant and sad.
"You're not supposed to remember me," she whispered.
He stared. "Do I…?"
She shook her head. "You will. When the door bleeds."
She pointed to the exit forming behind her—a door of rusted silver with veins that pulsed red.
"She's waiting for you on the 10th floor."
"Who?"
The girl didn't answer. She simply stepped backward into the shadow of the room and vanished, as if she had never been.
Veyne stood slowly. The room was empty now, but colder. Quieter. He looked down at his hands. They trembled—not from fear, but from the weight of choices yet to come.
The Tower was testing his soul now, not his strength.
He stepped through the next door, knowing that every floor from now on wouldn't just challenge his power.
They would challenge who he was allowed to become.