CHAPTER 33: THE SEVEN DOORS**
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Bone dust hung in the air as Nolan traced the first sigil onto the Tower's obsidian surface. His fingers left streaks of gold where skin split against the stone. The door absorbed the blood greedily, etching his offering into the ancient grooves of its frame.
A whisper slithered through the cracks.
**"Name your price."**
Shen's shadow-armor twitched, reacting to something unseen. He didn't trust the way the darkness clung to the Tower's base—too thick, too *aware*. Like ink watching prey.
Ryulga exhaled smoke from his ever-present pipe. **"Memory's the currency here. Pick one you can afford to lose."**
Nolan hesitated.
The door laughed.
**"First lesson,"** it crooned. **"All doors lie."**
The ground vanished beneath them.
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### **II. The Second Face**
Falling through the dark, Shen's armor *screamed* in a voice that wasn't his.
*"Left! Now!"*
He twisted midair—
—just as a gargoyle's claws raked through where his throat had been. The impact against the Tower's interior wall shattered three ribs. Nolan landed beside him in a crouch, golden eye spinning wildly.
**"This isn't—"**
**"Quiet."** Ryulga stood ahead, his silhouette flickering between the man they knew and something...*older*. The pipe in his hand burned with unnatural light. **"She listens."**
The walls pulsed.
Something vast shifted in the dark above.
Nolan's eye bled freely now, painting his cheek in molten light. **"There's no doors here."**
Ryulga's grin showed too many teeth. **"Wrong. *We're inside one.*"**
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### **III. The Third Price**
The chamber stank of rust and wet feathers.
Shen's shadows lashed out instinctively as the floor moved beneath them—revealing itself to be a colossal palm, its lines carved with names of forgotten Mediators.
A voice vibrated through the stone.
**"Mine."**
Nolan collapsed, clutching his skull as visions *poured* in:
- *A knight with Ryulga's eyes impaled on a spire of black glass*
- *Shen kneeling in a field of broken armor, whispering apologies to corpses*
- *Himself, standing over Veyl's body, both hands dripping gold*
The hand tightened.
Bones creaked.
Shen's armor *detonated* in a shockwave of pure void—
—and the Tower *shrieked*.
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### **IV. The Fourth Betrayal**
Light returned in jagged fragments.
Ryulga stood over them, his coat flaring in a wind that didn't exist. The pipe was gone. In its place, a sword forged from the same obsidian as the Tower.
**"Up."**
Nolan spat blood. **"You knew."**
**"Knew what?"** Ryulga's blade pointed past them. **"That this is a *trap*? That she's been eating Mediators for centuries?"** His laugh was a hollow thing. **"Course I did."**
The walls split open.
A thousand eyes blinked in unison.
Shen's shadows *curled* around his fists, whispering a single word:
*"Run."*
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**TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 35: *THE GOD IN THE WALLS