Tower Status: UNSUPPORTED STATE
Core Stability: Fractured
Correction Units: Nonresponsive
Request: One Memory Required for Ascension
The walls were breathing.
Kael stood inside a cylindrical chamber, the sky gone, the Wound Spiral dissolved into a slick glass tunnel of bone-colored light. Above him spun a suspended sigil—a constantly mutating ring of glyphs that pulsed like a heartbeat out of sync.
Choose.
The Tower's voice had shifted. It no longer sounded like code or command lines.
Now, it sounded personal. Like something that had once been human.
A pedestal rose from the floor, displaying three shards—each crystalline, humming with the presence of memory.
"What is this?" Sael asked. Her voice wavered, off-tone.
"Payment," Kael said. "For climbing too far."
He stepped closer.
Each shard contained a scene, frozen like a soul trapped mid-sentence.
▣ Shard One: The Laugh
A silver moment—Kael and Lira, before the cult, before the Tower.
She laughed at something trivial. Light in her eyes. Hope in her voice.
A memory that made him feel alive.
▣ Shard Two: The Fire
His cult initiation. Blood in a bowl. Hands cut open.
The high priest whispering: "We choose what the world cannot."
Power came after this moment—but so did everything broken.
▣ Shard Three: Sael
The first time he saw her. Standing beside a mirror that didn't reflect her.
They had fought. Then spoken. Then walked forward together.
The moment she started to matter.
"One must be sacrificed," the Tower said.
"One truth must be forgotten to climb higher. Your identity is an error. Fix it."
Kael clenched his fists.
Not Sael. He needed her. Whether she was real or not.
Not the cult. That pain reminded him what he'd overcome.
He reached for the first shard.
"Goodbye, Lira."
He gritted his teeth. The crystal melted into his palm, searing.
A piece of his soul unhooked.
He saw her laughing—then blinking—and then...
Nothing.
A blank.
He remembered the name but not the face.
"Kael?" Sael asked, watching him.
He nodded once, then turned to the stairs ahead—now visible, crawling up into mist.
"Let's go."
The Tower didn't congratulate him.
It just opened.
[SYSTEM NOTICE]
Memory Erasure Successful.
Climber Kael: Identity Integrity 87%
Floor Access Granted: The Obsidian Path
Warning: You are now beyond recovery threshold. Further ascent will result in irreversible collapse of self.
Behind him, the chamber sealed shut.
And the last fragment of Lira's smile flickered out in the back of his mind—like a candle smothered in ash.