The pit was silent.
The guards had gone. The torches above had long since dimmed. Ash fell like sleep, coating everything in grey. Even the blood had stopped steaming.
But the boy, no, not a boy anymore, stood unmoving in the center of the circle.
His hands were pale.
His lips, cracked.
And in his eyes, something old had begun to flicker.
He held the bone again.
Cold. Carved. Etched with language that didn't belong to this world.
The Divine Ladder.
A system never meant for mortals. A path once tread only by gods, forgotten monarchs, and beings who were now dust and myth. But here it was, in his hand waiting.
Lira's body was still warm behind him.
He didn't look back.
The voice returned.
Not from the bone, but from within it. Deeper. Sharper now. More aware.
"You cling to a dead name.
To a lost hope.
To a voice that will never return."
He knelt and whispered:
"I give it up."
A pause.
"What do you offer?"
He closed his eyes.
"Her voice. Her laughter.
The warmth I felt when she smiled.
Every moment I believed I wasn't alone."
"You give your kindness?"
He nodded.
"Then we give you the First Name."
The pit cracked.
The bone pulsed.
His chest burned.
The sound that came next wasn't a scream, but it should've been.
It was a shattering. As if glass were breaking inside his soul. Memories peeling away, warmth dissolving, laughter fading until it was just... gone.
He couldn't remember Lira's voice anymore.
Only that it had once comforted him.
Now it was hollow.
[YOU HAVE ASCENDED
THE FIRST RUNG]
NAME: The Hollow Beggar
Echo Gained: Whisper of Ash
His body changed.
Not in the way stories told it. No lightning. No golden light. No choir of gods.
Just… clarity.
He stood, taller than before. His limbs no stronger, but colder. Controlled. Efficient.
The world felt slower. Sharper.
And above all, quiet.
There was no more ache in his chest. No more grief.
Only a deep, still emptiness.
And in that emptiness, a shape formed.
A power.
Echo: Whisper of Ash
(Briefly muffle all sound within a few meters. No voice, no breath, no footsteps. Perfect silence.)
Duration: 3 seconds.
Cooldown: 3 minutes.
A small gift.
But enough.
He walked back through the gate.
The guards didn't see him coming.
Not until the silence wrapped around them.
The first one died before he could scream.
The second tried to run, his throat opened in the dark.
It was fast. Clean.
No rage. No shaking hands. No joy.
Just necessity.
He cleaned the blood off his blade with the same rag he'd used to clean the floor the day before.
Then he walked down the corridor they came from.
Deeper into the Chains. Toward the core. Toward the dark, where something older waited.
And as he vanished into the shadows, a new name echoed across the pit.
Soft. Uneasy.
"Nihil."
Not a boy.
Not a slave.
Not a man.
Just emptiness in motion.