Now we delve into the Tower's deepest fail-safe — a hidden rule that even most Administrators are not permitted to access.
The recycled are meant to forget.
NPCs created from eliminated players are intended to serve — without memory, without question, without rebellion.
But the Tower is ancient. Not perfect.
And somewhere, in its lowest threads of code and reality logic…
It hides a single protocol—
A curse disguised as a safety.
Because if a recycled NPC regains memory,
everything collapses.
🗝️ [File Class: Suppressed Logic Root – DO NOT EXECUTE]
Title: Protocol Null
Created: Tower Cycle -0004
Trigger Condition: "Recovered Memory Fragment in Recycled Entity"
Execution Delay: 00:00:01
Response: Full personality overwrite or instant deletion
📓 Developer Note [Redacted Source]:
"They were meant to forget.
Death is the filter.
Purpose replaces identity.
But if one of them ever remembers…
if even one broken soul realizes what they were before—
they could destabilize the Tower."
You see, memory is more than data.
In the Tower, memory is weight.
Memory is what determines identity rank, trait fusion potential, narrative immunity, and most of all: free will.
Recycled NPCs are dangerous not because of what they are,
but because of what they used to believe.
So the Tower runs Protocol Null as a background watchdog.
Silently. Constantly.
It scans the minds of all NPCs — Trial Hosts, Vendors, Dungeon Lords, Guide Spirits — for even the faintest leak.
If one begins to dream in first person...
If one begins to flinch at the name "Wang Ling"...
If one speaks of "the Gate" or "Floor 100" without being prompted...
The Protocol triggers:
NullResponse: Personality Reset
🧠 Memory threads severed
💀 NPC fully overwritten with fallback script
🔥 If overwrite fails: Entity terminated. Floor event rewritten.
But what if it fails?
What if one recycled betrayer—like Aira (formerly Liora)—remembers too much… and survives the purge?
Then Protocol Null executes a secondary fail-safe:
🔒 "Send them to Floor 72."
Code-named: The Forgetting Ground
Where memory becomes infection
And Wang Ling is already immune.
🧬 SPECIAL MARKER – Cold God Exception:
"If Subject #00192-ZH meets a recovered NPC… do not interfere."
Let them remember. Let them speak. Let them suffer.
He is allowed to decide their ending.
Because to him…
mercy is a deleted function.