The night over the desert was heavy, almost sentient—thick with the weight of something unseen yet deeply aware. Stars blinked in the vast heavens like the eyes of forgotten gods, and beneath them, the dunes breathed in silence. The wind whispered, not with the casual voice of nature, but with intent—coaxing, tempting, remembering.
Evren Calden walked in that silence, his every step sinking into the soft, cold sand. The Abyssal Flame along his sword burned faintly, no longer fierce but trembling, its glow uncertain, as though the fire itself feared the darkness pressing in around them. The air felt wrong. Each breath carried a taste of memory and metal, like inhaling ghosts.
Behind him, Lira Solen moved without sound, her silhouette a faint shimmer in the dim light. "Evren…" she murmured, her tone barely a whisper, yet it sliced through the murmur of the desert like steel through silk. "Can you hear it?"
Evren slowed. The sand under his boots shifted, and with it came a voice—not from the air, not from his companion, but from inside him. A whisper that was unmistakably his own.
Why do you climb, Evren?
He froze. The voice was calm, neither mocking nor kind. It carried his tone, his cadence, the very timbre of his thoughts. He looked at Lira, but she was already scanning the horizon, blades drawn. "The Tower's using the desert itself," she said grimly. "It's not illusion this time. It's you. It's… your mind."
Evren felt his throat tighten. "Then it's personal," he muttered.
The wind rose, scattering sand into the air like shimmering dust. And within that swirling storm came more voices—soft at first, then layered, countless. Men, women, children. People he had known. People he had failed. Their whispers tangled like threads in the wind.
You left me behind.
You promised you'd save her.
You don't even know if she's alive.
What if the Tower lied to you, Evren?
He clenched his jaw until his teeth ached. The Abyssal Flame flickered violently, reacting to the storm of emotion within him. "No," he whispered through gritted teeth. "No, you don't get to have her. Not this memory."
But the whispers only deepened, burrowing under his skin. He heard his mother's voice now—soft, loving, but distorted, warped by sorrow.
"My son… you said you'd come back soon. It's been so long. You're still climbing, aren't you? Still chasing something that doesn't exist."
Evren staggered forward, shaking his head violently. "You're not real!" His shout echoed through the empty dunes, swallowed instantly by the wind. "You're not real!"
Lira's hand shot out, grabbing his shoulder before he lost balance. "Focus!" she snapped. "The Tower's trying to drown you in your own head. You can't fight it with anger—only control. Breathe."
Evren forced air into his lungs, the sand scratching his throat like shards of glass. He focused on the burn in his muscles, the ache in his hands, the pulse of the sword. This is real. The pain is real. The climb is real.
And then the dunes moved.
They shifted, alive, rippling like the surface of water. Out of the sand rose shapes—humanoid, yet warped, flickering between faces he recognized and those he didn't. Some smiled gently, others screamed silently, their mouths wide in endless anguish.
He recognized Eryn, the first climber he had lost. Her hand reached out toward him, skin peeling into sand as she whispered, "You could've saved me."
He recognized Roth, his mentor, who had once trained him to survive the first floors. "You never listen," Roth hissed, voice distorted. "Always chasing ghosts."
Evren's knees trembled, but he stood his ground. The Abyssal Flame roared to life, the blade's heat cutting through the cold air like a heartbeat. He raised it high, its orange glow casting long, trembling shadows across the dunes. "I've buried my guilt once," he said, voice low and raw. "I won't dig it up for you."
The phantoms lunged.
Evren swung. The Abyssal Flame carved through the nearest specter, scattering it into a cloud of burning dust. Lira moved beside him—swift, lethal, her daggers glinting like silver lightning. Every movement was deliberate, every strike an assertion of what was real.
The desert howled. The dunes collapsed and rose again, reshaping into mountains and valleys that shifted with every step. Time fractured—minutes stretched into hours, hours folded into seconds. Evren couldn't tell how long they had been walking or fighting. The world was a spiral of sand, shadow, and whispers.
At some point, exhaustion began to blur reality. Evren stumbled, his vision tunneling. For a moment, he thought he saw his mother again—sitting beneath a solitary tree in a field of golden light, smiling, her eyes warm and kind. "Evren," she said softly, "you've done enough. Come home."
He hesitated. For the first time, he wanted to. He wanted to lay down his sword, to sink into the illusion, to stop climbing. The ache in his chest grew unbearable. But then—
Lira's hand struck his face, hard.
The illusion shattered.
Her voice cut through like thunder. "Don't you dare stop," she hissed. "You said you'd climb for her—so climb for her. Not for what the Tower shows you."
Evren's breath hitched. He blinked, the mirage fading into nothing but cold sand and starlight. The pain grounded him, pulling him back into the now. "Thank you," he whispered, voice trembling.
Lira's expression softened. "You'd do the same for me."
The whispers grew distant now, fading like dying echoes. One by one, the shadows crumbled into grains of sand, swept away by the wind. The air stilled. The desert returned to silence.
Evren fell to his knees, gasping, sweat and sand mixing on his skin. His sword dimmed again, the Abyssal Flame now calm, like a living thing that understood the battle had ended. Above them, the stars pulsed brighter—cold witnesses to his victory over himself.
Then came the Tower's voice.
> "The Whispering Dunes have been endured, Evren Calden. Few confront the voice of their own soul and emerge unbroken. Proceed. The Desert of Souls awaits its final challenge."
The words lingered in the air, soft yet absolute. They carried neither praise nor mockery—only acknowledgment.
Evren rose slowly, his legs trembling. He looked across the horizon, where the desert stretched infinitely once more, but now it seemed… quieter. The whispers were gone, and in their place came something else—clarity. For the first time, he felt the Tower not as an enemy, but as a mirror, reflecting every flaw, fear, and promise within him.
He turned to Lira. "It's close now," he said softly. "The end of this floor."
Lira nodded, a rare smile ghosting across her lips. "Then we finish it. Together."
Evren looked up at the stars. They seemed almost within reach now—distant yet closer than ever. He tightened his grip on the Abyssal Flame. "Together," he echoed.
The wind rose again, carrying away the last remnants of the whispers. The sands shifted beneath their feet, parting like a curtain, revealing a faint light on the horizon—the entrance to the next and final trial of the Desert of Souls.
Evren took a deep breath. The Tower was not done with him, but neither was he done with it.
He stepped forward.