Sakolomé's gaze froze, heavy with thought.
Sakolomé (thoughtful) — Bakuzan… so, today, he is the most powerful of all the deviants.
This zone was not just a registry: it was the sacred archive of the deviants, their seal in History itself. Apparently, becoming a deviant was to ascend to the rank of myths, to join the living epic.
His eyes scanned the walls. Endless names, belonging to all species: elves, humans, legendary creatures, entities born from the dream itself. Each engraved like a testament.
Then, just below Bakuzan's name, another appeared. Simple, but terribly heavy with meaning.
Adam.
Sakolomé's eyes widened, struck by shock.
Sakolomé — Could it be… the first one?
Driven by an uncontrollable impulse, he placed his hand on the inscription.
Immediately, a flood of visions overwhelmed him. Memories that were not his own burst into his mind.
He saw Adam, the first of men, the father of humanity… but also the very first human deviant. He saw his rise, his struggles, his overwhelming loneliness, his fall and death. Every moment flowed inside him like stolen memory.
Sakolomé tore his hand away from the wall, panting, covered in sweat.
Sakolomé — Touching the names… is to dive into their stories. To see their paths, their battles… to the end.
He stepped back, feverish-eyed, and looked up. The walls seemed endless, engraved with entire floors of names. Even with a century before him, he understood he could never absorb all that knowledge.
Suddenly, his gaze fixed on a detail: all the lines drawn by these stories, these names, converged toward a single point, at the center of the wall. A burning nexus of mystery.
Sakolomé — What is… this?
The voice of the Tower rose, solemn, like an echo from the very foundations of the Castle:
Voice of the Castle — If your strength allows it, you may touch this center. There, you will see all the stories of the names simultaneously. But remember this… you will only access the stories of possibilities. The tales of the gods, however, are locked by essence. Yet, even so… you might glimpse what they are capable of becoming.
Then silence fell, as if the Tower itself held its breath.
Sakolomé breathed deeply, his fists clenched.
Sakolomé — …Then I will do it.
But as he stepped toward the luminous nexus, his eyes slid over a nearby inscription, traced in an almost human handwriting, trembling but clear.
He stopped dead, mouth open, struck by a chilling wave.
Sakolomé — It's… impossible…
There, engraved in the living stone, was the name of his father:
Niyus Satsujin Otoko.
Next to it, other names: Amu. And Rivhiamë.
Sakolomé placed a trembling hand on his father's name. And the vision opened to him.
He saw Niyus himself entering the Castle, long ago. Not as a witness… but as a fighter. He had not come out of curiosity, but to challenge. His objective: to inscribe his own name and that of his beloved Amu and also Rivhiamë.
He saw him fight with intoxicating fury, an almost disturbing pleasure, his body leaping in incredible acrobatics, his magic tearing through creatures shaped by the Castle. Each clash seemed to feed his ardor.
Tears rose to Sakolomé's eyes. They rolled down his burning cheeks, uncontrollable.
Sakolomé — …Father…
He withdrew his hand, shook his head, wiping tears with a trembling motion. His red eyes blazed with new resolve.
Sakolomé — I will bring you all back. One day or another. I swear it.
Sakolomé focused again on the point he wanted to reach and placed his hand on it.
Suddenly, everything shifted.
The names. The stories. The eras.
They poured into him like an infinite tide.
He felt heavy, crushed. His essence drawn into an endless torrent, where each story wanted to imprint itself into his flesh. The flow was too dense, too vast… but Sakolomé refused to give in. The voices, the images, the myths flashed at impossible speed.
His skin grew cold with sweat. Blood spurted from his nose, mouth, ears, eyes. His whole body cracked under the crushing weight of centuries and truths, but he held on.
His hands trembled, his teeth chattered, and in this chaos he howled, lost in the amalgam of stories.
Then, suddenly, amid the storm, a single name stood out. Clear. Absolute.
And with that name… its location.
Then, exhausted, Sakolomé let go. He tore his hand from the surface and collapsed to the floor.
He tried to rise, but his body betrayed him, collapsing again. Panting, he clenched his teeth:
— Damn… I have to… move toward that name…
Staggering, he forced his legs to obey. Each step was torture. He climbed a narrow staircase, dragging his fatigue, hastily wiping the blood still flowing from his eyes, mouth, nose.
Arriving at the upper floor, a strange silence greeted him.
Here, almost nothing. Not the avalanche of names as below.
Only seven. Seven names, surrounded by countless hand-engraved drawings.
He approached, his eyes catching on one of them.
A name that resonated throughout his being:
Mü Thanatos.
A line descended from the name, leading to a representation.
A veiled entity, covered with moving glyphs, drawn with disturbing precision. The very stroke vibrated with ancient unease, as if the ink held a part of what it represented.
Sakolomé swallowed, heart tight.
Beneath the image of Mü Thanatos, three other drawings appeared to his eyes: three women. Three figures with distinct yet linked faces, as if placed under the shadow of the entity.
— Who… who are these women? he murmured, throat dry.
He hesitated, then reached out toward Mü Thanatos's drawing.
As soon as his fingers brushed the surface, his body burst into pain.
He screamed.
A black fire tore him from within. His flesh vibrated, cracked, as if his bones themselves shattered to dust.
— What… what is happening to me?!
His cry echoed in the empty floor. His arms covered with luminous cracks. His legs crumbled like glass under pressure.
He felt his being fragment, piece by piece.
He was disappearing.
— What?! he whimpered, voice broken. I… I'm dying… just because… I wanted to understand what she is?!
And the name echoed again in his skull, relentless.
Mü Thanatos.
Panting, Sakolomé suddenly felt the pain extinguish.
His body, visibly cracking, closed as if nothing had happened. The cracks vanished. The bleeding stopped. The silence returned, heavy and suffocating.
He remained still for a moment, trembling, then raised his hands before him, incredulous.
— What… what is happening? I… I no longer understand anything…
A presence behind him chilled the air.
He slowly turned around.
There stood a motionless being. A silhouette cloaked in red, veiled, whose hood cast a shadow so deep that no light pierced it. Yet two dark, abyssal eyes glowed through that veil.
His pale, almost cadaverous skin contrasted with the darkness of his garment. And despite his immobility, his aura filled the room with overwhelming authority.
The deep voice resounded:
— You… dared to attempt to understand what even the gods of pure dream cannot comprehend.
Sakolomé frowned, confused.
— What?
The silhouette resumed, relentless:
— You tried to pierce the mystery of this goddess. But you nearly died. Do you know why?
A silence, heavy as a sentence. Then the entity continued, slowly, each word striking like an irrevocable truth:
— Imagine… you are but an empty glass. And she… she is an ocean. The glass can only contain its own measure. But you… you wanted to contain all that the ocean is. So inevitably, you were engulfed, shattered, drowned by what exceeds it.
Sakolomé clenched his fists.
— The ocean? You mean… she wanted to destroy me?
The silhouette slowly shook its head.
— No. Not her intentionally. It is her very nature that crushed you. Like the sun does not choose to burn whoever comes too close, she did not have to will your destruction. Your incapacity to contain what she is was enough to reduce you to dust.
Sakolomé's breath quickened. His gaze instinctively returned to the drawings on the wall.
Seven names. And among them… that of Mü Thanatos.
Still there, impassive, surrounded by an alien, incomprehensible presence.
— So, she is… that great? he whispered, more to himself than to the entity.
He finally looked away and fixed his gaze on the figure in red.
— So, tell me… who are you?
The entity before Sakolomé spoke with solemn slowness, as if each word bore the weight of a millennium:
Munhwan: "I am Shiru-no-Kami… but the ancients call me Munhwan. Those who fear me call me The Omniscient Light. I am the guardian and architect of this place: the omniscient god of the Castle of the Unforgettable. The summit they speak to you of, the god whispered of in myths… now stands before you."
Sakolomé's eyes widened, breath short.
Sakolomé: "What?… You… really here, before me? How is that possible? I thought to reach you, one had to climb floor after floor to the summit?"
A slight smile appeared on Munhwan's pale lips, almost imperceptible beneath the red hood.
Munhwan: "Indeed, that is the most common path. But it is not the only one. The ascent is a metaphor, not an unalterable rule. What draws me to you is not the number of steps climbed, but the strength of your desire. Your thirst for knowledge, your stubbornness in the face of the incomprehensible, that is what drove me to descend… and to save you from the dissolution that awaited you."
Sakolomé clenched his fists, eyes fixed on the ground. His heart pounded wildly. Slowly, he raised his head.
Sakolomé: "So… it's true? You really know everything… about everything? And… you saved me from certain death. But tell me… are you also able to stop an attack from Mü Thanatos?"
Munhwan remained still. Only the distant rustling of the castle's shadow chains disturbed the silence. Then he spoke, his voice resonating as if coming from all the stones of the place:
Munhwan: "This castle is not a material building, Sakolomé. It is a projection. A mental architecture I wove to offer an accessible form to my infinite knowledge. Understand this well: I do not create beings, but memorial reflections. These are engraved names, suspended stories, fragments that can judge, speak to you, or even test you."
He slowly extended his hand, and the walls vibrated, projecting an echo of thousands of whispered voices.
Munhwan: "The Castle of the Unforgettable is an Imaginary World. An interface between my omniscience and the limited capacity of creatures like you. For without this filter, your senses, your memory, your mind would explode. That is why you perceive my knowledge in the form of a tower, floors, and inscriptions. Humans can only comprehend infinity by carving it into a familiar shape: a monument, a path, an engraved wall."
His invisible gaze turned to the drawings of Mü Thanatos.
Munhwan: "As for your question… stopping an attack from Mü Thanatos? No. Not me, not really… not in the way you imagine. I can protect fragments of consciousness, save a mind from collapse, provide frameworks so one does not drown. But stop her nature? No one can. She does not attack. She simply is, and her being alone is a tide. All I can offer is a less fragile vessel so you can brush her ocean without being shattered at every moment."