Veyne stepped onto Floor 20 and immediately felt the weight of silence.
This was no ordinary silence—it clung to the skin, seeped into the bones, and pressed on the soul. The floor stretched into an endless graveyard of stone markers. Each tombstone was cracked, weathered, nameless.
At first, nothing moved.
Then the whispers began.
Faint, like breath over frost. Unintelligible at first, but growing clearer with each step.
"...you left me..."
"...we trusted you..."
"...why did you forget...?"
Veyne turned slowly. The mist parted. Figures stood between the graves. Ghostly, half-formed. Faces he couldn't fully recognize, but felt deep in his blood.
The Tower was not content with killing. It now demanded guilt.
Revelation Instinct triggered.
[Floor Type: Memory Labyrinth – Echo Reclamation Trial]
[Objective: Face the Forgotten. Restore the True Names or be consumed.]
Veyne narrowed his eyes. The floor wasn't trying to kill him. It was trying to erase him—piece by piece, name by name.
He passed a stone marked only by the faint shimmer of an echo. He touched it.
A memory surged.
A girl with green eyes. Blood on her cheek. Veyne clutching a knife. "Run," he had told her.
She hadn't.
Her name was... gone.
He staggered back. "I don't remember her name," he whispered.
Another ghost approached—her shape clearer now. She held a doll. Her mouth opened, and from it spilled black water.
"I waited," she said.
The doll pointed to the stone.
Veyne bit his lip until it bled.
He didn't want to remember. That was the trap. If he gave the Tower names, it would root them in pain. It would grow them into weapons.
But forgetting? That meant letting them die again.
"I didn't want to forget you," he said hoarsely. "I didn't know what else to do."
He knelt and wrote into the dust: Sarela.
The ghost smiled—and vanished.
The tombstone glowed for a moment, then solidified with the name carved in it.
Veyne's chest burned. His stat window blinked.
[Echo Reclaimed – +1 Memory Point: 'Sarela's Warning']
He kept walking. More tombstones. More ghosts. Some mocked him. Some screamed. Some begged.
Each name came slowly. Some he dredged from the depths of his fractured mind. Others came only after he relived the moment they died—at his hands, or because of his choices.
He wasn't a hero.
He had betrayed comrades. Killed innocents. Abandoned friends.
Every name carved into stone was a weight returned to his soul—but also a piece of himself rebuilt.
As he carved the fifteenth name, the fog thickened and the air shimmered. A figure stood atop a hill of tombs.
It was a mirror of himself again—but younger. Unscarred. Laughing. Dressed in a healer's robes, hands unmarred.
"I remember everything," the figure said. "You remember only what suits you."
Veyne didn't speak.
"I buried their names," the doppelgänger hissed. "So I could keep moving. You? You wear them. Like armor. Like trophies."
He descended the hill, dragging behind him a chain of names that clattered like metal bones.
"You're not repenting. You're feeding the Tower more pain."
The ground cracked beneath Veyne. Chains rose, wrapping around his limbs.
Revelation Instinct activated.
[Boss Identified: 'Nameless Veyne']
[True Echo: He Who Forgets to Survive]
"Then let's see," Veyne said, pulling free, "whose guilt is heavier."
Their battle tore the floor apart.
Nameless Veyne wielded chains of forgotten faces, each lash forcing memories into Veyne's head. But Veyne fought with thorns of regret—burning, twisting, but alive.
He wrapped a thorn around the name 'Mael', one of his first betrayals, and hurled it into the doppelgänger's chest.
Nameless Veyne screamed—and cracked.
As he fell, so did the graveyard.
All the tombstones shook, and from them rose words—not just names, but meanings, truths, echoes.
Trial Complete – Memory Labyrinth Ended.
New Title Earned: 'Gravetongue'
Passive Gained: Echo Engraving – Carved names empower Echoes by 15%.
Veyne stood among the ruins of names he once feared.
And for the first time, the silence didn't crush him.
It wept.
He moved toward the stairs.
And behind him, the names stayed.
Remembered.