The exhaustion from the recent battle was more than just muscle pain: it was a weariness that seeped into Arien's thoughts and senses. He felt every heartbeat weigh down like a persistent reminder of how severely they were being tested within that labyrinth. Nyra, ahead, walked with stiff steps, her shoulders tense, not bothering to hide her effort to stay alert despite the fatigue. There was no time for mourning there—only the stubborn impulse to keep moving forward.
The corridor ahead narrowed, cold and damp, as if the very stone were trying to absorb what little warmth they had left. Each step was muffled, returning a heavy silence—a silence that seemed to drain more energy from them with every meter gained. The rough rock walls were covered with spirals and ancient marks, suggesting that many had walked there before them, leaving pieces of themselves behind.
The air was thick with moisture and a mineral smell, faintly mixed with ancient incense. The light of the crystal on Arien's blade flickered, as if it too faltered under the weight of all that had happened. He noticed his arm was tired, the grip of the weapon heavier than ever, as though even the crystal was absorbing the toll of the journey.
Nyra led the way almost silently, stopping now and then to touch the walls, perhaps searching the carvings for reassurance that there was still a way out. The silent respect between them kept their fatigue from turning into despair. Every glance exchanged contained more questions than answers, and both knew that the trial ahead would not be any easier than the ones they had just faced.
The spiral staircase appeared suddenly, dizzying and shrouded in bluish dimness. Each step required new effort, as if the body wanted to remain where it was, but destiny demanded they go on. The sound of their breathing was muffled by the rhythm of their steps, composing a dull, anxious music that filled the entire space.
As they descended, the spirals carved into the walls seemed to come alive, writhing in the flickering light and casting shadows that looked like eyes or hands—always watching, always demanding. Time became distorted, turning minutes into hours, until losing track of their exhaustion was almost a relief.
At the end of the descent, the abyss revealed itself: a circular platform suspended over the void. In the center, a black obelisk, cut by incandescent cracks, hovered above the ground, surrounded by four kneeling figures—remains of seekers who, like them, had tried to pass the labyrinth's tests. There, all the weight of fatigue was replaced by a different tension: the certainty that the greatest challenge was still to come.
For a moment, the two stood side by side, taking in the scene. The silence was even more intense there, not the absence of sound but the presence of all that was never said.
Nyra was the first to break the paralysis, whispering without taking her eyes off the obelisk:
— "We're at the heart of the trials. Here, those who sought answers before us... left behind everything they couldn't carry back."
Arien nodded, cautiously approaching, feeling the air around the obelisk vibrate as if each movement invoked a note from some forgotten chant. The platform was solid, but beneath his feet was a strange lightness, as if they floated between overlapping times.
Arien slowly approached the obelisk, feeling the chill of the ground rising through the soles of his boots as the silence around him thickened. The monument rose before him, imposing, its black glass faces reflecting a shattered portrait of himself. Cracks snaked through the crystal in perfect spirals, gleaming with a faint inner light, pulsing in the same rhythm as Arien's own heart. Each fissure captured and returned fragments of his face: a distorted eye, the shadow of a lip, the line of a scar—all mixed with the image of the blade in his hand, as if past and present were woven into the same fractured mirror. For an instant, he saw not only himself, but the succession of all those who had stood there, their forms projected and diluted among the spirals in the glass, like echoes of ancient seekers. The obelisk seemed to breathe with him, vibrating at a low, deep frequency that resonated in his chest and made him wonder if the object had been made for that moment—or if he himself had been shaped to stand there, before that irreversible truth.
Nyra, a step behind, warned him in a grave tone:
— "Careful, Arien. This obelisk offers vision, but at the price of identity. Every answer here costs a doubt ripped from who you are."
Arien felt a shiver up his spine, but didn't hesitate. He reached out and touched the base of the obelisk. The surface was cold, but throbbed beneath his fingers, alive like some ancient beast. In that instant, a wave of vertigo overtook him: images flooded his mind, abrupt and intense.
Arien's mind was swallowed by a whirlwind of images so vivid they could almost be touched. He saw himself older, skin marked by the sun, leading an army under an oppressive sky, endless dunes shifting like waves around him. The weight of the blade—now marked with scars and runes he didn't recognize—was in his hand, raised before warriors with empty eyes, all awaiting orders he himself feared to give. The sand rose, covering faces, erasing names and intentions. The desert's silence was absolute, suffocating.
The scene shattered into an explosion of guilt: now he was on his knees, the cold ground beneath his skin, tears disfiguring his face. Khron stood before him, the hermit's eyes vast and severe, and Arien tried to ask for forgiveness, but didn't know for what. Words slipped away like sand through his fingers, the feeling of failure growing until it filled all space, until there was no voice left.
Next, Líara appeared—alive, but her eyes were empty wells, like mirrors that refused to return any light. She approached, arms outstretched, but the closer she came, the farther she seemed. The sound of the bell on her wrist was sharp, piercing, full of everything unsaid. Every step was the promise of a reunion, but when he tried to touch her, he found only a cold void, air heavy as absence.
Finally, the pain took on an even crueler form: Arien was holding a flaming blade through Nyra's body. She smiled at him, resigned, with a tenderness so devastating it seemed to beg him not to forget. Her blood didn't flow, but turned to smoke, and her eyes shone like two dead stars, trapped in the eternity of that moment. The air grew thin, and Arien felt as if he were dissolving with her, doomed to repeat that gesture forever—not knowing whether he was victim or executioner, memory or just a guilt condemned never to disappear.
A force pulled at his arm, trying to fuse him with the stone, dragging away his memories and tearing his certainties to pieces. He heard Nyra's voice, distant, as if through water:
— "Arien! Arien! Arien! Let go!"
With effort, he broke the contact. The obelisk shook, cracks spreading, and one of the kneeling figures collapsed into dust, scattering glittering powder around.
Panting, Arien looked at Nyra, who was approaching cautiously.
— "It was pulling you in," she murmured. "The obelisk shows all paths, but doesn't say which is real. Each vision costs a piece of your story."
Arien, still dizzy, felt a new weight settle on his shoulders. He tried to speak, but his voice was muffled:
— "I saw... futures, pasts. All end in loss."
Nyra met his gaze firmly:
— "Loss is inevitable, Arien. What matters is what you choose to lose to keep going."
He walked around the obelisk, avoiding looking at the burning cracks again. Each step seemed to echo old memories, as if the very platform was testing his ability to distinguish between pain and truth.
He stopped before a symbol carved into the floor, identical to the spiral on the crystal he carried. He hesitated a moment and then touched it with the tip of his blade. A sound echoed through the abyss below—not stone or metal, but voices, an ancient chant sung by invisible mouths.
Nyra drew back slightly.
— "We are being watched. Not only by this place, but by everything that refuses to die in the labyrinth's memories."
Arien looked at the blue flame within the crystal of his weapon, feeling an intimate connection between the Static Flame and that obelisk of visions. It was as if everything he had faced so far had prepared him for this confrontation with his own roots, with the ghosts he himself had created.
Suddenly, the opposite wall of the platform began to move, opening in silence. A suspended bridge, thin as a line of fate, stretched across the abyss, wrapped in currents of wind and shadows dancing without sound.
Nyra placed her hand on Arien's shoulder:
— "This path has no return. After this, the labyrinth will recognize us—not as intruders, but as part of its story."
Arien drew a deep breath. The fear was no longer of monsters, but of losing what remained of himself. Even so, he gripped the blade and nodded:
— "Then let it know who we are. Let it remember us."
They advanced together across the bridge, leaving behind the obelisk—and all it had taken from them. On the other side, a subterranean forest awaited them, roots descending from the ceiling like ancient fingers, twisted trunks reaching toward a black lake. And in the center, an altar.
It would no longer be just memory. The time had come for the true encounter.