The descent seemed endless.
Each step creaked—not with weight, but with memory. The bone-and-wire staircase spiraled like a corkscrew through the abyss, and the deeper the Protagonist went, the more the silence grew loud. Not a silence born of emptiness, but of pressure. Like the world was holding its breath.
The System's interface had gone dark the moment he stepped beyond the altar's threshold.
No quests.
No skills.
No stats.
Only a faint pulsing in his chest—a lingering thread from the Memory Storm—that throbbed in rhythm with something far below.
He finally stepped onto solid ground.
It was a hallway.
But not one shaped by hands.
The walls were stitched together from memories—flashes of lives he did not know. A woman laughing as fire consumed her village. A child staring at the stars, whispering to the void. A man, cloaked in blood, clutching the corpse of his brother and begging for time to rewind.
Each image vanished as he passed.
Each one left an ache behind.
[Passive Curse Awakening: Soul Entanglement – Tier ???] You are walking through memories that were never yours. They are becoming part of you.
He winced.
The System was... changing.
No longer neutral. No longer cold and mechanical. It whispered now. Felt alive. As if it too was affected by this place.
At the end of the hall, a gate waited—woven from white tendrils, pulsing softly. Standing before it was a figure cloaked in smoke and ruin. Its face was a shifting mask of all the Protagonist had lost—his mother's warmth, his master's discipline, even the unnamed feeling he once had when watching the stars as a child.
"You don't belong here," the figure said, its voice rippling with buried grief.
"I never did," the Protagonist replied.
The figure's head tilted.
"Then why descend further?"
"Because the System lied. Fate lied. I want the truth."
The figure stepped aside. No resistance. No challenge. Only a whisper as he passed:
"Truth unravels all things—self included."
As he walked through the gate, the threads clung to his skin, digging into him like thorns. He felt memories—not his—pull at his mind, whispering of war, betrayal, sacrifice.
And then—
A chamber.
Circular. Lit by floating shards of crystal, each containing a suspended soul. Some wept. Some screamed. Some just stared.
A throne stood in the center, built from broken weapons, chains, and spell cores.
Upon it sat a boy.
Young.
Empty-eyed.
Wearing a crown too heavy for his neck.
And when the boy looked up, the Protagonist saw his own face staring back.