The ramp did not end.
It narrowed.
Stone curved inward as they descended, the spiral tightening until the walls were close enough that armor scraped softly with every step. The sound echoed too cleanly, too evenly—like a metronome.
Step.
Scrape.
Breath.
NULL was counting something.
Eiran slowed his pace deliberately.
Behind him, Karsen matched it. The priestess nearly stumbled when the rhythm broke, then corrected herself, jaw clenched.
No system warnings appeared.
That was intentional.
Silence, in NULL, was never neutral.
"How long have we been walking?" Karsen asked quietly.
Eiran did not answer immediately.
He counted steps in his head.
"One hundred and twelve," he said. "But distance stopped meaning anything around seventy."
Karsen nodded, absorbing that without question. Too easily.
Eiran noted it.
The pressure was changing people. Fear had burned off. What remained was focus—narrow, brittle, dangerous focus.
The ramp finally widened into a circular platform.
Empty.
At its center stood a single object: a stone pedestal, waist-high, with shallow grooves carved into its surface. Old grooves. Many of them.
No blood.
No inscription.
Just marks.
The system window appeared.
FLOOR 11 — CHECKPOINT
CONDITION: ACKNOWLEDGMENT REQUIRED
"Acknowledgment of what?" the priestess whispered.
Eiran approached the pedestal alone.
Up close, the grooves resolved into handprints.
Different sizes. Different depths.
Some pressed deep enough to fracture the stone beneath them.
Others barely marked the surface, as if the person had hesitated even here.
NULL had not been counting steps.
It had been counting who stopped.
"Don't touch it yet," Eiran said.
Karsen froze mid-step. "You think it's a trap."
"No," Eiran replied. "I think it's a question."
He studied the pedestal.
A checkpoint that required acknowledgment.
Not sacrifice. Not strength.
Recognition.
"This floor isn't asking us to fight," Eiran said slowly. "It's asking us to admit something."
The priestess swallowed. "Admit what?"
Eiran did not answer.
Because the truth had already formed in his mind—and he hated how cleanly it fit.
Floor Eleven did not want names.
It wanted confirmation.
That they understood deaths here were not accidents.
That they accepted loss as a mechanic.
That they would continue anyway.
Eiran placed his hand just above the stone—hovering, not touching.
The grooves pulsed faintly.
The tower leaned in.
Behind him, Karsen spoke before thinking.
"If we don't do it," he said, "it'll just keep taking people, right?"
Eiran closed his eyes for a fraction of a second.
"Yes."
"And if we do?"
Eiran lowered his hand onto the stone.
The surface was warm.
"Then NULL knows," he said, "that we will keep walking even when it proves the cost."
The pedestal sank slightly under his palm.
The grooves flared red.
SYSTEM NOTICE: ACKNOWLEDGMENT ACCEPTED
FLOOR 11 — FINAL PHASE INITIATED
The platform shuddered.
From the darkness beyond, something shifted—vast, slow, patient.
Eiran did not pull his hand away.
Because the tower had finished asking questions.
And what came next would not be answered with words.