The door behind them creaked open.
But it didn't lead up.
It led down.
Lucien stared into the dark spiral staircase that descended endlessly. The air pulsed with a wrongness that no system notification could explain.
Calen stepped forward. "This isn't on the floor maps. Even the Library didn't know this existed."
Naia frowned, tightening her grip on her blade. "We're going backward. Or worse—inward."
Lucien smirked, but unease tugged at his gut.
"Welcome to the truth we never wanted."
Floor B91: The Inverted Oath
[Warning: Dimensional Consistency Compromised.]Trust no one. Not even yourself.
They entered a corridor where the walls pulsed like veins. Mirrors lined each side, but reflected nothing. Their footsteps made no sound. No echo. No confirmation that they were real.
The deeper they walked, the more uncertain they became of each other.
Lucien glanced at Naia—and for a moment, her face changed. Hollow. Smiling like Cassandra.
He blinked. It was her again.
Calen stopped. "We're being rewritten. Slowly. This place unravels your identity."
Lucien's fingers twitched.
He tried to access the system. Nothing but static.
Naia whispered, "This place doesn't want us to know who we are."
Lucien murmured, "Then it's the most honest place we've ever been."
The corridor opened into a black cathedral, lit by chandeliers made of living bones, chanting in a language that reversed itself mid-syllable.
In the center, sat a throne, empty. Above it: a glowing sigil.
[Administrator Override Detected.]Entity: UNKNOWN.
A voice boomed—not from the air, but from inside their heads.
"Welcome, fragments." "You climb for power, but deny its cost. You bind yourselves to lies and call them memory."
"Now you will be judged."
From the shadows emerged a figure clad in a robe of static and forgotten code. A face that flickered between Naia, Calen, and Lucien.
[ADMIN TAG: NULL.EXE]
"I was born from contradictions the Tower could not resolve. I am the bastard of its logic. I am what you become if you lie too well, and remember too little."
"One of you is false. Entirely false."
"Find them. Or be erased."
The test began.
The trio found themselves inside a replica of the Tower's entrance, from Chapter One. But reversed. Naia now wore Lucien's clothes. Calen had no scars. Lucien… couldn't see himself in any reflection.
"What's happening?" Calen gasped. "Is this... real?"
"No," Lucien whispered. "It's worse. It's a lie dressed as truth."
They were each given a shard. Glass-like. When touched, it whispered secrets—a memory none of them could confirm ever happened.
Naia's shard: Lucien killing Calen during their first mission. Calen's shard: Naia forging the Book of Lies. Lucien's shard: Himself being created by the Tower—never born.
Doubt began to set in.
Calen looked at Lucien with new hatred. Naia stepped back, blade half-raised.
Lucien... said nothing.
Because he wasn't sure anymore.
What if he was never real? What if he was the lie?
NULL.EXE watched, smiling with all their faces.
"Lie enough times, and even the Tower forgets your origin."
"But I haven't."
"Kill the false one. Or I will kill all three."
Lucien's mind raced. He couldn't access his system. No powers. No rewriting.
Only memory.
Or the illusion of it.
He looked at Calen. "Remember when we found the obsidian gate on B96?"
Calen hesitated. "What gate? We skipped B96."
Naia turned sharply. "No. We passed through B96. Lucien… you said you saw it and turned back."
Lucien's face went pale.
They all had different memories.
NULL.EXE stepped forward.
"Memories lie. Belief kills. Only action proves."
Lucien whispered, "This is the Tower's heart, isn't it?"
"No. This is its regret."
Suddenly, a countdown appeared:
[00:59] — Purge in progress. One must die.
The room darkened. The truth warped.
They would either trust, or tear each other apart.