It is said that at the bottom of the Abyss of Dream, where even dreams fear to lose their way, stands a castle known only to souls marked by greatness: the Castle of the Unforgettable. Suspended between oblivion and eternity, it rests neither on land nor sea, but anchors itself in collective thought, where myths are born and die.
Its walls are made of frozen echoes, its obsidian towers engraved with incandescent names. The wind that blows there does not carry air, but stories. And every story has a name.
For here, a name is not a word: it is a world, a trace, a memory that refuses to die.
The greatest legends are inscribed there, without ever having set foot within its walls. For this castle chooses, it marks, it engraves. If you are vast enough to make the fabric of reality tremble, your name will inscribe itself in golden letters on the shifting tiles of the Eternal Vault. Even if you perish, your name will live on. And worse still: it may answer.
In this sanctuary, to whisper the name of the departed is to summon their will, intact. These are not spirits or holograms, but living fragments of what they once were, ready to speak, judge... or challenge.
But an even more perilous path exists.
It is said that some beings, driven by bottomless pride or desperate necessity, have tried to inscribe their own name while still alive. Only one door allows this act: a black portal, without a handle, which opens only if you are ready to sacrifice your peace.
For those who cross this door to inscribe their own name must face the worst incarnation of their species. Not symbolically. Literally.
A god will enter, and find himself face to face with a demon.
A lion will cross the threshold, and face a pack of starving hyenas.
A bee, upon entering, must survive an assault by a giant hornet.
And the human, ah... the human. He will face what he most deeply hates in himself-a thing he may have created.
This is not a trial. It is a judgment.
For the Castle accepts only names worthy of being carried in the dream for eternity.
And if you fail, you do not merely die.
Your name will be erased.
From history. From the dream.
From the memory of the living... and the dead.
A man approached the Castle.
A long black coat covered his body, and his silhouette seemed heavy, burdened, as if it distorted the void itself. He stopped before the immense structure suspended amid the mists of the Abyss. Before him, the central tower pierced the sky, stretching beyond the clouds like a spear frozen between dimensions.
Ethereal red lightning danced around its heights. They pulsed slowly, like the heartbeat of an ancient heart.
The man gazed at the scene. Then a smile formed on his lips.
Niyus (thought):
They say climbing this tower means facing lost legends... forgotten heroes... and creatures capable of erasing you with a mere glance. If you survive each floor, at the top, you will meet an omniscient god. He could reveal to you all the truths you do not know. Absolutely all...
If that's not fascinating.
A gentle voice echoed in his mind, calm, familiar.
Rivhiamë (internally):
Are you planning to go all the way to that god, Niyus?
Niyus:
No, Rivhiamë. I just came to inscribe my name... yours... and my wife's.
He climbed the solemn stairs leading to the castle's massive door. Heavy shadowy chains, almost alive, connected it to the misty foundations. The place exuded a sinister, almost supernatural coldness.
Niyus (calmly):
This sinister place... is not for princesses.
He crouched before the door, gazing at it for a long time.
Niyus (thought):
The door must open on its own... or else... someone has to do it?
Rivhiamë (thought):
I think it's up to us.
Niyus stood up, slowly approached the black door, and extended a gloved hand. When he touched it, an electric shock ran up his arm.
Then, suddenly, a mass of smoky shadow burst from the chains and covered him entirely, engulfing him in a silent tumult.
He fell backward, violently.
The mass vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
Niyus sat up, grimacing, holding his head.
Niyus:
Damn...
Rivhiamë:
Those were ghosts. I don't know what they were doing here... but looking at this place, it feels like the world of...
Niyus (cutting in):
Doesn't matter, as long as they didn't try to possess me.
Rivhiamë (dryly):
They couldn't have done it anyway.
He got up, exhaled, and placed his hand on the door again.
This time, it opened slowly, with a terrifying, metallic rumble, as if revealing the innards of a nightmare.
Niyus smiled, a dangerous glint in his eyes. The adrenaline was rising.
Niyus:
Being human... the enemies waiting for me inside must be mutants. They're our worst enemies today.
He advanced into the darkness, his voice filled with grim certainty.
Niyus (voiceover):
Maybe you don't know what mutants are? They're creatures mutated by the Cursed Rain. A curse cast by the one from Ares herself. A viscous, foul-smelling rain, fallen upon the world like a judgment.
It transformed everything it touched: humans, plants, insects, animals... Today, these creatures challenge us for dominance over the universes.
But we resist. They're powerful, yes... but so are we. And this war has lasted far too long.
Niyus slammed open the castle's heavy doors.
Immediately, green flames, burning and mystical, ignited all around the structure.
The castle seemed immense, endless, like a fortress at the heart of the apocalypse.
Dust rose in a furious dance, gathering and taking form. Countless creatures, some gigantic, others human-sized, emerged. Their appearance was monstrous, repulsive, and everything about them radiated anomaly.
Rivhiamë (internally):
Hmm... Looks like they really are mutants...
Niyus materialized an ethereal sword between his fingers. A mischievous smile appeared on his face.
The party's about to begin!
He dashed forward, but a gigantic creature immediately tried to crush him with a backhand swipe.
Niyus leapt, dodging the blow, landed on the beast's hand, and ran toward its head, his smile never fading.
Too slow, beast!!
The creature, furious, raised its other arm to strike again.
But Niyus jumped, even higher this time. In midair, he charged at the abomination's skull, shouting:
You'll be the first to disappear!!!
He brought his sword down... but the weapon bounced off, to no effect.
What...?! How is that possible?
In his surprise, he briefly let his guard down.
A winged creature took the opportunity to hit him full force. Niyus was hurled to the ground, crashing violently into the stone.
He rolled, caught himself as best he could, then sprang up, panting, his eyes fixed on his sword.
Why did my weapon have no effect...?
Rivhiamë:
Would you let me see a bit deeper... with my demon eyes?
Niyus:
OK... Go ahead.
His eyes turned blood red. He scrutinized the mutants before him.
Rivhiamë:
Ah... Now I understand.
Niyus:
What is it?
Rivhiamë:
They have a trace of will... a faint divine essence mixed with their mutant bodies.
Niyus (stunned):
What?! But how? Even if Ares was a god, her curse could never have imbued divine energy... I've fought mutants all my life. I've never seen this.
Around him, the creatures stirred. Some walked slowly, others were already charging, plunging into chaotic melee.
Niyus (internally):
When you enter this castle, you face the worst enemy of your species... Gods usually aren't part of that. So why do these mutants radiate such energy? It makes no sense...
Rivhiamë:
Maybe... because you and I are one being.
Niyus dodged more attacks, the monsters' blows shaking the ground, sometimes even breaking the space around him.
What do you mean?
Rivhiamë:
The worst enemies of humans are mutants. And for demons, it's divine entities.
You, you're half-human. Me, half-demon. Together, we're a hybrid... so our adversaries are too.
Niyus widened his eyes. A brutal revelation struck him.
Niyus (internally, while dodging):
Of course... Rivhiamë is right. Our hybrid nature has influenced the castle. The adversaries are a reflection of what we are. Mutants tainted by the divine. It makes sense...
He paused for a moment, stepping back from the horde.
Fortunately, their divine energy is very branched, very diluted.
But if I keep climbing the tower... my enemies will surely have purer divine energy.
He looked up. His long hair whipped by the wind, his gaze hard, determined.
No matter. I came here for carnage. To the last one.
And to inscribe my name, even just on the third floor... It's low, but it's enough for me.
Niyus pulled back his hood.
Before him, the creatures approached to crush him.
And he waited for them. Ready to destroy everything.
Niyus took a deep breath. Around him, chaos coiled like a serpent of fire: green flames licked the castle walls, mutant screams echoed like an abominable choir, and the air trembled under supernatural pressure.
He charged.
The first creature-a colossus with parchment skin, sewn with glowing symbols-raised an arm of rock and molten flesh. Niyus slid under its blow, accelerated, then leapt to chest height. His energy sword vibrated, pulsing like a living heart. In a luminous flash, he plunged it into the mutant's side. The blade exploded in a burst of light, slicing the creature in two with a rending roar.
Niyus (feral grin): "Another one! Next!"
Two more came from behind, one crawling on six twisted arms, the other floating, its empty sockets radiating corrupted golden light.
Niyus spun, and the ethereal sword disintegrated into filaments of light, as if absorbed by his hands. He spread his arms. A chain burst from his palms, woven of pure energy, each link edged with small spinning blades, whirling at high speed like teeth.
He spun it above his head, then hurled it.
CLANG!!
The chain pierced the floating creature's chest, pinning it to a distant wall; the explosion pulverized it in a rain of green ash. Niyus yanked sharply, the chain returned with a whisper of mystical steel.
The crawling mutant charged, but Niyus blocked it with a circular motion, the chain wrapping around its arms and slicing each limb like a living cleaver.
Niyus (snickering): "Your flesh screams... I love that sound."
Dozens more advanced. Some ran, others crawled, others slid or flew, their deformed bodies exuding a corrupted divine will.
Niyus began to dance in the melee.
His chain became a whip. With each movement, it stretched, lengthened, doubled, slashing, exploding, decapitating. The blades at its end adapted: small daggers became scythes, then spikes, split with red lightning.
He let himself be surrounded, deliberately. Then he spun at full speed: the energy whip whirled around him in a spiraling vortex, slicing a dozen mutants into charred pieces.
The ground cracked beneath his feet. A creature as large as a building tried to crush him. Niyus raised his left hand, a spike of raw light pierced the sky and struck down. The creature collapsed, gutted.
He leapt onto the still-warm corpse, wiped his face splattered with black blood.
Niyus (panting, ecstatic): "This tower will remember my name as a burning engraving on its skin!"
A dozen mutants with twisted human faces leaped at him simultaneously. Niyus extended his arm, and the chain split into a rain of cutting threads, like a moving web of light.
Each thread wrapped around a neck, an arm, a throat, an eye.
Then he pulled.
Bodies burst in sprays of bone and flesh. Pieces fell slowly, like flakes of death.
He stood in the center, bloody, almost laughing.
Rivhiamë (internally, calm): "You're getting a taste for carnage."
Niyus (softly, smiling): "No. It's the carnage that's taking me."
The last creatures instinctively retreated. They sensed... something. Niyus radiated. His body emitted pulses of glowing red energy, and even the green flames parted.
The chain became a gigantic spear, split with shifting runes, which he held in one hand. He raised it. It absorbed the energy around it, thrummed, then he drove it into the ground.
BOOM!
A shockwave erupted, a storm of sweeping energy pulverized the area for dozens of meters. The ground cracked. The castle ceiling trembled. The walls parted.
In the silence that followed, a single cry rang out. That of Niyus, feverish with war, bathed in light, his eyes burning with an ancient fire.
Silence.
Shreds of melted flesh, remains of charred limbs, pools of black ichor. Niyus moved slowly among the smoking corpses, his breath still burning, his steps splashing fragments of reality altered by his passage.
He arrived before a strange black table, marbled with shards of ethereal obsidian. Upon it rested a translucent book, faintly vibrating, as if only partially anchored in this plane. The pages rustled despite the absence of wind.
Niyus (low, solemn): "Here is where I will engrave my first name..."
He raised his hand, bit the tip of his finger, made a small clean cut. A drop of unnaturally red blood fell onto the page. He wrote slowly, with care: "Niyus."
The moment the last letter was traced, the book closed by itself and vanished, dispersed in a burst of cold light.
Niyus (surprised, frowning): "Huh... I couldn't even write Rivhiamë's name... or my wife's!"
Rivhiamë (gently, in his mind): "It doesn't matter. Let's go home now."
A mischievous smile immediately split Niyus's face. His eyes gleamed with a sly light.
Niyus: "No, not before I've inscribed all three of our names together."
He started running again. The ancient stairs creaked under his feet as he climbed at full speed, adrenaline still fresh in his veins. He emerged onto a new floor, plunged into spectral semi-darkness.
The creatures here were different.
Bigger. More deformed. Older.
Some had human faces impaled in their chests. Others floated without legs, cursed chains suspended in their flesh. A smell of rotten eternity hung in the air.
Niyus unfurled his ethereal chain, its blades already thirsty.
Niyus (shouting, delighted): "Let the party continue!!"
He threw himself into the fray.
The whip whirled, spun, pierced, sliced, exploded. He cut off a chitinous leg, tore off a head, crushed a neck. His laughter mingled with the screams, but soon it was impossible to tell who was laughing, and who was dying.
Rivhiamë (internally, calm but perplexed): "I didn't know you could be so... proud of killing, Niyus."
Niyus (mocking): "Don't be shy. If you want to have fun too, I'll let you take over!"
His eyes glowed with a bloody light.
The change was immediate.
His body's muscles tensed differently. His style became more elegant, faster, more ruthless. It was no longer a storm, it was a divine execution.
Rivhiamë had taken control.
In the air, heads flew. Blades passed through bone like glass. The screams ceased before they even began.
Ten, twenty, thirty creatures fell.
The ground was stained. Even the walls bled.
Then, without warning, Niyus took back control, breathless, almost laughing.
Niyus: "Did you enjoy that, Rivhiamë?"
Rivhiamë (cold, vexed): "You forced your body to obey me. I didn't even want to fight."
Niyus (laughing harder): "Hahaha... What a spoilsport you're becoming over time..."
He continued forward, arms bloodied, a smile split ear to ear.
A single goal... to engrave his name... Rivhiamë's... and his wife's...