The next floor greeted them with silence. Not the suffocating kind they had faced before, but something older. Sacred. The air was thick, not with pressure, but with memory — as though every breath they took stirred the dust of forgotten things.
Kael and his companions stood in a vast chamber. It was circular, domed with an endless ceiling that shimmered like glass holding back a storm. Thousands of pedestals lined the room, spiraling outward from a center they could not yet see. Each pedestal held something different — a weapon, a relic, a book, a cracked crown, a bone.
And all around, faint whispers filled the air. Not words. Not language. Just emotion, fragments of lives long gone. Pain. Triumph. Rage. Regret.
"This is…" Mier began, but her voice caught.
"The Vault," Veyr said, stepping forward. "The Tower's heart. Its memory."
Kael followed him, moving cautiously between the rows of ancient artifacts. As they walked, some of the relics flickered with light, responding to their presence. Others turned dark, as if recoiling from touch.
Rina reached out toward a weathered dagger on a pedestal. The moment her fingers neared, a pulse of red light flared from its hilt, and a phantom image burst to life — a young woman, crying, kneeling in a battlefield strewn with corpses. The same dagger in her hand.
Then it vanished.
"These are echoes," Kael murmured. "Memories tied to the Tower. Maybe from challengers who failed… or passed."
"Or were devoured," Mier added softly.
They pressed forward.
In the center of the Vault, the floor dropped into a wide pit, and at its base stood a platform bathed in golden light. Suspended above it — floating without chains, untouched by time — was a mask. Plain, black, and cracked straight down the middle.
"The next trial," Kael said.
But even as he spoke, a deep, resonant voice filled the chamber. Not like the usual Tower trials. This voice carried grief.
**"Only those who have *lost* may enter. Only those who carry *nothing* may take my place."**
Then the light from the mask flared — and the relics in the room began to shift.
One by one, they floated from their pedestals and began circling the room, slow at first, then faster. The whispering grew louder, becoming voices. Accusing. Begging. Pleading.
**"Give it back."
"You took everything."
"You left us."
"You don't deserve it."**
Kael gritted his teeth as the voices battered his mind. His chest burned. Not from magic — from memory.
He saw his mother's face the last day before he entered the Tower.
He saw the graves of the friends he'd buried. The ones who never made it past Floor 2. The ones who begged him to turn back.
He saw the child he couldn't save.
"Stop," Kael said, but the visions kept coming.
Rina fell to her knees, clutching her head. Daren growled, swinging blindly at illusions. Even Veyr's calm cracked, his eyes wild with ancient pain.
Only Mier stood still. Watching.
And then she whispered, "They aren't punishments. They're offerings."
Kael turned to her. "What do you mean?"
She stepped forward, letting the echoes swirl around her.
"These aren't here to break us. They're here to *test our burden*. If we're empty — if we've let go of what made us climb — then we aren't worthy of reaching the end."
Kael understood instantly.
He didn't need to *forget* what he'd lost.
He needed to carry it.
He closed his eyes and let the visions come.
His past.
His failures.
His rage.
His grief.
All of it.
He wrapped it around himself like armor — not to shield, but to remember.
The voices changed.
No longer curses. They became quiet. Honoring.
**"You kept going."
"You carried us."
"You never forgot."**
A low chime rang through the chamber, and the mask descended slowly from its place above the platform.
Kael stepped forward. His hands trembled as he reached for it — not from fear, but from the weight of everything behind him.
The moment his fingers touched the mask, light exploded outward.
A beam struck each of his companions, lifting them into the air.
Kael screamed as something vast and ancient pressed into his soul. Not pain. A memory. No — *millions* of memories.
The god who wore this mask had ruled for seventeen thousand years. A god born in the black between stars, who had watched empires rise and crumble, who had held power that bent reality — and had still died, alone, forgotten.
The echo of that god entered Kael like a wave crashing against stone.
His heart nearly stopped.
But he endured.
And when the light faded, Kael stood on the platform, still breathing.
The mask had vanished.
Its power now lived within him — quiet, waiting.
He looked up.
Above, where the ceiling once shimmered, now hung a single doorway.
Pure black.
No handle. No markings. Just a void waiting to be entered.
"The final ascent," Veyr said behind him.
Kael didn't answer.
He was already walking toward it.