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Chapter 34 – The Scars of Those Who Remember
> [Floor 54 Initiating…] [Setting: Unknown] [Environmental Parameters: Anomalous] [Warning: This floor contains a Reactive Anchor. Memory-based traits will be dynamically tested.]
Erevan blinked.
And the void shifted again.
This time, there was no smooth transition, no controlled simulation. One moment, he stood within the silence of memory—raw, centered, fragile in his acceptance. The next, the ground beneath his feet cracked open like glass under pressure, swallowing light and sound alike.
Then—he fell.
Not down.
Inward.
Like the Tower was collapsing him into himself.
He landed hard—boots scraping gravel, breath knocked from his lungs. And when he rose, the world was…wrong.
It was raining.
But not water. Ash.
The sky was bleeding streaks of burnt code—flashes of a language half-forgotten, its meaning distorted like corrupted scripture. The horizon pulsed with red fog, obscuring jagged ruins of what looked like an ancient battlefield long since abandoned. Fires flickered without fuel. Statues stood broken, but not eroded—violently shattered, as if someone had raged against the stone.
It felt familiar.
Too familiar.
Until Erevan realized—
This was a battlefield he'd once helped create.
> [Reactive Anchor Detected: "The Fall of the Red Pact."] [Status: Combat Trial Imminent.]
He grit his teeth.
This wasn't just memory anymore.
It was history weaponized.
Something stepped out from the fog. A figure, cloaked in dusk-grey cloth and black armor etched with crimson runes. Not bulky, not monstrous. Lean. Silent. Unreadable.
The figure's face was hidden behind a fractured mask that pulsed with threads of faint blue light.
But Erevan didn't need to see the eyes.
He could feel it.
Whoever this was, they were bound to the Tower.
And yet… they didn't move to attack.
Not yet.
The figure's voice broke the silence. Smooth. Low. With a cadence far too calm for a battlefield stained with ghosts.
"You changed," they said. "I wonder if you even realize how much."
Erevan's gaze sharpened. "Do I know you?"
"You should."
The mask flickered—and for a split second, it showed a dozen faces. All people Erevan had fought. Killed. Spared. Abandoned.
Then it settled on one face that made him step back.
It was his own.
> [New Entity Detected: Echoform—"Remnant Erevan"]
[Status: Soul-bound System Construct — Unstable Personality Branch]
[Condition: Liberator's Mercy may trigger evolution or corruption.]
He stared.
"What are you?"
"I'm the part of you that never forgave," the Echoform replied, stepping forward slowly. "The one that kept fighting after the girl vanished. The one that said 'no more waiting.' The one the Tower couldn't kill… so it used me instead."
The Tower had made this?
A ghost from the branching path of who Erevan could have become?
No—who he almost did become.
He clenched his fists. "You're not me."
"I was. I could be again."
The Echoform raised one hand. The runes in its armor began to glow, absorbing ambient ash and feeding it into its core. "This is your test, Erevan. You unlocked 'Liberator's Mercy,' didn't you?"
"Yeah."
"Then use it."
The ground fractured. A pulse of force erupted from the Echoform, and suddenly, Erevan was on the defensive.
Spears of red glass burst from the ground like obsidian fangs. Erevan twisted, letting his body adapt—skin hardening, joints loosening with preemptive flexibility. His suit flared, drawing from broken battlefield energies, but this enemy wasn't just strong.
It knew him.
It predicted him.
Erevan ducked under a swing, sliding forward and grabbing the Echoform's arm—only to recoil as it shifted into smoke, reforming behind him and slamming a blade through his side.
Pain screamed through his body—but not physical.
Emotional.
The blade wasn't steel.
It was memory.
> [Wound: Manifested Regret — "The Girl You Couldn't Save."] [Regeneration paused. Adaptive defense nullified.]
He dropped to one knee, vision blurring.
"You can't beat me with strength," the Echoform said, standing tall above him. "You built me from your failures. Your hatred. Your need to be right."
Erevan exhaled slowly. "Then I won't fight you."
The Echoform paused.
"What?"
"I'll use Liberator's Mercy."
> [Initiating: Mercy Invocation on High-Tier System Construct…]
A surge of light flickered from Erevan's chest—where her fingers had once rested. The scripts there pulsed, not with dominance, but understanding. The system resisted—but only briefly.
Then it accepted.
> [Trait Activation: "Liberator's Mercy"]
[Mode: Spare and Reclaim]
[Condition Met: Soul Mirror Detected. Echoform eligible for Evolution.]
The battlefield shook.
Erevan rose, blood dripping down his side—but his eyes clear.
He looked at the Echoform not as an enemy—but as a scar.
One that needed to be remembered.
Not silenced.
"You were born from my rage," he said. "But you don't have to stay that way."
The Echoform's blade trembled.
"You're offering me what?"
"Choice."
Silence.
The ash halted midair. The red fog peeled away. The fractured sky dimmed to something close to dusk.
Then the mask cracked.
The Echoform clutched its head, screaming—not from pain, but conflict. Light burst from its chest as scripts clashed, Tower commands fighting the surge of Erevan's will.
Then—
Stillness.
> [Entity Status: Evolved — Echoform is now "Ashbound Remnant."]
[Loyalty: Conditional — Bound by Memory and Remembrance.]
[You may now summon this Remnant during future battles at the cost of Emotional Integrity.]
Erevan stepped forward.
The Ashbound Remnant looked up. Mask gone. Its face was still partially his—but different. Hollow-eyed. War-worn. Human.
"Why?" it asked.
"Because if I hate every version of who I was… I'll never be free."
The Remnant nodded once, slowly, and stepped back into the fog—not vanishing, but waiting.
Bound by memory.
Not by force.
> [Floor 54 Cleared.]
[Remembrance: 45%]
[New Passive Unlocked: "Shadow of Self" — Your past regrets can now manifest in combat as allies or enemies based on your choices.]
Erevan knelt, exhausted.
But there was no despair.
Only clarity.
He had not destroyed the enemy.
He had chosen to carry it.
And in doing so… learned something new:
Even his worst self deserved a second chance.
The Tower stirred again.
This time, it did not mock him.
It watched.
And in that watching… it waited.
> [Floor 55 Preparing…]
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