The doors to Floor 21 didn't open.
They bloomed.
Petals of deep crimson unfurled from a black stem etched into the wall, each petal whispering as it opened, revealing a lush garden bathed in twilight. Flowers glowed faintly—violet, silver, and sickly green—filling the air with a perfume that was as intoxicating as it was wrong.
Erevan stepped in.
The garden was endless, wild. Vines twisted through ancient statues. Trees with bones for bark loomed like sentinels. From somewhere in the distance came the sound of soft humming. A woman's voice, soothing and hollow.
> [Floor 21: Garden of the Forgotten]
[Trial Type: Memory Combat]
[Note: High Remembrance Required for Full Synchronization.]
His brow furrowed. The last floor had shaken him—memories still whispered at the edges of his mind. That final look in Seraphiel's eyes. The weight of betrayal. His own voice screaming rebellion in a language the system couldn't translate.
> [Remembrance: 1%]
Unlock threshold for next memory: 5%.
Still too far.
Still too blind.
As Erevan pushed deeper into the garden, the humming stopped.
And something rose.
A woman, tall and regal, formed from blooming roses. Her eyes were galaxies. Her body was made of roots and elegance. When she moved, the garden moved with her.
"You've forgotten me," she said. Not angry. Just… tired.
Erevan reached for his blade. The woman only smiled.
"I am not your enemy," she said. "But I was once your friend."
He froze.
> [Initiating Trial: Bloom of the Betrayed]
Suddenly, the garden screamed.
Flowers shriveled. Statues cracked. Thorns lunged from the ground as if the soil itself rejected his presence.
The woman's form warped, her petals blackening. Blood wept from her eyes, and she cried out—not in pain, but in rage. "You left us behind! You promised you'd tear it down!"
Erevan gritted his teeth.
The battle began.
The garden fought with her—blades of grass became swords. Thorns became whips. Roots tried to drag him beneath the soil.
Erevan moved like a storm, his suit shifting, adapting. His skin hardened, glowing with constellations. He burned the vines with cosmic flame, shattered illusions with his fist.
But it wasn't enough.
The garden was alive.
And it remembered.
"You were our leader," the woman screamed. "You had a cause! You had a heart!"
He blocked a thorned whip that could've gutted a dragon. "And where did that heart get me?" he snarled.
The woman stopped.
For a moment, her face softened.
"It got you us."
That hesitation was all he needed.
Erevan summoned a blast of void energy—an unstable fusion of starlight and entropy. It struck the core of her being. The garden shuddered. The roots screamed.
She fell.
But before she faded, her form returned to something more human—roses shedding their blood-red hues, her voice returning to that haunting whisper.
"I didn't want you to forget," she murmured.
And then she bloomed one last time—turning into a burst of rose petals and starlight.
> [Trial Complete.]
[New Trait Acquired: Memory Bloom – ???]
[Remembrance Increased: 3%]
Erevan stood in silence.
The garden was wilting.
But something remained—a single rose, untouched, glowing white.
He picked it up.
It pricked his finger.
Blood mixed with light.
And in that moment, he saw a memory flash—a group standing in a burning field, weapons raised, refusing the Tower's will. Erevan in the center, declaring war against fate itself.
> "We don't ascend. We break it."
He pocketed the rose.
He was beginning to remember.
Not just who he was.
But why he had to become something no one else could.
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