[SYSTEM ALERT: STAGE TWO CONTINUES – "PATH OF SHADOW COVENANTS"][SOUL INTEGRITY MONITORING… WARNING: FAINT WHISPERS DETECTED IN NEURAL PERIPHERY][REMEMBER: THE DARK ISN'T EMPTY. IT'S JUST WAITING.]
The silence in the tunnels had teeth.
Kyren stepped over a slick trail of dried blood that glowed faintly, then dimmed the moment his foot passed. The group was down to three now—Mirae, Rin, and him. The others? Tarin had been decapitated by the Tower's invisible punishment for radiance. Jae… Kyren had already buried that memory under strategic justification.
He didn't walk like a hero. He walked like a scavenger in a labyrinth that hated light, hope, and anything that made sense.
"Stop," Mirae whispered, one hand raised.
They froze. Something was wrong. The air had texture now—like breathing through cobwebs laced with static.
Then it came.
A whisper. Too close. Too real.
"Speak… your worst thought."
Kyren's fingers clenched around the new item he'd hidden—a silver filament bracelet that pulsed cold when danger approached. It was pulsing now, fast. Hungry.
Another whisper, from a different voice:
"Say it, and be spared. Lie, and be swallowed."
"It's a logic trap," Rin murmured. "It wants something ugly. Real."
"These tunnels—this floor—it's not a maze. It's a confessional," Mirae said.
Kyren felt his throat tighten. The Tower wasn't just a game. It was a moral autopsy. Every step forward carved deeper into who you really were.
The System chimed:
[SYSTEM SIDE-TRIGGER: WHISPERWALKER ZONE - INITIATED][MANDATORY CONFESSION REQUIRED: SUBJECT KYREN HAO][FAILURE TO SPEAK TRUTHFULLY WILL RESULT IN MEMORY LEAKAGE][ALERT: EXCESSIVE MEMORY LOSS MAY IMPACT STRATEGIC FUNCTIONING]
Dark comedy, as always, found its moment:
[Tip: This is just like therapy. Except failure costs your soul, not your co-pay.]
Kyren exhaled, slow and ragged. Then he spoke, his voice hushed but deliberate.
"I watched my mother cry for three days straight when my father disappeared. I didn't comfort her. I pretended to sleep. I wanted to see if she'd break completely. I wanted to know."
Silence.
Then—
[TRUTH LEVEL: ACCEPTABLE][EMPATHY THRESHOLD DETECTED: LOW][REWARD: TRAIT UPGRADED – "Murmur Beneath the Mask II"]Your lies now adapt to the listener's trauma profile. You don't just lie—you echo what they need to hear.
A door opened in the stone. Not mechanically. Not even visibly. It simply wasn't there one second—and then it was.
"We're in hell," Rin breathed.
"No," Kyren said. "Hell has rules."
They entered.
The walls were smoother now—obsidian-like, laced with red veins that pulsed faintly. The space shimmered as if it was struggling to hold shape. In the center of the chamber: a figure. Not a monster. Not exactly.
A human?
No. A host.
His eyes were stitched shut. His mouth was sewn with thread made from tongues. But the system still chirped:
[NEW ENTITY DETECTED: PACTMAKER, 3RD CLASS][ROLE: CONTRACTUAL HOST][WARNING: DO NOT SPEAK UNLESS SPOKEN TO][DO NOT OFFER NAMES. DO NOT SIGN WITH BLOOD YOU MIGHT MISS.]
The figure tilted its head.
Then it spoke, but not aloud. It was like a dream trying to become language.
"You have tread into my covenant zone. Speak, supplicants. Or suffer."
"Let me handle this. I studied metaphysical trap logic back home," Rin whispered.
"Of course you did," Kyren muttered.
"Wait. He's already made a pact," Mirae said, pointing at Kyren.
And indeed, above his System window, something new had appeared:
[HIDDEN PATHWAY: DECEPTION - STAGE ONE PACT ACTIVATED]You are bound to lie, but only when it helps others believe a more comfortable truth. Failure results in emotional backlash.
Kyren stared at it.
What the hell?
"Did you…" Mirae stepped closer, frowning. "Did you lie your way into a system blessing?"
He said nothing. Just smiled.
The Pactmaker's stitched face tilted toward him.
"You… are of interest."
The ground around Kyren shimmered, runes forming beneath his feet.
[OFFER MADE: CLASS CHOICE - ONE TIME PATHWAY UNLOCK][DECEPTION SPECIALIZATION AVAILABLE][CHOOSE ONE:]
CLASS: MASKTHIEF(Gain strength by stealing reputations, not kills)CLASS: MIRRORBLOOD(Your wounds become illusions, your truths distort reality)CLASS: VOWBREAKER(Gain bonuses for betrayals that aid survival, but suffer Soul Integrity penalties)
His breath caught. All three options pulsed with implications.
But only one felt right.
VOWBREAKER.
He touched it.
[CLASS ACCEPTED: VOWBREAKER][WARNING: YOU ARE NOW PERMANENTLY VULNERABLE TO BETRAYAL BY THOSE YOU CARE FOR.][BONUS: BETRAYALS YOU COMMIT CAN BE REWRITTEN AS HEROIC ACTIONS—SYSTEM-WIDE.]
And in the darkness, something laughed.
Not the Pactmaker.
The Tower itself.
[SYSTEM NOTICE: CLASS – VOWBREAKER ACTIVATED][WARNING: NEW CORE TRAIT ENGAGED: "LOYALTY LOOPHOLE"]→ You are now immune to guilt, but not memory.→ Emotional backlash will manifest as hallucinations.→ Enjoy your lies. They taste like copper.
The Pactmaker slumped like a puppet with its strings cut, twitching once before melting into the floor. One moment a cursed being, the next just tar and teeth. No loot. No exit. Just silence.
"Did it… like your choice?" Rin asked.
Kyren didn't answer.
Because the Tower had.
The walls rippled like skin reacting to cold.
Then:
[SOUL INTEGRITY: -5%][REASON: SELF-ACKNOWLEDGED CORRUPTION][COMMENTARY: Isn't it nice when you finally admit you're the problem?]
Kyren exhaled. A laugh caught in his throat and came out as something cracked and dry.
"How much of that soul meter do you need to survive?" Mirae asked.
Kyren's smirk was faint. "Hopefully more than five."
"You get weaker every time you act like yourself?" Rin muttered.
"I get… better," Kyren said. "But the cost is clearer now."
They moved deeper into the tunnels. No longer a random trek, but a calculated descent. Kyren could feel the Tower shifting—like it was watching with more interest.
"Stop," Mirae hissed again. Not fear—focus.
A dead end.
Or so it appeared.
Two corpses slumped against a wall—identical twins. One held a knife. The other, a mirror shard.
Rin moved forward, cautious.
A whisper curled from the wall:
"Choose the reflection or the reality. One opens the way. One ends the name."
[SYSTEM DECISION POINT TRIGGERED][PATH OF SHADOW COVENANTS – PUZZLE ROOM "THE TWINS WHO DIED TWICE"][Hint: One lies. One lies better.]
Kyren stepped forward, his bracelet glowing faintly. His observational trait pinged—subtle inconsistencies. The one with the knife had dirt under his nails. The one with the mirror had none.
"Mirror," Kyren said.
"How do you know?" Mirae asked.
"Because a real killer dies filthy."
He knelt, touched the shard—
And a voice screamed.
Not outside.
Inside.
A woman's voice, raw and furious.
"YOU LIED TO ME!"
Kyren staggered. His System flared:
[SIDE EFFECT TRIGGERED: "EMOTIONAL BACKLASH – HALLUCINATION TYPE: REGRET"][You remember every lie. You feel every trust you've broken. Enjoy the show.]
A vision surged:
His mother, slapping him. Not in rage, but desperation. Screaming that she knew he had stopped caring. That he just watched.
He blinked—and it was gone.
Just the shard in his hand.
And an open door.
"You okay?" Rin asked quietly.
Kyren nodded. Lips bloodless. "Keep moving."
The next room wasn't a room.
It was a theater.
Dozens of chairs. A stage. Curtains of stitched flesh and smiles. The audience? Mannequins made of bone and gold, frozen mid-applause.
On the stage: a single script.
Mirae read it aloud:
"Each of you must act a role. One will be the villain. One the hero. One the innocent."
[SYSTEM ROOM: THEATRE OF SELF-DECEPTION][ACT I: BEGIN][Roles assigned based on soul profile.][VILLAIN: KYREN HAO][HERO: RIN EUN-HYE][INNOCENT: MIRAE SONG][Goal: Convince the audience that the innocent deserves to live.]
"…The hell kind of game is this?" Rin muttered.
Kyren's system pinged:
[As Vowbreaker, your persuasion checks automatically apply guilt bias. They will believe you… because it hurts them not to.]
Kyren bowed slightly to the mannequins. Then he spoke.
"She's not innocent," he said, motioning to Mirae. "She watched a classmate die and burned his body. She didn't cry. She didn't even blink. She weighed the loss. She decided it was cleaner that way."
Mirae didn't flinch.
"She's practical," Rin said. "That's not guilt."
"No," Kyren replied. "But she liked it."
Mannequins shifted.
Kyren stepped closer.
"She's already killed. You don't survive here without it. So why keep her alive over me?"
He looked at Rin.
"I lied to save lives. She lied to make survival more convenient."
Rin's eyes narrowed.
"You're manipulating the room."
"I'm playing my class," Kyren snapped. "Do you want to live or lose the floor arguing morality?"
More mannequins nodded.
Then—
[DECISION: VILLAIN SPEECH ACCEPTED][INNOCENT STATUS REVOKED][NEW STATUS: COMPLICIT][REWARD: INNOCENT SURVIVES – ONLY IF SHE STRIKES FIRST]
Mirae stepped forward. Knife drawn.
Blood splashed across the stage.
[SYSTEM UPDATE: PARTICIPANT MIRAE – KILL CONFIRMED][KYREN HAO: DECEPTION PATH +15% PROGRESS][SIDE NOTE: You didn't ask her to do it. But she still obeyed.]
They stood in silence.
Kyren watched Mirae wipe the blade.
"You didn't hesitate," he said.
She didn't look at him. "Neither did you."
They left the theater.
Only Kyren noticed the curtain twitch.
Behind it, something watched.
And smiled.
[KYREN HAO – KILL COUNT: 2/5 | ASSIST: 2][CLASS: VOWBREAKER – ACTIVE TRAITS: False Catalyst, Murmur Beneath the Mask II, Loyalty Loophole][SOUL INTEGRITY: 72%][STAGE TWO – IN PROGRESS][QUEST ALERT: FORGE A FALSE ALLIANCE THAT SAVES A LIFE… AND THEN COSTS ONE.]