Chapter 11: “Faith in the Walls”

The fog hung thick over the lowlands outside Blackstone City.

Dense, unnatural. It didn't cling to the ground so much as watch from it.

At the very edge of the mist, a rider in pale armor dismounted his warhorse. His cloak was bone-white, marked with the sigil of a shattered crown surrounded by thorns.

He moved like a man guided by visions.

Or nightmares.

His name was Inquisitor Varn.

And he had come to speak with the dungeon.

The old knight knelt before the stone where the adventurers had camped days ago.

He touched the earth, whispered something in a dead language, and let blood drip from his fingertip.

The mist parted before him, just enough to show the path leading into the deeper forest.

"It's awake," he murmured. "And worse... it's remembering."

Inside the dungeon—

Leo's mind floated through the structure of the seventh floor as it finished taking shape.

The theme: Fractured Faith.The purpose: Resonant Doubt.

This wasn't a place to kill.

It was a place to crack.

The walls hummed faintly with distant chants in a hundred languages—half-formed prayers, stitched into loops, echoing around intruders until they couldn't tell their own voice from the ones in their heads.

Rooms repeated. Corridors bent back. Doors led nowhere—or worse, somewhere familiar.

A looping trap that fed not on life…

…but on belief.

Leo hovered in the core chamber, watching the echo crystal.

Inquisitor Varn's soulprint registered in the system interface now.

Another strong one.

Another seed.

Let him in, Leo ordered.

Let's see what kind of 'faith' this one bleeds when it's twisted back on him.

Varn entered.

His sword stayed sheathed.

He didn't speak.

He just walked, letting the dungeon judge him.

He passed the first prayer-room trap with no damage. Saw the whispers in the glass and didn't flinch. His faith was real. Dense. Old.

But not unshakable.

Everyone breaks somewhere, Leo thought.

On the seventh floor, Leo tested a new construct—his first shard projection.

A partial body. Formed from dungeon matter. Controlled remotely.

He formed it in Varn's path: a hooded figure with his own cold gold eyes.

Varn stopped before it. Hand on hilt. But not drawn.

"Are you the source?"

Leo's voice echoed from the projection, low and layered:

"I am the echo of what you deny."

Varn's hand twitched.

"I came seeking answers."

"You came seeking control. You think you can define the divine by cutting out the parts that bleed."

Varn stepped forward.

"Where did the Vault come from? Who taught it to remember names?"

"She did."

"Who is she?"

"Your mother."

The trap triggered.

The walls twisted.

Reality rewound.

Inquisitor Varn fell to his knees as a memory loop hit him—his own, unfiltered and raw.

A girl, maybe ten, in a burning village. Her hand in his. Her eyes melting as divine fire fell from the sky.

Her name: Issara.His sister. Lost to a purge ordered in the name of "cleansing impurity."

His first sin.

His real faith-break.

He screamed once.

Just once.

Then his sword was drawn.

Leo's projection didn't flinch.

"Still think faith is unbreakable?"

Varn stared at him, trembling, sword inches from the projection's throat.

"...What are you?"

"The fourth child."

"Of who?"

"Elara. Goddess of Infinite Threads."

Leo stepped forward, eyes glowing.

"She made us not to be worshiped… but to be loved."

"You desecrate sacred memory!"

"No. I weaponize it."

The Offering Room pulsed again.

Leo felt a second soul enter the edge of his perception.

Familiar.

Bright.

One of his siblings.

Elara's voice whispered through the walls, faint but real this time.

"Leo—Number Eleven is awake. She's close."

He blinked.

"Eleven? Where?"

"South continent. She's drawn to your signal. But she's… wrong."

"Wrong how?"

"…She remembers being a god."

Leo's breath caught.

That wasn't supposed to happen.

They were reborn as monsters.Not restored to what they once were.

Unless…

Unless someone tampered with her reincarnation.

Unless the pattern bled too much.

Back in the dungeon, Varn lowered his sword.

The projection stepped back.

Leo turned away, letting the memory loop fade.

"Go," Leo said. "Tell your order what you saw. Lie if you want. Call me demon. Call me echo."

"What will you call yourself?" Varn asked quietly.

Leo paused.

"Not a god."

"Then what?"

He looked over his shoulder, cold eyes glinting.

"A beginning."

Varn left.

Alone.

Shaken.

The dungeon sealed behind him, silent and watching.

In a city of gold far from the dungeon…

A girl with burning wings and horns of white flame sat on a throne of skulls. She stared into a scrying mirror that shimmered with Leo's face.

She was laughing.

Soft. Sad.

"So. My little brother built a temple."

Her name was Naelia.

The Eleventh Born.

And she remembered everything.