Chapter 12 – The Price of Becoming

The 15th floor was silent—not the silence of peace, but the oppressive stillness of expectation.

Erevan stepped into a corridor lit by neither flame nor crystal. The light here came from veins in the walls, pulsing softly with an eerie blue glow, like a heartbeat buried beneath stone.

Each pulse seemed to match his own. Too precise to be coincidence.

He wasn't alone.

Not in the way a man senses eyes on his back, but in the way the air knew him—recognized him, like an ancient echo stirred by his presence.

He walked carefully, every movement deliberate. The Abyss didn't favor the reckless.

The walls shifted subtly as he moved, sometimes forming faces in the stone—some he recognized. Some he feared. All of them his.

This floor wasn't about combat. It wasn't about monsters or traps.

It was about truth.

The System flared to life.

> [Welcome to the Floor of Reflection.]

[To ascend, offer a memory you would rather forget.]

[Offer must be sincere. Falsehood will result in mental disintegration.]

Erevan stood still, staring at the prompt.

Of course.

The Tower never let power come without cost.

He sat, cross-legged, on the cold stone floor. Closed his eyes.

And let the memory come.

He was seventeen again.

The battlefield was soaked in blood, the ground slick with mud and shattered bones. Smoke hung in the air like a curtain of grief. He remembered gripping a spear too large for him, hands trembling, legs aching from days without sleep.

They had called him a prodigy back then.

But he was just a scared boy surrounded by corpses.

He remembered the enemy general—an old man with gold eyes and a smile that didn't belong on a killer's face. Erevan had caught him off guard, impaled him through the gut.

But the old man had laughed.

"You'll walk a long road, boy," he'd said as blood spilled from his mouth. "And you'll forget what the ground felt like when you weren't stepping over the dead."

That night, Erevan had vomited until he collapsed.

He hadn't killed a man.

He'd killed a legacy. A family. A father.

That memory had haunted him for years.

Even now, it clawed at him.

Erevan exhaled slowly.

"I offer this," he whispered. "The moment I realized death wasn't the end... but the beginning of who I'd become."

The walls shuddered. A low, humming tone filled the corridor as the stone glowed brighter.

The System accepted the offering.

> [Memory Extracted: "The First Kill that Changed You"]

[Floor Cleared.]

[Sanity: 87% – Stable.]

[Abysswalker Trait Progress: +1%]

[New Title Earned: One Who Offers Truth]

He stood.

There was no visible door, but the wall in front of him cracked open like the ribs of a titan, revealing stairs leading down—always down.

As Erevan descended, he thought of how easily he had given up that piece of himself. A memory that once defined him... now a fading whisper.

He didn't regret it.

Not anymore.

The next floor—the 16th—was different.

As soon as he stepped onto it, a rush of heat hit him. Blistering, suffocating heat.

A crimson desert stretched out before him, dotted with bones bleached under a sunless sky. Sandstorms churned at the edges of his vision. He took a step, and the sand beneath him screamed—not metaphorically. It screamed, like the voices of a thousand tormented souls trapped beneath.

Erevan narrowed his eyes.

The Abyss was trying to unnerve him. He respected the effort.

> [Floor of Trial: The Path of Ruthless Ascension]

[Enemies: The Faces of Those You've Killed]

He felt it before he saw it.

The ground trembled, and out from the dunes rose figures—transparent at first, then solidifying.

A child with hollow eyes.

A soldier whose sword Erevan had broken before driving his own into the man's throat.

A merchant who had begged for his life before Erevan had made the pragmatic decision to silence him.

Each wore a face of betrayal.

And Erevan...

He didn't flinch.

He wasn't proud. But he wasn't ashamed either.

Survival had demanded choices.

Now the past demanded consequences.

They charged.

The first strike came from the left—a spear aimed at his heart. Erevan sidestepped, grabbed the haft, and drove it downward, shattering the phantom into smoke. He flowed like water, brutal and precise, weaving through his own sins.

He fought not with hatred, but clarity.

This was not vengeance. It was purification.

Every phantom cut down was a weight lifted—not forgotten, but conquered.

By the end, the sand was still, the wind quiet. The sky, for a moment, turned from crimson to violet.

> [Trial Completed.]

[Enemies Slain: 38]

[New Skill Unlocked: Phantom Bane Lv.1]

[Mental Resistance +5%]

He stood among the dust, chest rising and falling.

And smiled.

Not because it was over.

But because he wasn't.

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