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---
The moment EXIN stepped through the spiraling arch, he knew this room wasn't like the others.
It didn't test him.
It didn't observe him.
It remembered him.
And it remembered everything.
---
The chamber pulsed with a thick, iron-scented air.
The walls weren't made of stone or steel—but of something organic.
Flesh? Bone?
No.
Memory.
Memories shaped like walls—etched in blood.
The moment he touched the surface, it bled. Not red. Not blue. Black.
Ink-dark, ancient blood—older than time.
---
> "This is the room that holds what even you chose to forget," the Tower whispered.
He took another step.
The floor beneath him rippled. With every footfall, images flashed around him—visceral, unfinished scenes stitched into the chamber like rotting dreams.
He saw:
A child screaming in a void, hands covered in blood that wasn't his.
A battlefield of stars, where EXIN stood alone against a being with no face.
A promise made to something beyond the end.
And then—
He saw her.
---
"Remi," he whispered.
But in this memory, she was already dead.
---
The room darkened.
The bleeding walls twisted into a throne room—empty, save for a throne built from broken blades.
EXIN staggered forward.
Something was calling to him.
No… not calling.
Begging.
---
A single heartbeat echoed through the space.
It wasn't his.
> "Why did you bury me?"
The voice wasn't angry.
It was tired.
And as it spoke, EXIN's hands began to tremble.
He knew that voice.
---
> "You promised you'd never forget," it said again, "But when the war ended, you chose peace over memory."
> "You chose sleep… and made me rot in here."
From the base of the throne, a figure began to rise.
It was him.
But half-formed.
Blood leaking from his eyes.
One wing shattered.
One arm burned black with old guilt.
---
> "I am the part of you that remembers all the blood."
> "The wars you started."
> "The people you let die."
> "The tower isn't your punishment, EXIN…"
> "I am."
The figure reached out—and the throne melted into a mirror of scars.
Every time EXIN had turned away from truth.
Every soul he had abandoned to reach this place.
It was here.
Preserved.
Remembered.
Alive.
---
And for the first time, EXIN didn't run.
He didn't scream.
He didn't plead.
He knelt—eyes open, spine straight.
And whispered:
> "Then show me everything."
---
The Fourth Mark didn't burn this time.
It cried.
Across his chest, a slow bleeding pattern unfurled—like veins tracing an old wound.
> A Mark of Blood Memory. The sins that built him. The truths he buried. The proof he chose to carry them now.
---
> [Essence of Truth: 4th Mark – Activated]
You no longer fear memory. Now it fears you.
---
As the room dissolved around him, a final whisper lingered:
> "The Tower has finished its part."
> "The world will begin to remember…"
> "…what it lost when it forgot you."
---
A new light opened above.
Cold.
Ancient.
Unforgiving.
EXIN stepped into it without hesitation.
Not because he had hope.
But because he had nothing left to fear.
---