The descent no longer followed logic.
There were no more steps.
Only fragments — of stairs, of symbols, of time itself.
Elian moved through them as if through water. Or smoke.
The air grew dense with forgotten syntax — twisted echoes of languages that once commanded the system itself… and then were punished for doing so.
Here, the truth wasn't absent.
It was hunted.
[Zone Entered: Vault of Broken Tongues]
[Warning: Memory Density Critical]
[Threadmaker Stability Threatened]
[Local System Control: Lost Long Ago]
The space was a vast hollow cathedral, suspended in stillness.
The floor was a mirror — cracked, stained with glyphs that shifted when not looked at.
The ceiling?
It did not exist.
Only an endless crawl of white script, writhing silently in the void above.
Elian walked without pause.
The voices — the erased — whispered through him now, forming a choir of truths no one else dared speak.
And in the center of the vault, chained in runes that didn't hold it…
…waited a mouth.
Not a creature.
A mouth.
Floating.
Twisting.
A sphere of broken tongues, all coiled inward, whispering in loops, inventing languages only to forget them again.
It had no eyes.
No limbs.
Only questions.
It noticed Elian.
And it laughed.
Not aloud — laughter had sound.
This one laughed in dissonance.
Concepts around Elian twisted. Sentences lost their grammar. Thoughts frayed.
Even the whispers in his mind recoiled from this thing.
He didn't.
He approached calmly.
The Mouth whispered:
"You carry the names."
"You stole from the grave."
"You wear memory like armor. But do you understand the price?"
Elian answered without flinching.
"Understanding is for those who still want forgiveness."
"I want results."
The Mouth twitched.
It restructured its speech.
Each word now stabbed directly at Elian's thoughts — a pressure on his soul, a twisting of intent.
"We were the first to lie."
"The first to bend truth until it cracked."
"The system erased us — not because we failed."
"But because we succeeded."
Elian stepped closer.
"Then you know how to break it."
The Mouth fell silent.
Then it spoke a name.
One Elian had never heard. One that shouldn't exist.
The moment it entered his ears, the world stuttered.
His threadlines screamed.
His thoughts blanked.
His eyes bled.
[System Interference Detected]
[Memory Collapse Attempt: BLOCKED]
[You have heard a Forbidden True Name]
Elian dropped to one knee.
But he grinned through the pain.
"Good," he muttered.
"Finally something worth bleeding for."
The Mouth leaned in, threads of ancient script unraveling from its core.
"We can give you more."
"But only if you feed us."
Elian straightened.
"What do you want?"
The Mouth didn't hesitate.
"A truth no one else will speak."
"One of your own."
Elian was silent for a long moment.
Then he spoke:
"I abandoned someone once."
"Not for strategy. Not for survival."
"I did it because I was scared. And I let him die screaming."
"And I would do it again."
The Mouth writhed in delight.
It opened fully — pages of unspeakable languages spinning outward like a storm — and devoured the confession.
Then it whispered one last thing.
"Take this."
"Not a key. Not a weapon."
"A question sharp enough to wound a god."
A glyph burned itself into Elian's palm.
It didn't hurt.
It just felt like the world now owed him an answer.
[You have obtained: Prime Inversion Sigil]
[Effect: Causes contradiction in systemic logic. May induce reality collapse in unstable zones.]
[Note: It is not meant to exist.]
Elian turned.
The whispers howled behind him.
The Mouth begged for more.
But he was already walking away.
He had what he came for.
And now?
Now the world would start lying to itself just to keep up.