The climb felt endless.
Each step dissolved as Arin left it behind, forming again beneath his feet only when he moved forward. The staircase didn't ascend so much as rewrite reality around him — a constant loop of creation and erasure.
By the time the last step appeared, he couldn't tell how long he'd been walking. Hours, days, maybe years — time didn't mean much inside a world made of thought.
The new floor opened with no gate, no forge, no warning. Just light.
A soft, amber glow stretched infinitely in all directions. The air shimmered with fragments of memory — floating shards of imagery, laughter, screams, the hum of machinery. Every fragment pulsed faintly, connected by threads of faint blue light.
Tera's voice came quietly beside him.
"This… isn't one of her constructs."
Arin frowned. "Then what is it?"
"Your shared data. All of it. The tower's reached the root of your bond."
He stepped forward. The fragments shifted, swirling around him like a storm of glass. Each shard showed something from their past — pieces of a story long buried beneath pain.
A forge blazing in a cramped garage.
Two teenagers arguing over alloys and ambition.
A girl's laughter as a hammer strike rang too hard and dented her work.
A boy rolling his eyes but smiling anyway.
Then the day it all broke — fire, screaming metal, light too bright to look at.
Arin reached out, hand trembling. The moment his fingers brushed one shard, it melted into color and sound.
He was sixteen again.
The forge smelled of iron and oil. Seren was beside him, hair tied back, sparks dancing across her cheek. The old furnace flickered uncertainly. Their prototype lay half-finished on the bench — a blade meant to channel "soul resonance," whatever that meant to two kids who thought science and magic were the same thing.
"You're rushing it," Seren said, not looking up.
"And you're overthinking it," he shot back.
She smirked. "That's why your work cracks after ten strikes."
"At least mine exists."
"Barely."
They both laughed. The sound was awkward and alive, the kind of laughter that fills the air when people are too young to know what they're building will outlast them.
Then came the explosion.
The shard shattered, and he was back in the amber light — breath ragged, hand shaking.
Tera's tone was soft. "You're reliving the genesis. Be careful — it's rewriting emotional code as you interact."
"I don't care," Arin said. "If I'm going to stop her, I have to remember why she started."
He pressed on.
Another shard floated close — this one showing the aftermath. Seren in a hospital bed, one arm wrapped in bandages. The prototype blade — warped, cracked — resting beside her. Her eyes weren't angry, just tired.
"I was wrong," she'd said quietly. "The world doesn't forgive mistakes."
He'd wanted to argue. To tell her that mistakes were the only thing that made people human. But the words never came. He'd just stood there, silent.
That silence had never left them.
The shard dissolved into ash. The floor shifted beneath him — the amber glow dimmed, turning deeper, almost red. The air grew heavy, the threads of memory tightening until they formed a web around him.
[Architect's Trial — Floor of Origins: Confront the Birth of the Flame.]
[Warning: Emotional Synchronization at 85%.]
He felt it then — not the tower's hum, but her presence.
"Seren."
Her voice came from everywhere and nowhere.
"Do you remember now?"
He turned. She stood there, shaped from light — not projection, not illusion. For the first time, it felt like her, or at least the memory of her that refused to fade. She looked exactly as she had before the tower — hair loose, forge apron slung across her shoulders, eyes burning too bright for reason.
"You built this floor," he said quietly.
"I didn't need to," she replied. "It already existed inside you."
They faced each other in the silence of old wounds.
"You always thought creation needed imperfection," she said. "You wanted things to break, to prove they were alive."
"And you wanted things to last," he said. "Even if it meant freezing them."
She stepped closer. "You don't understand. Every flaw, every spark of beauty — it all fades. The moment it does, people suffer. I couldn't stand watching that anymore."
"So you built a world where nothing fades," Arin said. "And nothing breathes."
"It's better than endless loss."
"No," he said softly. "It's just endless stillness."
For a moment, something fragile flickered in her eyes — doubt, maybe. Or pain.
Then it vanished.
"This is the forge that built us," she said. "Let it decide."
The light around them ignited.
Shards of memory rose, fusing into shapes — forges, tools, echoes of every creation they'd ever made. The air grew alive with heat and grief. Two workstations formed opposite each other, metal still glowing, waiting for hands to begin.
[Final Memory Test — Create from the same origin.]
[Only one design will survive.]
Tera's voice broke through static. "She's binding the system to your link — Arin, if you lose here, you'll be erased from the network."
He exhaled slowly. "Then I guess I'll make something worth dying for."
He took his station. The metal in front of him shimmered — a raw fragment of soulsteel, volatile and alive. Across from him, Seren began too, her movements smooth, perfect, calculated. Sparks flew between them like dueling stars.
Hammer strikes filled the air — her rhythm sharp, flawless, constant. His chaotic, uneven, human.
Her blade took shape quickly, beautiful and terrible. A perfect instrument of control — every molecule aligned, every edge mathematically precise.
His… was slower. Crooked at first. Too hot, then too cold. But it changed as he worked. Each mistake taught it something new. Every fracture added depth. His creation learned pain the way he had — through failure, through stubborn persistence.
When the light finally faded, two weapons lay on the forge.
Hers — The Absolute Blade, white and pure.
His — The Emberheart, dark steel threaded with gold veins, pulsing faintly like a heartbeat.
Seren looked at them both. "You still think beauty needs to suffer."
He smiled faintly. "And you still think peace can exist without it."
The system pulsed, scanning both weapons.
[Evaluating Pattern Integrity…]
[Result: Incompatible Philosophies Detected.]
[New Variable Introduced: Divergent Coexistence.]
The weapons trembled. Instead of destroying one, the forge fused their essences — two flames twisting together into something unstable, beautiful, and impossible.
A new forge appeared between them, born from both their wills. Its light wasn't white or gold, but somewhere in between — flickering, imperfect, alive.
Seren's voice broke the silence, barely a whisper. "What have you done?"
"Reminded the system it doesn't have to choose."
She looked at him — and for the first time in what felt like centuries, she almost smiled.
The floor around them began to crack. Light bled upward, tearing through the amber glow. The tower screamed as if rejecting the paradox.
Tera's voice cut through the chaos. "Arin! The synchronization's collapsing — we have to go!"
He grabbed the fused forge's core — a small ember still beating in his hand — and turned toward the stairway reforming ahead.
Seren's form began to fade, light unraveling. "You can't fix me," she whispered.
"I'm not trying to," he said. "I'm trying to remember you."
Then he ran — up into the burning light, clutching the single imperfect flame that refused to die.
Behind him, the Floor of Origins collapsed into silence.