When the door of truth opens, it doesn't offer you answers. It offers a mirror. And sometimes, what you see staring back... is more terrifying than any devil.
The chamber was alive now.
A low hum vibrated through the bones of the hidden vault beneath the Phantom Cathedral. Glyphs scrawled in ancient symbology ignited in blue fire along the walls, forming spirals that twisted like breathing circuitry.
Asher stepped in with cautious reverence. The moment he crossed the etched threshold, the air compressed like a living lung exhaling around him.
Then—a voice.
Not aloud. Not spoken. It was etched directly into his thoughts.
"You have returned. The key bears its blood… and the threshold accepts its heir."
Asher's vision blurred. His pupils dilated unnaturally. The flame-glyphs crackled, dancing in chaotic synchrony with his heartbeat.
All around him, the walls pulsed — not just with light, but memory.
Fragments.
A man standing at the edge of the cathedral square, eyes like a storm.
A woman burning in silver fire, screaming his name.
A blood seal drawn across a stone coffin.
The name Velvora being whispered like a lullaby… and a curse.
Asher stumbled backward — only to find that the exit had vanished. The passage that brought him here was gone. Just seamless wall now. This place had sealed him in.
But more unsettling than the walls were the voices. Multiplying. Layering. Not malicious — but mournful.
"He must remember."
"The Blood Syntax is written in you."
"Unlock the sin. Bear the root."
Asher gritted his teeth. The pain behind his eyes sharpened. The glyphs around him responded, shifting, coalescing into something more structured. A symbol he'd never seen before… and yet, somehow, recognized.
The symbol of Nocturne.
His knees buckled. His hand landed on one of the glyph-marked pedestals in the chamber center. As his skin touched it, blood from an old wound sizzled against the carved surface. The glyphs flared brighter.
INITIATING MEMORY INTERFACE.
The chamber exploded into white.
[End of Chapter 105.5 ]
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Next Chapter: Chapter 106 – "Blue Blood Syntax"(The memory interface activates, dragging Asher into visions from before his time — visions etched into the city's bloodline.)