The new doorway within the Heart's sanctum slid open with a wet hiss, revealing a yawning corridor of stone and sinew. It was darker than any previous level Alex had seen—almost greedy in the way it devoured light. The floor was cobbled and uneven, soaked in a film of something thick and glistening. Every breath tasted of iron, decay, and ash.
[Trial Zone: The Nameless Domain]
[Classification: Forbidden Memory Sector]
[Threat Rating: Red/Unknown]
Mina read the interface projected near the archway. "This sector wasn't listed in the core files."
Varian's image flickered beside them, more coherent than before but still unstable. "It wasn't meant to be accessed. The Nameless Domain is composed of memories and identities that were forcibly removed from the system. Things… erased for a reason."
Alex stepped into the gloom without hesitation. "Then it's where we need to go."
The corridor opened into a vast underground banquet hall.
At first, Alex thought it was abandoned—but then he saw the movement.
The tables were filled with figures, dozens of them, all dressed in finery stitched from skin and threads of code. They were perfectly still, seated in formal positions, heads bowed over untouched plates.
But none of them had faces.
Only smooth skin stretched where features should be.
Mina inhaled sharply. "They're waiting."
"For what?" Alex whispered.
A bell tolled.
And the feast began.
The faceless guests moved in unison, their hands gliding toward their plates, which filled themselves with meat. But the meat bled—thick and black, like oil mixed with ink. It pulsed faintly, as if alive.
Knives rose.
Chairs creaked.
And they began to eat.
No mouths, no faces.
Just consumption.
"Back," Mina muttered. "We shouldn't—"
Too late.
The room noticed them.
Heads turned in perfect unison.
The guests rose.
A voice, brittle and ancient, echoed from the head of the table.
"We are the Nameless. And you carry names."
The figure at the center wore a crown of rusted metal and bone, and it walked without touching the floor. Its body dripped fragments of shredded IDs—memory tags, lost user files, shattered soul-prints.
"You must give them up. Feed the feast."
Alex stood his ground. "We don't belong to you."
The crowned figure's neck snapped in a slow, unnatural twist. "All names are debts. Yours are overdue."
With a screeching roar, the guests lunged.
Alex blasted the first wave back with a pulse of radiant memory energy, the power of the Heart still glowing faintly in his veins. Mina's blade sang through corrupted flesh, severing limbs and silencing shrieks.
But they kept coming.
For every figure felled, another rose from beneath the table. The feast was endless. And the hunger—insatiable.
"We have to sever the table's link!" Mina shouted. "The banquet is a ritual—it's feeding on something deeper!"
Alex's eyes scanned the grotesque spread. Then he saw it:
At the center of the table, embedded in the wood, was a massive tome bound in stitched skin. It pulsed with a rhythmic beat. A grimoire of forgetting.
He dashed toward it, dodging lashing arms and grasping fingers. One of the Nameless grabbed his ankle—its touch sent a freezing numbness through his leg. Mina screamed, slicing it off in a gush of tar-like ichor.
Alex slammed his hand onto the book.
It screamed.
Memories flooded him.
Every faceless guest's forgotten name. Their last thoughts. Their final regrets. It hit like an avalanche of lost humanity—daughters, fathers, artists, addicts. All wiped clean.
He channeled it—not to forget, but to remember.
"I see you!" he shouted. "I know who you were!"
The room shuddered.
The guests convulsed, many collapsing, twitching as if their forms couldn't handle the sudden return of self.
The crowned figure shrieked. "You are not the keeper! You defy the Silence!"
"I am the keeper," Alex said, voice rising. "You feast on the forgotten—I fight for the remembered!"
He poured his energy into the grimoire.
It ignited.
The table split in two with a thunderclap.
The crowned figure staggered, flickering as if unraveling.
"I carried them for centuries," it gasped. "So they would not suffer."
Alex stepped forward. "You buried them so they wouldn't scream. That's not mercy. That's control."
The entity bared its lack of teeth. "Then hear them now."
All around them, the fallen guests rose again—but this time with faces. Blurred at first, then sharpening. They looked around, confused. Some wept. Others held each other.
The crowned figure hissed. "You restored them—but they will still rot. Memory is a curse!"
Alex walked to the head of the table, raised a single glowing hand.
"I'll bear that curse for them."
With a final pulse, the grimoire collapsed into dust.
The crowned figure screamed as it exploded into fragments of black static and weeping names.
Silence fell.
The room was no longer grotesque. The feast vanished. The tables dissolved into light. The guests looked to Alex, mouths forming silent thanks.
Then they faded—finally at peace, finally whole.
Mina stepped beside him. "You're bleeding."
Alex looked down. His hand was dripping data—his own code destabilizing.
"Too many memories," he said. "I'm not just me anymore."
Varian's voice echoed softly through the comms. "We can't hold the Heart stable much longer. The more you absorb, the more you anchor us—but you risk losing yourself."
Alex looked into the fading space.
"I can't stop now."
At the far end of the hall, a new doorway emerged.
Etched above it, in flowing ancient script:
"All Who Carry Names Shall Be Judged."
Alex felt the pressure of it already—the weight of his choices, his memories, the echoes of the dead now etched inside his mind.
Mina placed her hand on his shoulder. "We face it together. Whatever comes next."
He nodded.
And stepped through the door.