The path from the Blind Cathedral did not curve, slope, or twist.
It went straight.
Too straight.
Raen felt the unnatural geometry before he saw it — a tunnel made not of stone, but shimmering fragments of memory frozen mid-shatter. The walls didn't reflect; they replayed.
Moments. Whispers. Faces long since buried.
[You Have Entered: The Corridor of Names][Warning: This path reveals the Self You Chose to Forget.][Exit Only Unlocks Once Truth Is Accepted.]
Raen paused at the threshold.
Ember Vow's voice was soft. "Do we follow you?"
"No," Raen said. "This one's for me."
He stepped through the barrier alone.
And the door behind him vanished.
The silence here was heavy — not absence of sound, but the weight of words unsaid. Light flickered with thought. Every step pulled loose another sliver of his past.
The first door appeared to his left.
A wooden arch, simple.
Raen touched it — and the corridor pulsed.
—
A boy knelt in dirt, skin blistered, eyes wild with grief.
"Your name is Raen," someone whispered.
But it wasn't his name yet.
He had taken it from another.
The door vanished.
—
Another door shimmered open — metal, rusted.
Raen reached it.
—
A battlefield. Fire. Screams.
He stood over a dying soldier, holding the man's dog tag.
Not mercy.
Cover-up.
He'd taken the soldier's name to flee execution.
That was the second time he'd stolen an identity.
—
Door after door.
Each one showed not his triumphs, but his thefts.
Not victories — but how he'd rewritten himself again and again, each name a mask to survive, to lead, to forget.
Until none of them were truly his.
He wasn't a beast tamer.
He was a man of borrowed legacies.
At the corridor's center stood a final gate — obsidian, cracked, humming with soulfire.
A plaque read: RAEN TIBERIS.
His true name.
He touched the door.
It didn't open.
Instead, a voice — his own — echoed around him:
"You stole that name from the real Raen. From the boy who died for you."
Raen staggered.
It was true.
Long ago, before the war, he had traveled with another orphan — quiet, kind, smarter than him. When soldiers came for them, Raen ran.
The boy didn't.
He bought him time — and was executed.
Raen had taken his name out of guilt.
And lived a life he never earned.
"No," Raen whispered, shaking. "I've paid… I've paid over and over."
"But never remembered."
The corridor began to collapse.
Mirrors shattered.
Names blurred.
[Crisis Detected: Host's Soul Integrity at 61%][Warning: Identity Fracture Imminent]
A figure stepped from the darkness.
The boy from all those years ago.
Except this time, he looked just like Raen — same jawline, same eyes. Same scar.
The true Raen.
The one who died.
"I was forgotten," the boy said, no anger in his tone. "Not by them. By you."
Raen fell to his knees. "I survived because of you. I… built something better."
"You built a kingdom of borrowed names."
"I became something."
"You became me."
The boy walked forward, knelt before him.
"But if you remember me now… I'll become us."
Their hands touched.
[Name Integration Initiated.][True Identity Accepted: Raen, Heir of Hollow Flame][Aspect Gained: Memoryweaver — Can Unravel and Reforge Emotional Bonds]
The corridor grew silent again.
Not from emptiness.
From peace.
Raen emerged on the other side — steps slow, posture steadier. Ember Vow looked at him as if he carried a new light.
"What did you find?" she asked.
"Myself," Raen said.
He turned back once — but the corridor was gone. Not locked. Not hidden.
Finished.
[Level Up: Authority Over Past Memories Unlocked][Next Destination: The Veiled City of the Abyss.]
But before they could move on, a presence flared in the distance.
Familiar.
Burning.
A voice echoed in his system:
[Warning: Entity Approaching — Masked Class: Divine Revenant][Alias: The Nameless Traitor]
Raen's jaw tightened.
The corridor had revealed his own sins.
Now it was time to face the one who'd orchestrated his death.
Not out of anger.
But to end the silence once and for all.