CHAPTER 72: CHAPTER 72

The Spire - Level One: The phantom path

Step. Step. Step.

Walking The Phantom Path felt like walking on the edge of a knife blade balanced on a thread suspended over an abyss made of philosophical concepts.

Yoo’s feet touched something solid—tap-tap-tap—but his eyes insisted there was nothing beneath him. His Gi sense detected no ground. Akasha Archive’s spatial analysis returned:

"ERROR-ERROR-ERROR. Local geometry: Non-Euclidean. Distance traveled: 47 meters. Actual displacement: Impossible to calculate. Current location relative to starting point: [NULL]. Recommend: Stop attempting rational analysis."

"How are you doing this?" Han asked behind him. Her voice sounded strained. "I can barely perceive where to step."

"I’m not thinking about it," Yoo said, which was true, his body was moving on instinct—or something deeper than instinct. Following the Truth-Hound’s crystalline form as it walked through angles that shouldn’t exist, the forest around them had changed, maybe they’d changed position, both could be possible, because the crystalline trees were taller now—tiiing-TIIING—singing in weird frequencies. The ground (when he could see it) was covered in geometric patterns that shifted whenever he looked directly at them.

Shhhhhift-shift-shift.

"We’ve been walking for ten minutes," Han said. "But my internal clock says it’s been three hours."

"Time doesn’t work here like Earth," Yoo replied. His own sense of duration was similarly confused, his heartbeat said twenty minutes, his breathing pattern said forty, his subjective experience said both and neither.

[Correct: Time-Perception-Is: Relative-to-Observer-State. Conceptual-Duration ≠ Physical-Duration. Warning: Exit-Approaching.]

The Truth-Hound stopped—pad-pad-stop.

Ahead, the forest ended abruptly, not gradually thinning—just ended, like someone had cut the existing path with scissors, and beyond the edge: darkness, not just the absence of light, the presence of another, the darkness that existed before the first light was conceived.

[Level-One: Complete, knowledge-Gained: Self-Truth-Recognition. Reward: Path-That-Isn’t-Access-Permanent. Proceed-To: Level-Two.]

"Just like that?" Han sounded suspicious. "We passed?"

[Affirmative. Silver-Entity-Demonstrated: Unprecedented-Self-Awareness. Truth-Spoken-With: Absolute-Certainty. Trial-Requirement: Satisfied.]

The Hound turned to face Yoo directly. Its fractal eyes spiraled, and for a moment—just a moment—Yoo saw something in those infinite patterns, recognition, and understanding, almost... kinship?

[Personal-Assessment: Silver-Entity-Possesses: Rare-Quality. Monster-Who-Knows-Itself. Dangerous-Classification. This-World: Will-Test-Further. Recommendation: Maintain-Certainty. Doubt = Death-Here.]

"Noted," Yoo said quietly.

The Hound dissolved—tiiing-tiiing-tiiing—breaking apart into individual motes of crystalline light that scattered like startled birds. Flutter-flutter-flutter.

Yoo and Han stood alone at the forest’s edge.

"Level Two," Han said. "Any idea what that would look like?"

"No idea." Yoo stared into the darkness beyond. "But I do know what Level One was testing."

"Self-knowledge?"

"Identity. Whether I could face what I’d become without flinching. Without lying to myself." He thought about the words he’d spoken, the truth that had burned the air." This world doesn’t care about power level. It cares about certainty, about knowing yourself so completely that doubt is impossible."

"And you do? Know yourself that completely?"

Yoo was quiet for three breaths. The forest sang its crystalline harmonics. Tiiing-tiiing-tiiing, somewhere distant, something roared. ROOOOOAR.

"I know what I chose to become," he said finally. "I know I’m a monster, I know I did it deliberately, and I know I’d probably do it again if faced with the same choice."

"That’s not an answer."

"It’s the only answer I have."

Han stepped up beside him, staring into the darkness. "For what it’s worth? I don’t think you’re a monster."

"You heard what I said. What I admitted."

"I heard you taking responsibility for your choices, monsters don’t do that, monsters blame circumstances, blame others, blame necessity." She glanced at him. "You owned it, every part of it, that’s not monstrous, at least you did what most humans can’t do."

"Honest monster, Is that better?"

"It’s different." Han drew her blade—shhhhink—the sound sharp and clean. "And maybe honest monsters are what this world needs, because something tells me Level Two won’t care about our moral principles."

She stepped into the darkness.

Step.

Her form vanished instantly—consumed by that ancient black—but her voice came back, distant and echo-distorted:

"Coming?"

Yoo looked back at the Forest of First Understanding one last time. Crystalline trees singing. Geometric patterns shifting on the ground. The Phantom Path, now permanently part of his perception.

I know what I am.

I know what I chose.

I know those choices have consequences I haven’t finished paying for.

He stepped forward—

Step.

—into darkness absolute.

---

Level Two: The Hall of Reflected Costs

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Water. Or something like water. Falling in perfect rhythm.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Yoo’s eyes adjusted slowly. Not to light—there was no light. But to absence having texture. The darkness here had weight, had substance, had variations, some parts were darker than others, while some other parts moved.

Shhhhhhift-shift.

"Han?" His voice sounded muffled, deadened by the darkness’s strange acoustic properties.

"Here." She was five meters to his left, blade glowing faintly with residual Gi that somehow hadn’t completely stopped functioning, the glow didn’t illuminate anything, it just made her visible as an outline against deeper black.

They were in a hall. Yoo could feel the space’s dimensions even if he couldn’t see them. Vast. Cathedral-vast. The ceiling was either extremely high or nonexistent. The walls were either very far away or right beside him, depending on which direction he focused.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

"What is that?" Han whispered.

"I don’t know. But it’s not random." Yoo listened to the rhythm. Perfectly spaced. Exactly 1.3 seconds between drops, the precision in itself was enough to drive people mad. "It’s a metronome, marking something."

Step-step-step.

Footsteps, not theirs, coming from ahead, multiple sources, getting closer.

"Weapons ready," Han said unnecessarily. Her blade was already raised.

Yoo’s hand moved to where his knife should have been—and found nothing. His weapons were gone. He looked down at himself and realized his clothes had changed. He was wearing something that felt like ceremonial robes. Heavy. Restrictive. Symbolic.

"My gear is gone," Han said, but her blade remained. "No. Wait. My backup gear is gone. The blade stayed. Why?"

"Because the blade is part of your identity." Yoo understood instinctively. "This level stripped away everything except what defines us. Your blade defines you. My weapons didn’t."

"Then what defines you?"

Yoo started to answer—and stopped.

What does define me now?

Not weapons. Not gear. Not even Akasha Archive, which is malfunctioning and might shut down permanently here.

Then what?

The footsteps arrived.

Step-step-STOP.

Figures materialized from the darkness. Not emerging from it. Becoming visible within it. Like they’d been there all along and only now chose to be perceived.

Yoo’s breath caught.

Because the figures were familiar.

The first was Jae-sung. Face scarred, eyes kind, expression worn from years of survival in a hostile world. His adoptive father, looking exactly as Yoo remembered from two years ago.

The second was Min-ah. His birth mother, who’d died giving him life. Looking as she had in the final moments—exhausted, blood-soaked, but smiling.

The third was Seo-yeon. But not current Seo-yeon. Future Seo-yeon. Older. Scarred. Eyes dead in a way that suggested she’d lost everything that made her who she was.

The fourth was himself. Yoo Seung-yoon at maybe sixteen years old, body aged to match his mental age, but wrong, his eyes completely inhuman. Smiling a smile that had no warmth.

"What—" Han started.