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Chapter 25 - The God Without Temples

"Before there were towers, there were shrines.

Before there were shrines, there was only the question:

'Who will remember us when the sky forgets?'"— Fragment found on Floor 48

The air on Floor 48 wasn't cold or hot—it simply was.Thick with a presence that couldn't be seen or heard but felt—as if something ancient had just exhaled.

Kael stepped onto a path of broken stone. It stretched forward into an empty expanse. No walls. No ceiling. Just white sky.

A voice stirred—not from the Tower, but from within the air itself.

"No one builds me temples. Yet all once called me God."

Kael paused.

Tirien tensed, her hand on her knives. "Not a Guardian," she whispered. "Something older."

Tower Notification:

Floor 48 – The God Without Temples

Trial: Be remembered.

This floor is not conquered by violence, intellect, or submission.To pass, you must leave behind something the forgotten god will keep.

"Leave behind...?" Kael echoed. "A gift?"

Tirien frowned. "A piece of ourselves, maybe. A memory. A truth."

Kael knew what the Tower wanted. This wasn't about blood or battle.

It was about meaning.

The Shrine That Never Was

They found it after walking for hours—or what felt like it. A circle of stones, barely knee-high, surrounding a pool of black water.

Kael knelt beside it. "No icons. No runes. Nothing."

He looked at the surface and saw…

His mother.Her hands stained from kitchen herbs.Her voice whispering bedtime stories.A memory untouched by the cult. Untainted.

He reached into his satchel and pulled out something he had always carried: a tiny, smooth stone with a red line. His mother's lucky charm. She had pressed it into his hand the day before she vanished.

"I never used it," he said. "Because I thought I'd lose her again."

He set it in the center of the ring.

The air trembled.

Tirien's Offering

Tirien stepped forward. She pulled a folded note from her boot—a message burned around the edges.

"From my brother," she said. "Last words before the fire took him."

She placed it beside Kael's stone.

The pool rippled.

Then spoke:

"You gave without seeking. You remembered without worship.You did not demand my favor. That is enough."

Tower Notification:

Trial Complete – The God Without Temples

+250 XP

+Bonus Gained: Echo of the Forgotten God

Once per arc, prevent death from a memory-based trial.(Resets every five floors. Cannot be traded or removed.)

Kael exhaled.

The staircase rose—not from stone or glass, but from light.

They climbed in silence.

No fanfare. No battle wounds.

Only the sense that, just for a moment, something that had been alone for centuries had remembered their names.

Kael's Status –

Level: 25

XP: 90 + 250 = 340 / 1550 XP

New Bonus:Echo of the Forgotten God

Once per arc, survive a lethal memory-based trial

Mental State: Reflective, grounded

Tirien Bond: Deepening through shared memory

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