The door closed behind him, but it was not a finality. The Tower never allowed finality. It left things in fragments, pieces that could be picked apart or eaten whole. The world Veyne entered felt like a vast garden, one whose soil had not seen light in centuries. The air was thick with the weight of forgotten things, crushed under the weight of existence, waiting for their time to be remembered—or consumed.
Before him stood an altar. A great slab of stone, stained with the remnants of the forgotten. Across its surface, intricate carvings of faces, eyes, and hands twisted into grotesque shapes. It pulsed with an unsettling rhythm.
Veyne felt the ground tremble as something shifted beneath the altar. His Instinct kicked in, a hot pang of warning, a desire to move—quickly.
He looked up. Above the altar was a sky—not a sky of air, but of stories. The sky above him was a tapestry of woven fates, each thread flickering with a different light, each one leading to a different possibility. It was so large, so overwhelming that for a moment, Veyne wondered if he could lose himself inside it.
Revelation Instinct: Pathways Unfolding.
He focused. Each thread was a story, a choice, an opportunity. The Tower was offering him a glimpse of its many faces, of its many games. But which one would he choose?
The Feast of Fates, a voice whispered from the shadows. It was not his own voice, but one that rang in his skull, rattling him to the core. A banquet for the bold. A choice for the broken.
He felt the pull of the stories above, each one beckoning to him. The idea of losing himself in their endless, twisting mazes was seductive—but he had no time for that. The goal was not to get lost in the Tower's games; it was to conquer them, to see them all laid bare, their truths exposed.
A figure emerged from the shadows.
Tall, cloaked in a shimmering black robe, the figure's face was hidden beneath a hood. Only two burning eyes stared back at Veyne, glowing like twin stars, their light reflecting off the carvings on the altar. It was not human, yet its presence was undeniable.
"I see you, Veyne," the figure said, its voice a cold whisper that seemed to scrape at the edges of reality itself. "You've walked many paths, seen many things, but you have yet to understand the true hunger of the Tower. It is not the hunger of flesh, but the hunger of the soul."
Veyne's heart beat faster, his mind racing. This figure was not a simple illusion, not a passing shadow. It was something older, something that knew. The Tower was testing him again. But for what?
"You seek power," the figure continued, "but you have yet to face what it means to truly consume. To take everything that you are and twist it into something greater. Something darker."
Veyne didn't answer. He watched the figure closely, his Instinct buzzing at the back of his skull. It was a guide. A trickster. Another piece of the Tower's labyrinth.
The figure tilted its head. "I can show you what you desire," it said, "but it will cost you. A price, a sacrifice. Are you willing to pay?"
Veyne stepped forward, his gaze unwavering. "I've already paid," he said, voice low but resolute. "And I will keep paying."
The figure laughed, a sound like the clinking of chains. "So be it. You have made your choice."
The figure raised its hand, and the air around them shimmered. The altar groaned, and the threads above began to unravel, spinning out of control. The sky above collapsed, falling into itself as a great maw opened, pulling at the very fabric of reality.
Veyne didn't flinch. He had no time to waste. He had no choice but to walk forward.
"Follow the path," the figure intoned, its voice echoing through the crumbling world around him. "The banquet will be set. The feast will begin."
Veyne walked toward the altar. With each step, the ground beneath him shifted, opening like a mouth eager to swallow him whole. He stepped onto the altar, and as he did, the threads above him twisted, reshaping, pulling him into the heart of the feast.
The world spun. His senses were assaulted by a hundred thousand realities at once. He saw himself in countless forms—each one different, each one dying or thriving, some laughing, others screaming. But there was something else, too. A figure, standing at the center of it all, watching him.
"Choose," the figure whispered, its voice like honey, sweet and false. "Choose, Veyne. Choose wisely."
The air thickened, and suddenly, Veyne was standing at a banquet table. The table stretched for miles, piled high with food. Meat. Bread. Wine. Fruits. The smells were intoxicating, and for a moment, he felt his hunger surge within him, an overwhelming craving for the feast before him.
But Veyne didn't sit down. He didn't reach for the food. His Instinct screamed, warning him. This is not a feast. It is a trap.
The figure at the head of the table smiled, its eyes gleaming with hunger. "You think yourself too clever, don't you?" it said, voice a venomous purr. "But in the end, we all must feed. And you, Veyne, you will feed on what you are."
The figure snapped its fingers, and the room shifted. The table became a chasm, a dark pit that stretched into oblivion. Veyne was falling. He wasn't sure when the ground had disappeared, but now he was plummeting, his body twisting and turning in the void.
Revelation Instinct: Trial of Consumption.
A thousand images flashed before his eyes—his past, his future, the things he had lost and the things he had yet to gain. He was falling, but it wasn't just his body that fell. It was his soul, his very essence being torn from him.
He reached out. Not for something to save him, but for something to consume.
The Tower was vast. It had many faces. But it had not seen his hunger yet.
And he would feed.
Veyne's fingers brushed something—a thread. It was thin, barely visible in the dark. He grasped it, and suddenly the world stopped.
A blinding light exploded from within him, pouring out of his chest, out of his mouth. The world shattered around him, but he did not break. He consumed it all, devoured the space between moments, fed on the possibilities that hung in the air like fruit ripe for the picking.
He was not falling anymore.
He was the fall.
And he had learned how to consume.
The light dimmed, and Veyne stood once again at the center of the banquet hall, his body whole, his mind clear. The figure at the head of the table was gone. The feast was no more. Only the remnants of it remained.
A single thread of silver floated before him, glowing with a soft light.
"A gift," a voice whispered, and Veyne knew it was not his own. "The power to consume, to feed, to take everything that comes before you. You have earned it."
He reached out, grasping the thread. It burned his fingers, but he held on. And when he opened his hand again, a new power was waiting for him.
Hunger of the Endless.
A power born of consumption, of feeding on the very essence of the world.
And with it, Veyne knew: the Feast had only just begun.