INFINITE GROWTH SYSTEM: FROM NOTHING TO ABSOLUTE POWER

”You buried us.”

The words did not echo.

They did not need to.

They seemed to settle over the First City itself, slipping between the towers, beneath the streets, through the darkened windows and into the thousands of people standing before Auren. The silence that followed had weight to it, the kind that pressed against his chest rather than simply surrounding him.

No one moved.

No one spoke.

Auren stared at the old woman.

The five Fragments were still burning beneath his skin.

Identity.

Truth.

Choice.

Remembrance.

Sovereignty.

But for the first time since entering the city, none of them felt like answers.

They felt like questions.

Auren swallowed.

”I don’t remember doing that.”

The old woman looked at him for a long moment, her expression unreadable.

”I know.”

Something about her answer unsettled him more than anger would have.

”You believe me?”

”No.”

Auren’s eyes narrowed.

”Then why say you know?”

”Because forgetting was the first thing you did to us.”

Auren felt Ethan shift beside him.

The sword in his hand remained lowered, but his grip had tightened.

The Witness stepped forward, his voice carrying an edge Auren rarely heard from him.

”Who are these people?”

The woman glanced at him.

”The ones you left behind.”

”That’s not an answer.”

”It is the only answer that matters.”

The Witness’s expression hardened.

”You said you were the last person alive who remembers what happened.”

”I am.”

”Then tell us.”

The woman looked at him for a long moment before answering.

”You carry a book.”

The Witness froze.

She smiled faintly.

”You always did.”

Auren turned toward him.

”You know her?”

”No.”

The woman’s smile disappeared.

”Not yet.”

The Witness’s face went pale, his hand tightening around the worn spine of the book.

Auren looked between them.

”What does that mean?”

The old woman ignored the question. Instead, she turned toward the thousands behind her, her voice carrying easily across the silent plaza.

”Look at them.”

Auren did.

The city was dark now, but the people had not disappeared.

He could still see them, ghostlike in the dimness.

Men.

Women.

Children.

Old people.

Families standing together, some with hands clasped, others simply standing close enough that their shoulders touched.

Some looked frightened.

Some angry.

Some simply exhausted, the particular exhaustion of a wait too long endured.

But none of them looked confused.

They knew exactly who he was.

Auren’s stomach tightened.

”They’re not attacking.”

The woman shook her head.

”No.”

”Why?”

”Because we waited three thousand years for this moment.”

Auren frowned.

”To kill me?”

”No.”

”Then what?”

The woman looked directly into his eyes, her gaze steady and unflinching.

”To see if you would remember.”

Auren said nothing.

Behind him, Ethan muttered:

”This is becoming a habit.”

The Witness glanced at him.

”What?”

”Everyone keeps waiting for Auren to remember something.” He looked at the dark city, the endless silent crowd. ”I’d prefer it if someone simply told us.”

The woman almost smiled.

”You have always been impatient.”

The Witness stiffened.

Auren noticed.

”You really don’t know her?”

The Witness shook his head, though something uncertain flickered across his face. ”I don’t.”

The woman looked at him with something close to pity.

”That is what you were meant to become.”

The Witness’s hand tightened around his book.

”What?”

”A man who remembers without knowing why.”

The words struck him visibly, some private fear confirmed. He opened his mouth. Nothing came.

Auren stepped between them.

”Enough.”

The woman looked at him, unbothered.

”Why did you bring us here?”

”I didn’t.”

”Then who did?”

Her eyes moved toward the ground.

Auren felt the answer before she spoke.

”The city.”

The stone beneath his feet pulsed.

Once.

A deep vibration rolled through the streets, traveling outward like something enormous shifting its weight beneath them.

The people did not react.

They had expected it.

Auren looked down.

”What is beneath us?”

The woman’s expression changed, something graver settling over her features.

”That’s the question you should have asked before opening the door.”

Auren felt cold.

”What did I open?”

”Not the city.”

She looked toward the darkness beneath the streets.

”The prison.”

Auren’s breath caught.

Ethan immediately raised his sword.

”Prison?”

The woman nodded.

”Something was sealed beneath this city long before you erased us.”

Auren looked at Edran’s empty place behind him.

He was gone.

Only the staircase remained, dark and silent.

Auren’s chest tightened.

”Edran knew.”

The woman looked at him.

”Edran knows many things.”

”Where is he?”

”Where he has always been.”

Auren frowned.

”That’s not an answer.”

”It is.”

The woman turned away, her robes catching faintly on the dim light.

”Come.”

Auren didn’t move.

”Where?”

”To the place where you made your first mistake.”

The five Fragments pulsed in unison.

Auren stared at her.

”What mistake?”

She looked back, her expression unreadable in the near-darkness.

”Creating the Heart.”

Silence.

Auren felt Ethan glance at him, something wary in the look.

The woman continued walking, unhurried, certain of her direction.

”Come.”

Auren followed. After a moment, Ethan followed too, sword still drawn. The Witness hesitated, glancing once toward the empty staircase where Edran had stood, then stepped after them.

---

They moved through the darkened avenue.

As they walked, the city slowly came alive.

One window illuminated.

Then another.

Then hundreds.

Then thousands, soft white lights blooming along the streets in a wave that rippled outward faster than Auren could track.

Auren looked upward.

The towers were enormous, rising higher than anything he’d seen even in the First City above. But they weren’t merely buildings.

He could see symbols carved into their surfaces.

The same five circles.

Everywhere.

On walls.

Doors.

Bridges.

Roads.

But now Auren noticed something else.

The sixth circle.

Broken.

It appeared beside the others.

Everywhere, etched into every surface like a scar that had never fully healed.

He stopped.

”What is that?”

The woman continued walking, not slowing.

”The absence.”

”Whose absence?”

She looked at him.

”Yours.”

Auren’s expression tightened.

”That doesn’t make sense.”

”It will.”

---

They reached a wide plaza.

At its center stood a statue.

Auren stopped.

The statue depicted a man.

Young.

Bareheaded.

Wearing simple clothes.

His hand rested against the trunk of a tree carved beside him in painstaking detail.

Auren stared.

It was him.

Not the older Auren.

Not the First Keeper he had seen in memory.

This version looked younger.

Maybe twenty-five.

Maybe younger.

The face was unmistakable — the same jaw, the same set of the shoulders, even the same faint furrow between the brows that Auren caught himself wearing whenever he was thinking too hard.

Ethan stepped closer, studying it with obvious unease.

”That’s you.”

Auren nodded.

”I know.”

The statue had been damaged.

A crack ran across the face, deep and deliberate.

Someone had struck it — not weathered by time, but wounded on purpose, the fracture too clean and too angry to be accident.

Auren touched the stone.

A flash of memory hit him.

People cheering. Thousands gathered in this same plaza, their voices rising together in something that sounded like joy. The younger Auren standing before them, arms raised. A child sitting on someone’s shoulders, laughing. Music. Flags. Laughter rolling across the crowd like sunlight.

A woman beside him.

A hand holding his.

Then the memory changed.

The same plaza.

Fire.

People screaming, scattering in every direction.

Auren standing alone.

The woman was gone.

The child was gone.

Everyone was gone.

And Auren was shouting something.

A command.

Auren pulled his hand away, breathing hard, the phantom heat of that long-dead fire still crawling across his skin.

The woman watched him.

”You remember.”

”Not enough.”

”Enough to hurt.”

Auren stared at the statue.

”Who was she?”

The woman did not answer.

”The woman beside me.”

”Your wife.”

Auren froze.

Ethan looked at him, something unreadable in his expression.

The Witness slowly lowered his book.

Auren’s voice was barely audible.

”I had a wife?”

”Yes.”

”What was her name?”

The woman looked away, her jaw tightening.

”You erased it.”

Auren’s chest tightened.

”Why?”

”Because you loved her.”

That answer made no sense.

Auren stepped toward her.

”That’s not a reason to erase someone’s name.”

”It was when you understood what would happen.”

”What?”

The woman finally turned to face him fully.

”If the Heart remembered her...”

She stopped.

Auren waited, dread coiling tighter with every second of her silence.

”What?”

”It would remember the door.”

Auren’s mark burned.

”The door to what?”

The city trembled.

The woman looked upward, alarm flickering across her weathered face.

”The place beneath us.”

A deep sound rolled through the ground.

Not a heartbeat.

Something heavier.

Something dragging itself across stone, slow and enormous and unmistakably deliberate.

People began moving.

For the first time, fear appeared on their faces.

The woman looked at Auren.

”We don’t have much time.”

Auren stared.

”For what?”

”For you to decide whether you want the truth.”

Auren almost laughed, the sound catching bitterly in his throat.

”You brought me here for the truth.”

”No.”

She stepped closer, her voice dropping low and urgent.

”We brought you here because the truth is coming whether you want it or not.”

---

The ground split.

A crack raced through the plaza, tearing along the stone in a jagged line straight toward the statue.

The statue of Auren collapsed.

Stone shattered across the ground, the cracked face breaking into a hundred pieces.

Beneath it was darkness.

And inside that darkness...

Something moved.

The Witness whispered:

”That’s not a prison.”

Auren looked at him.

”What?”

The Witness stared into the opening, his face bloodless.

”It’s a door.”

The old woman nodded.

”Yes.”

Auren stepped closer.

The darkness beneath the city seemed to breathe, a slow, patient rhythm that Auren felt in his own chest before he consciously recognized it.

Then something spoke.

Not thousands of voices.

Not one voice.

A single voice.

Deep.

Ancient.

Familiar.

Auren froze.

He knew that voice.

It was his.

But older.

Much older, weighted with something he had no name for.

And it spoke from beneath the earth.

”You shouldn’t have come back.”

Auren’s blood went cold.

The woman stepped backward.

The citizens followed, retreating as one toward the edges of the plaza.

Ethan raised his sword.

The Witness opened his book, hands trembling.

Auren stared into the darkness.

”Who are you?”

The voice answered.

”The part of you that remembered.”

Auren’s heart stopped.

The five Fragments erupted.

The city lights went out.

Every person disappeared into shadow, swallowed by darkness so complete it felt less like night and more like absence.

And from beneath the First City...

Auren’s own voice laughed.

Not with joy.

With relief.

”Finally.”

The darkness opened wider.

Auren saw a pair of eyes beneath the city.

Five lights burned inside them.

Then a sixth.

Broken.

Auren whispered:

”What did I create?”

The woman answered from behind him, her voice barely audible over the deepening tremor in the ground.

”The reason you had to forget.”

The eyes opened completely.

And the thing beneath the city stood up.

End of Chapter 165.