Z-69 stopped running as abruptly as if someone had grabbed his spine and yanked it backward.

  One moment he was sprinting through the neon-choked chaos of Level Ten, dodging thugs and half-malfunctioning drones with Lumina clinging to his shoulder like a trembling blue scarf—and the next, he froze mid-step.

  He wasn’t reacting to any visible threat.

  The air itself had changed.

  A subtle shift.

  A breath held by the world.

  A silence far too deep for Level Ten.

  It washed over him like a wave, swallowing every sound.

  The buzzing neon hums vanished.

  The distant arguments of vendors disappeared.

  The drunken shouting from alleys fell dead mid-echo.

  Even the artificial rain seemed to hang suspended in the air, droplets frozen like tiny glass beads.

  “Lumina,” Z-69 murmured, turning his head slightly. “Do you sense anything?”

  The little fox clutched tighter onto his collar.

  Her fur puffed up, ears pressed flat against her head.

  “I feel,” she whispered shakily, “that we SHOULD NOT go in there.”

  “But,” Z-69 said slowly, staring straight ahead into what looked like… nothingness, “something is calling me. A familiar frequency.”

  “Familiar—what’s familiar about that?!” Lumina snapped.

  Her voice pitched higher than usual, as if the walls themselves had begun listening.

  “It feels like… a locked memory.”

  Lumina’s tail wrapped tighter around his neck, not affectionately this time, but like a seatbelt preparing for impact.

  “If you go in,” she said, “I’m not sure I can pull you back out.”

  Z-69 blinked at the void ahead.

  It wasn’t normal shadow.

  It was an absence, a place where even thoughts seemed muted.

  His instincts screamed danger—yet, something deep in his chest hummed with an almost magnetic pull.

  “I have lived twice,” he said casually. “If this is a trap, I want to see how sophisticated it is.”

  Lumina’s jaw dropped.

  “Who the hell says that like it’s a fun challenge?!”

  But Z-69 had already stepped forward.

  A structure materialized from the darkness like a memory surfacing from deep water.

  A wooden door.

  Old.

  Splintered.

  No signboard, no markings—just a door that had no business existing in a cyberpunk undercity made entirely of steel and neon.

  Z-69 pushed it open.

  Inside, darkness pressed in as if it were a living thing.

  It was the kind of darkness that didn’t simply lack light—it devoured it.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Cling.

  A single oil lamp flickered to life.

  Its flame swayed gently, illuminating the room inch by inch… as though reluctant to reveal what lay within.

  The shop appeared.

  An unbelievably normal shop.

  Normal shelves.

  Normal wooden floor.

  Normal ceiling fans spinning with a slow, lazy groan.

  Yet everything on the shelves was not normal.

  Forbidden relics sealed in airtight cases.

  Black metal fragments etched with runes that twisted the eye.

  Bones of creatures Lumina did NOT want to identify.

  Odd crystal stones fading between colors like they were breathing.

  A jar of pickled tentacles labeled “SUSHI GRADE — PREMIUM.”

  And sitting at a Victorian-style tea table, positioned right before the cashier counter, was a man.

  Black suit.

  Black gloves.

  White mask—painted with an emotionless smile.

  A mask without eyes, nose, or mouth.

  Yet the tea cup lifted to where a mouth should’ve been, and tea disappeared into the mask anyway.

  Z-69 had seen corpses.

  He had seen abominations.

  He had seen undead hybrids of machine and flesh.

  But this… this felt wrong in an entirely different way.

  The man stood up smoothly, placing the teacup down with immaculate precision.

  He bowed with the grace of a perfectly scripted performance.

  “Welcome back to my humble little trading shop. I have been waiting for your arrival.”

  Z-69 frowned.

  “Waiting for me? Do I know you?”

  The man gave a soft laugh—the kind that was polite yet cold enough to frost metal.

  “Ohh, it seems the rumors were true—you really did lose your memories.”

  He touched his chest lightly.

  “How rude of me. Allow me to reintroduce myself.”

  “I am the Faceless Merchant, owner of this small and modest Faceless Trading Shop—ready to fulfill any of your desires… for a reasonable price.”

  Z-69 leaned toward Lumina.

  “Pss, Lumina. This guy is suspicious. He talks nothing like the people of Level Ten.”

  Lumina whispered sharply:

  “You’re right. Extremely suspicious. He even paused when he said ‘for a reasonable price’ Huge red flag.”

  They both turned their heads toward the Faceless Merchant with identical judgmental expressions.

  Silence fell.

  The merchant paused… perhaps stunned that both man and fox were openly gossiping about him to his face.

  Then he cleared his throat:

  “Ahem… I can hear your voice, Z-69. And I can also hear the little fox’s mind-speech very clearly.”

  Lumina stiffened.

  “He’s eavesdropping on us too—this is getting WAY too suspicious, we should leave.”

  Z-69 nodded.

  “The fox has a point. We’re leaving.”

  They both turned around simultaneously—as if on a date that had gone horribly wrong.

  The Faceless Merchant didn’t stop them.

  He watched with a serene, almost amused quiet, like a person observing pets misbehave.

  “Hold on… you just got here, and you’re already leaving?

  Are you not interested in the item I prepared especially for you?”

  Z-69 halted.

  “You prepared something for me?”

  “Indeed. To welcome a valued customer returning after more than 300 years, I—the Faceless Merchant—have prepared a special item I guarantee you will need, available at an extremely generous price.”

  Z-69 tilted his head.

  “Show me.”

  The merchant snapped his gloved fingers.

  A pink wooden door appeared out of thin air, floating upright in front of them.

  Z-69 stared hard.

  “…Is it just me… or does this pink door look familiar?”

  Lumina squinted.

  “It looks like nostalgia wrapped in a lawsuit.”

  The Faceless Merchant gestured elegantly:

  “This is advanced teleportation technology known as the ‘Miracle Door.’ It can send you to any place you have ever visited. I bought it from a chubby earless blue robotic cat. If you want, I can sell you one at a very affordable price.”

  Z-69’s eyebrow twitched.

  “What is your definition of ‘affordable’?”

  “1,000,000,000,000,000,000… Crimeria Credits, or you may trade me something of equal value.”

  Z-69’s face went blank.

  Lumina muttered:

  “That number has more zeros than your entire lifespan.”

  Z-69 waved a hand.

  “Right. Back to the main point. You want me to walk into that door with you? I am not trusting you enough—or stupid enough—for that.”

  “Even with amnesia, I know I should not follow strangers, especially masked ones offering mysterious opportunities.”

  “You don’t need to trust me,” the merchant replied coolly.

  “You only need to go in.”

  Before Z-69 could respond— Snap*.*

  The teleportation doorway materialized directly beneath him.

  Z-69 looked down.

  The floor was gone.

  Replaced by swirling black void.

  “Oh shi—”

  Z-69 vanished into darkness.

  The Faceless Merchant clapped his hands together.

  “HAHAHA! After more than three hundred years, and that fool still falls for the same trick!”

  Then the merchant calmly walked to the edge of the void— straightened his sleeves— and hopped in after him like someone entering a luxury spa.

  The darkness was endless.

  Silence pressed against Z-69’s skull like a dense fog.

  He floated.

  Or fell.

  Or existed.

  Hard to distinguish.

  His chest crystal pulsed dimly, shedding faint violet light like a dying star.

  From somewhere above him— or below— the Merchant’s voice echoed:

  “Do not fear the dark, Z-69. For a long, long time…you used to walk deeper darkness than this.”

  Z-69’s eyes opened wider.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, memories will return when they feel like it,” the Merchant chuckled.

  “But for now—welcome.”

  The void cracked open—like an egg splitting.

  Light rushed in.

  A new space formed around them.

  Alien.

  Ancient.

  Impossible.

  It stretched infinitely, shelves spiraling into the sky, filled with weapons, relics, technologies, forbidden artifacts—each humming with power like sleeping beasts.

  Z-69 landed on his feet.

  Lumina nearly fell off his shoulder.

  “What… is this place?” he asked.

  The Faceless Merchant spread his arms.

  “This, Z-69, is where your past and future intersect. And what you will find here…is the weapon destined for your hand.”