Kael stood unmoving in the ruin of the coliseum.
His blade—cracked but intact—was still in his hand. The remnants of Noctherion's aura drifted like embers in the wind, pulled into the void of Kael's Ashen Domain, swallowed without trace.
But the silence didn't last.
Because the gate—that gate—was still open.
It hung in the sky like a bleeding wound in reality. The color around it was wrong. Not darkness, not void—something less than either. Screams echoed from within, not loud, not chaotic—just steady. Familiar.
Voices of hunters long dead.
Lyra ran toward Kael, her celestial aura shielding her from the heat and static that crackled off him. "Kael! Close the gate—we don't know what's coming through!"
"I do," Kael replied, voice low.
He didn't look back.
Behind him, Zera materialized from shadow, already analyzing the gate. Her eyes narrowed.
"That's not a dungeon gate," she said, deadly calm. "That's a resonance breach—a door left open between layers. Not just to another dungeon. To the remnants between realities."
Drayke cracked his knuckles. "So… what's coming out? Another Eternal?"
"No," Zera said. "Something older."
[System Alert: Aura System Overload Detected]
Ashen Domain: Instability 73%
Warning: Aura Contamination Imminent
Kael gripped his chest.
He could feel it. The Eternal's essence hadn't been fully purified. Its hatred—its memory—still pulsed inside him.
It whispered.
It waited.
His aura flared again, forcefully stabilizing his core.
Not yet.
The gate pulsed again.
And then…
A figure stepped through.
Humanoid.
No aura.
But every single person in the coliseum dropped to their knees the moment it arrived.
Even Zera's eyes widened. "Impossible."
Kael's jaw tightened. "You feel it too?"
Lyra trembled beside him. "That's not an Eternal. It's not even a monster…"
"It's a Godless Echo," Zera said.
"An entity that once killed an Eternal and refused divinity."
The figure looked like a boy—no older than Kael—but wrapped in bandages and shadow. No mouth. No eyes. Yet Kael knew he was being watched.
The boy raised a single hand—and every light in the coliseum went out.
Then he spoke.
Not with words.
But with memory.
Kael's mind flooded—scenes of ancient battles, cities lost in a single breath, Eternals bowing… and this thing standing alone.
Unbent.
Untouched by fate.
A true anomaly.
Then it said one word:
"Unworthy."
And it moved.
Kael barely blocked.
The boy's strike came faster than light. His blade shattered on contact. Blood flew from Kael's mouth as he was flung into a collapsed tower.
But he stood.
Barely.
His aura screamed.
He screamed with it.
"Ashen Domain—Gravelight Convergence!"
He called it all—every soul he had absorbed, every echo—into a single spear of light and dark. He hurled it at the Echo—
It vanished.
The boy was already behind him.
A hand pierced Kael's back.
But the Echo didn't kill him.
It leaned in—and whispered.
"Come find me when you're more than a shadow."
Then it stepped back into the gate.
And the gate vanished.
Silence.
Kael fell to his knees, coughing blood.
Drayke ran forward, catching him. "What the hell was that?! You just fought an Eternal—how is this thing stronger?"
Zera didn't answer.
Because she was too busy looking at Kael's back.
Where a mark now pulsed—black, glowing faintly.
A brand.
The mark of an Echo.
[System Notification: You Have Been Marked]
Echo Trial Initiated
Path to Godhood is now active
Kael clenched his fists.
He could still feel the boy's aura.
Still hear that single, damning word.
Unworthy.
He wouldn't stay that way.
Not for long.