Yeo stood before the fractured façade of the Temple of Whispered Codes, the ancient stones etched with nearly indecipherable runes. Leiran's torchlight flickered across the glyphs as she traced a finger along a seam.
"This place… it's rumored to contain the True Archive," she whispered. "Where the Chronicle was first written."
Yeo closed his eyes, focusing inward. Echo Channeling—a new talent granted by the system—hung at the edge of his consciousness. He inhaled deeply, summoning the memory of Kael's warning, the Tyrant King's regret, and every shard of insight he'd absorbed.
[Echo Channeling: Active. Memory Dive available.]
He opened his eyes, now alight with inner flame. Touching the rune-carved door, he let the Chronicle's power flow through him.
The temple walls dissolved into shifting code, revealing a hidden lock of living light. Patterns danced across the threshold—fractal sigils that responded only to the correct sequence of echoes.
Yeo closed his eyes again, diving into the web of alternate memories. In one vision, he saw himself kneeling before the gods, begging forgiveness. In another, he watched as he shattered the original Chronicle with a single, divine strike.
[Memory Dive: Layer 1 – Divine Forgiveness]
[Memory Dive: Layer 2 – Codex Destruction]
He combined them—merging the plea for mercy with the act of shattering corrupted power—and exhaled a pulse of echo-light. The sigils glowed, the lock clicked, and the massive door swung inward.
Inside lay a vault of obsidian shelves, each holding crystalline tablets inscribed with the Chronicle's earliest entries.
Leiran stepped forward, awe-struck. "This… this is the source."
Yeo approached the largest tablet at the center. It glowed faintly, as if awaiting activation. Remembering the system prompt, he placed a hand on its surface and spoke:
"Chronicle: Reveal Truth Layer."
The tablet's runes shivered and spread, projecting a three-dimensional tapestry of the Aeon War. He saw the gods at the pinnacle of power, the forging of the Chronicle as a safeguard, and the moment it was corrupted by divine ambition.
[System Update: Truth Layer Unsealed.]
[New Functionality: Codex Audit – Access original, untainted entries.]
A sudden tremor shook the temple. One of the tablets shattered, spraying shards of light across the floor. From the broken fragments, a voice echoed—soft, sorrowful, unmistakably human:
"We bound ourselves to this Codex, to preserve hope… yet hope became our cage."
Leiran looked to Yeo. "That voice… it's a god's lament."
Yeo swallowed. The untainted Chronicle had revealed its first secret: the gods themselves were slaves to their own creation—and that the power he wielded was born of both hope and hubris.
He lifted his chin. "Then it's time someone set it right."