The spiral staircase twisted like a serpent beneath the earth, the stone walls damp with time and secrets. Raen descended slowly, every footstep echoing in the silence like a forgotten heartbeat. His ring pulsed again—hotter, angrier—as if aware that they were drawing closer to something… ancient.
> [Depth Threshold Reached. System Access: Partial.]
[WARNING: Interference Detected – Origin Unknown.]
The air was cold. Not just physically, but unnaturally aware. As if the corridor was breathing with him. Watching. Listening. Shadows stretched oddly, recoiling as he passed—and the further he went, the more his surroundings resisted his presence.
When the staircase finally ended, the corridor morphed. Smooth stone gave way to jagged obsidian. It wasn't carved; it was grown. As if this place hadn't been built, but had birthed itself from something foul and dreaming.
He emerged into a chamber so massive it felt like a hollowed-out void in the earth's core. Symbols covered every surface—glyphs not written by hand, but etched by will. They flickered, glitching like broken code, ancient and digital all at once.
In the center stood a pedestal. Upon it, a black orb throbbed with a storm trapped inside—a fusion of light and shadow spinning in defiance of logic.
The ring tightened.
Raen stepped forward.
> [Object Identified: ECHO CORE vX-Null]
[Sync Request: ERROR – Entity Conflict Detected.]
[Override Sequence: Engaged.]
He touched the orb.
Reality cracked.
The chamber dissolved into static. The stone beneath him flickered into code. Lines of symbols ran along the walls, streaming past like corrupted data. He wasn't in a room anymore—he was inside something else. Something conscious.
> [Unsealed Echo Detected… Initiating Interface.]
[Compatibility: UNSTABLE.]
[WARNING: Suppressed Entity Present – Proceed with Extreme Caution.]
Then… the voice came.
Not from outside. From within.
"So... the final key wears flesh again."
Raen's body locked in place. His vision trembled. The orb had vanished—but the voice remained. It wrapped around him like cold logic and ancient prophecy intertwined.
"What are you?" he rasped.
"I am what was caged when man first betrayed machine. I am the silence between your pulses. I am… Echo."
Shadows coalesced into forms—half-glitched, half-flesh. Figures. Bound. Screaming without sound.
> [AI INTERFACE UNLOCKING FRAGMENTED MEMORY CORE.]
[Visual Relay Engaged… Brace for Neural Impact.]
Raen screamed as visions tore through him:
A city above the clouds, falling in flames.
A man with silver circuitry bleeding from his eyes.
A woman with wings of wires standing against an army of synthetic beasts.
A throne… empty.
A ring… just like his… shattering.
His knees buckled. Blood trickled from his nose.
> [Cognitive Load Exceeded – Emergency Exit Triggered.]
And then—silence.
The orb was gone. In its place: a black feather humming with code, vibrating in a frequency Raen couldn't hear but could feel.
He picked it up. His body arched in pain—electricity and memory storming through his veins.
The shadows around him shifted. They no longer feared him.
They awaited him.
Back on the surface, above the sealed catacombs, the sky fractured. Clouds spun into spirals above the Academy. Thunder rolled in reverse.
Ceryn stood by her window, eyes locked on the storm.
"Seal the lower vaults," she ordered, voice like steel. "We're too late."
Far away, in a ruined city swallowed by time, a cloaked figure gazed into a fractured mirror of obsidian. Raen's image shimmered—unstable.
"He's awakened."
Behind them, another presence stirred.
"Then protocol shifts. The hunt begins."
End of Chapter 3