The wind howled like something wounded.
Ren stood at the edge of a collapsed highway overpass, his breath frosting in the cold. Below, the violet mist writhed like a living tide, rising and falling with silent intent. The world stretched out before him—a graveyard of titans.
Cracked towers slumped like dead gods, cables hanging like entrails.
Sunken vehicles, half-digested by creeping moss.
Skybones—levitating ribcages of extinct beasts—cast long shadows on the ground.
His boots scraped over broken asphalt, each step echoing with memory static. The System fed him data in cold fragments:
[System] Topography: Unknown. Temporal distortion: active. Soul Signal—multiple, scattered.
[Alert] Host deviation detected. Soulburn drift exceeding 3.2%.
He ignored it. The air here felt too still, like a breath held too long.
A sound broke the quiet—
Chimes. Dozens of them, discordant and hollow.
He followed the sound.
The remnants of a temple stood ahead—half-sunken into the earth, its foundation wrapped in thorny, crystalline vines. Bells hung from rusted chains, chiming with no wind. In the center, a statue: a faceless figure cloaked in feathers and shattered glass.
His HUD flickered.
[System] Codex update: Ruin Class – Shrine of the Echo Mother.
[Alert] Ambient resonance detected. External memory field active.
Then he felt it—
A pull behind his navel.
A pressure behind his eyes.
The world shifted.
Suddenly he was standing in someone else's memory.
The sky bled silver.
Dozens knelt before the statue. A priestess—eyes blindfolded, arms covered in inked runes—spoke in a whisper that echoed like thunder: "The world forgets, but the Echo Mother does not. She remembers the first scream, the last breath, the truth we burned to survive."
The crowd repeated the chant in unison: "We are not whole. We are not lost. We are remembered."
Then flames. Screams. Soldiers in black veils dragging people away. The statue crying violet blood.
Ren blinked—and he was back in the ruin, heart hammering, palms shaking. The vision clung to him like smoke.
[System] External memory absorbed: Fragment - Echo Rite Witnessed. Synaptic gain: +2%.
He stumbled backward, eyes falling on a scorch mark by the altar—one shaped like a human shadow. In the middle lay a twisted pendant, still faintly glowing.
His hand reached for it—then froze.
A voice behind him, soft as silk but threaded with razors: "You're not supposed to be here, Soulburn."
Ren spun, weapon raised.
A figure stood atop the temple steps. Cloaked in flickering shadow, face hidden behind a mask of polished obsidian. Their voice sounded young—but old in the way forgotten gods are old.
"Did they send you to finish what they started? Or are you just another broken weapon walking until it breaks something?"
Ren said nothing. The System buzzed warnings in his ears:
[Alert] Entity: Uncatalogued. Threat Level: ???. Soul signature—fragmented, unknown origin.
The masked figure tilted their head. "You reek of him, you know. The last Calder."
Ren stiffened. "You knew me?"
"No," the figure replied. "I knew the echo of you."
Then they were gone—vanished into smoke as if they had never been.
Only the pendant remained, now cold.
Ren picked it up. The System chimed again:
[System] New data acquired: Echo Tether – Function Unknown. Soul Path options updated. Class affinity shift detected.
[System] New option unlocked: Riftwalker.
He turned his gaze back to the horizon. The land beyond churned with half-memories and dead things that had learned to walk again.
And somewhere out there, someone remembered him.
Not the real him—but the burned version. The weapon. The host.
Ren set off toward the horizon, pulse pounding with questions and smoke. The world didn't wait.
And neither would he.