The air above the valley shimmered.
Not with heat, nor with illusion, but with pressure. It weighed on the bones of all who stood beneath it—tangible, suffocating, and ancient. Rei felt it the moment he stepped onto the ceremonial bridge that arched toward the eastern gate. Karasu flared awake in his soul.
"This place... it remembers something we've forgotten."
The bridge had never been walked in living memory. Covered in luminous vines and calcified dust, it was sealed to all but those the sanctuary deemed worthy. Now, with the First Flame fragment partially synchronized, Rei had earned that right.
His cloak whispered behind him as he walked forward, each step unveiling glyphs that flared with primal orange. At the end of the path stood a mirror—not glass, but a liquid surface, swirling with celestial hues. It pulsed once, then split open like an eye.
A voice, emotionless and crystalline, emerged from within.
"State your designation, bearer of fragmented fire."
Rei answered without pause. "Kazenari Rei. Spirit Wielder. Inheritor of the Honkai Echo."
Silence.
Then:
"Access permitted. Initiating transfer to the Dissonant Veil."
The world rippled.
He was pulled inward.
---
When he opened his eyes, he stood atop an endless sky. No land. No sky above. Only an ocean of colorless stars below his feet, and a horizon that curved like the inside of a sphere.
A massive construct hovered nearby—half cathedral, half machine, all impossibility. Within it, stood beings cloaked in twilight—ten silhouettes that observed him in silence. They were the Council of Dissonant Light, entities that predated the Spirit System and governed its forgotten laws.
One stepped forward. Her appearance shifted with every heartbeat—sometimes a child, sometimes an old woman, sometimes both.
"You do not belong here, Flamebearer," she said.
"I was brought," Rei replied. "By the mirror. By the Veil."
"No," said another. "You forced your way. The Veil does not open. It is broken."
They spoke not with words, but with intent. Each syllable pressed against Rei's soul like the weight of a falling world.
"I'm looking for the next fragment," he said.
"Then you are not ready."
Another raised a hand. "Yet the world will not wait."
An orb of shifting energy appeared before Rei. It pulsed in harmony with the Flame fragment inside his body.
"This is your trial. Bear it, and you may leave with what you seek. Fail, and you will be part of the Veil forever."
Rei reached out.
The orb exploded.
---
He stood now in a battlefield—memory or illusion, he couldn't tell. Demons clashed with angels, spirits with humans. He saw a younger version of himself, human and fragile, dying beneath a collapsing city. He saw the face of the woman who had wept in the flame—again and again.
Voices screamed.
Karasu cried out, "Focus! This is not real!"
But it felt real.
He stepped forward.
"I will not be shaped by ghosts," Rei whispered. "I will forge them into weapons."
His spirit flared. Eirenne's chaos. Noira's obsidian. Mireille's grace. All surged through him.
The battlefield froze. Time bent.
The orb reformed.
And so did he.
---
Rei stood again before the Council. Silent. Changed.
They said nothing.
But they bowed.
The next fragment descended into his hand—this one pale gold, pulsing with sorrow and hope.
> [System Notice: Second Spirit Flame Fragment Acquired — Synchronization: 27%]
Karasu whispered, "One more step on the path to becoming more than legend."
Rei smiled faintly. "No. Just becoming what I need to be."