"There are places so old, they no longer obey time.Serath's Vein doesn't bleed. It remembers."
The opening to the Vein wasn't visible to the eye.
It was sensed—a pulse beneath the sand, a low, aching thrum like the heartbeat of something long buried but not quite dead. Lucien stood at the center of a cracked amphora ring, where the wind did not stir and light bent unnaturally.
[Objective Reached: Serath's Vein][Environmental Status: Divine-Class Remnant Zone][Reality Density: 317% – High risk of Temporal Drift and Soul Desync]
He drove the Echo Beacon into the ground.
The sand resisted. Then screamed.
A spiral of bone and obsidian twisted upward, forming an archway that bled golden mist. Within it, a stairway descended into darkness—carved from flesh-like stone, lined with veins that pulsed faintly.
Lucien entered without hesitation.
As he descended, the temperature dropped—not with cold, but with stillness. Even time seemed slower here. His HUD stuttered, glitched, then stabilized with corrupted fonts.
[SER▲TH.9 Vein/Path//Unmapped][███STRUCT_TRACER → NULL // Continue? Y/N]
Lucien ignored the warnings.
Each step echoed deeper than it should have. Sometimes he heard a child's voice whispering his name. Other times, he heard laughter.
Not his.
Not anyone human.
After what felt like hours—or minutes, or centuries—he reached the core chamber.
It was unlike anything he'd seen.
A cathedral fused with anatomy. Ribs of colossal size formed arches. A heart-like structure throbbed above an altar of hollow crystal. Around the chamber floated shards of memory—real, tangible, humming with power.
In the center stood a statue.
Not of a man.
But of a being with his face—Lucien's face—but aged, crowned, and pierced through the chest by Veyrion.
"What…?" Lucien whispered.
The statue's eyes began to glow.
And then, it spoke.
"False Echo. Failed fragment. Traitor twin.""You were not meant to return here."
Lucien took a step back, Veyrion in hand. The statue's wounds glowed with golden ichor that hissed in the air.
"You killed me," it said, voice layered with wrath and regret. "Or perhaps I killed you. It is difficult, when one is both the blade and the betrayal."
"What are you?" Lucien asked.
"I am what you could become. What you did become. I am Serath's mistake—her hope. Her executioner. Her heir."
Lucien's grip tightened.
"Why do you have my face?"
"Because you are a copy."
[Warning: Memory Core Distortion Detected – Soul Identity Fragmentation 42%]
Lucien staggered.
The chamber spun.
Images surged in his mind:
A battlefield of gods.
A woman in black flames whispering his name.
A crown made of echo fragments.
Himself, kneeling before a dying god, blade in hand.
The truth burned.
He had been one of many.
Not just reborn—but shattered, recreated, split from a singular entity that ruled in the age before the Realms had names.
This was his original self.
Or… what remained of it.
The statue bled mist.
It lifted one hand—and the walls shuddered.
From the shadows, guardians emerged: fleshless knights wrapped in chains of history, bound by words no longer spoken.
[Hostiles Detected: Null Paladins of the First Accord][Engage? Y/N]
Lucien didn't wait.
"Come," he said. "If I'm a copy—then let me prove I'm the better one."
He activated Echo Entropy.
Reality bent.
Veyrion blurred with afterimages.
He dashed forward—cutting through time and motion. The first knight swung—he vanished, reappeared behind, cleaved clean through. A second launched spears of light—Lucien deflected with a word, forcing the very concept of impact to rewrite itself.
One by one, they fell.
Until only the statue remained.
Still smiling.
Still bleeding.
"Well done," it whispered. "Then take what you came for. And remember—this power is not a gift. It's a debt."
The heart above the altar cracked open.
A crystal floated downward—shaped like a shard of a crown.
[Item Acquired: Crown Fragment 2/3 – Serath's Memory][Skill Gained: Hollowblood Surge – Temporarily rewrite system boundaries. Risk: Overload/Mutation]
Lucien took it.
As it fused into his Soulframe, he heard something.
A song.
Low.
Distant.
Familiar.
And from far above, through the miles of bone and shadow, he felt the Graven Shore die.
[Alert: Regional Collapse – Graven Shore Status: Sealed]
He turned to leave—but before he could, the statue crumbled.
Not from decay.
But from relief.
"You're free now," it said. "Don't make the same mistake I did."
Lucien emerged hours later, skin streaked with glow-veins, cloak soaked in vapor.
The Beacon was dark.
The sea was gone.
The Graven Shore… had vanished.
And behind him, the stairway to Serath's Vein collapsed—never to open again.
[Crown Restoration Progress: 2/3][Warning: Final Fragment located in the Domain of the Sovereign Choir][Faction Notice: All Chanter Lords are now aware of your ascension status][Intervention Level Escalated: Sovereign-Class Adjudicator Dispatched]
Lucien stared at the stars.
They had moved again.
Each one singing.
Each one watching.
He whispered:
"Then come find me."