I didn't sleep.
Not because I couldn't — the cot in the Guild infirmary was surprisingly soft for a place built to patch up people torn in half by magic and monsters. No, I didn't sleep because every time I closed my eyes, I saw them.
Shadows. Crawling. Curling. Whispering things I didn't understand. Things I didn't want to understand.
And beneath it all, the faint thrum of something alive… inside me.
The Echo Core.
Whatever the hell that thing was, it hadn't left me. It hadn't shattered like I'd thought. It had dissolved — or maybe fused — with me. And now my body felt… wrong.
Not broken. Not enhanced.
Just changed.
Morning came gray and cold.
Blackridge was always gray and cold.
I walked out of the infirmary just before dawn, hood up, head down. My wounds were gone. Skin smooth, scars erased. Not even a scratch. Arlen had stared at me like I was a fucking miracle when I sat up the night before.
"Did they give you some kind of potion?" he'd asked.
I just nodded. No use trying to explain. Not yet.
Now, I walked the damp streets of Elarion's capital like a ghost. People brushed past me, lost in their own lives. The city was alive but not for me. Not yet.
I needed answers.
And I knew where to find them.
The Obsidian Library
Deep beneath Blackridge, built into the bedrock itself, the Guild's central archive was off-limits to Hunters below B-Rank. Good thing the guards knew me from the fight with the Echo Wyrm. Saving a few elite asses gets you perks.
I lied. Said I was sent to retrieve a log from the latest Gate activity.
They let me in.
Dim torchlight lit endless shelves of ancient tomes and digital archives — magic and tech side by side. A place out of time.
I wasn't looking for Gate stats.
I was looking for myself.
And I found it.
Buried in a red-marked file under "Obsolete Anomalies" was an entry:
Subject: Echo-Type Manifestation
Status: TERMINATED
Notes: Incompatible with standard Gate mechanics. Infection risk.
Origin: First Recorded Gate, 47 years ago.
Containment: Failed.
It was dated the year Gates first opened. The year the world broke.
And at the bottom of the file, scrawled in black ink:
"If this ever happens again… destroy the host."
I left without speaking.
The whispers were louder now.
In the puddles. In the glass. In the corners of my mind.
"Breathe…"
"Bind…"
"Rise…"
---
Arlen found me an hour later, sitting on the roof of our favorite noodle shack.
"You're getting weird again," he said, plopping beside me with two steaming bowls.
"I was always weird."
"Yeah, but now it's like, brooding anime protagonist weird."
I snorted. "I'll take that as a compliment."
We ate in silence for a bit. Then Arlen set down his bowl and looked at me — really looked.
"You're not telling me everything," he said.
I stared into the broth.
"Nope."
"You dying?"
I shook my head.
"You… turning into something?"
I didn't answer.
He leaned back with a sigh. "Alright. Then I'll wait."
I blinked. "You'll wait?"
"Yeah. You'll either come clean or explode. Either way, I'm not going anywhere."
I hated how much that meant to me.
That night, I dreamed of the Wyrm.
But not how it died — how it rose.
Its body, black and scaled, rising from shadow. Its empty sockets glowing violet. It bent its monstrous head to me.
And bowed.
I woke to screaming.
A Gate had opened.
A small one — Class D — but something about it felt… off.
The Guild called for a cleanup crew. Arlen dragged me with him. Said we could use the cash.
The dungeon was a rotting cathedral inside a collapsed warehouse. Smelled like old incense and fresh blood.
I felt it the moment we crossed the Gate.
The pull.
The Echo Core inside me stirred. Shadows moved faster. Reacted to me.
And then — in the center of the cathedral — a figure emerged from the dark.
Thin. Human-shaped. But made of ink and glass.
An Echo Construct.
Like me.
It lunged.
The fight was chaos.
Guild Hunters screamed as the Construct tore through the air with scythe-like limbs. Arlen cursed beside me, firing off rounds from a relic rifle — enchanted but mostly useless.
I moved before I knew what I was doing.
No hesitation. No fear.
My hand reached.
And something obeyed.
The shadows beneath the Construct twisted.
It stumbled.
For a split second, it bowed.
Then I slammed my palm to the floor and yelled, "RISE!"
A burst of black flame exploded around us.
When the light cleared, the Construct was gone.
In its place stood a creature of dark mist and bone — crackling with violet veins.
And it was kneeling at my feet.
Arlen was speechless.
I was shaking.
The Guild called it a victory.
I called it a warning.
Whatever was happening to me… wasn't done.
And it wasn't safe.
Not for me.
Not for anyone.