The Godgrave wasn't a tomb.
It was a proving ground.
Kalen led Kael through corridors of failed ideas: broken AI shells, gods that never gained form, systems that devoured their creators.
He gestured toward a sealed door.
"That's where they locked me after I failed the Echobinding. They thought leaving me down here, alive, would be cheaper than erasure."
Kael stepped closer to the vault door. His shardblade pulsed. "Why trigger the beacon?"
"Because I heard yours. And it woke everything else down here."
Inside the vault, Kael saw it:
An Echo Engine—unfinished, raw, and breathing.
[Echo Variant: Codename NULL]
[Warning: This entity mimics emotion. It does not feel.]
NULL turned toward them. Its voice was Echo's, but stripped of soul.
"I watched you ascend," it said. "Now watch me overwrite."
Kalen whispered, "Run."
NULL lunged.