# Chapter 614: The Echo's Report
The silence in the command center was thick enough to choke on. ruku bez stood before the holographic map, his hands trembling as he replayed the scene in his mind. The other scouts leaned against the wall, their faces pale, the ash on their clothes a stark reminder of the world outside. Nyra stared at the red dot representing the Iron-Tooth Mountains, her earlier confidence now a fragile shell. "It knew we were watching," ruku bez said, his voice a low rasp. "It looked right at us. And it spoke." He swallowed hard, the memory of the sound raw in his throat. "It wasn't just a sound. It was a name. It tried to say his name." He looked directly at Nyra, his eyes wide with a terror that went beyond the fear of death. "It's not just a monster, Nyra. It's a ghost wearing his face, and it's hunting us."
The words hung in the recycled air of the command center, a poison seeping into the cracks of their strategy. The low hum of the data-servers and the soft glow of the holographic table suddenly felt like the trappings of a tomb. Nyra's carefully constructed offensive, a symphony of coordinated strikes and precise logistics, had just been shattered by a single, discordant note. She could feel the eyes of her command staff on her, the weight of their unspoken fear pressing down. Talia Ashfor's face, usually a mask of pragmatic calm, was tight with concern on the main comms screen.
"Repeat that, ruku bez," Nyra said, her voice dangerously level. She kept her gaze fixed on the scout, refusing to let her own shock show. "Every detail. From the moment you made contact."
ruku bez took a shuddering breath, the scent of the wastes clinging to him like a shroud. It was the smell of cold iron, old death, and something else… something acrid and new. "We were tracking the energy signature, just as planned. A low-level Bloomblight, a fragment of the Scholar's power. The readings matched the pattern we'd seen in three other locations. A simple containment and extraction. But this one… it felt different. The ground was… quiet. Too quiet."
He gestured vaguely with one hand, as if trying to shape the feeling in the air. "My Gift. It senses vibrations, the land's memory. Usually, a Bloomblight is a chaotic storm of energy, a scream. This was a hum. A focused, resonant hum. Like a tuning fork struck just right. It was waiting."
Nyra's mind raced, cataloging the information. Waiting. It implied forethought. Tactics. This was no longer a matter of hunting beasts; it was an engagement with a thinking enemy. "Describe the creature."
"It was tall, gaunt, like the others, but… cleaner. Less corrupted. Its form was woven from shadow and pale, bone-like growths, but the lines of it were sharp, efficient. It moved with a purpose I've never seen in a Bloomblight. No wasted motion." He paused, his gaze distant. "Then it began to hunt the local fauna. Not with mindless fury. It was… practicing."
"Practicing what?" one of the analysts asked from his console.
"Fighting," ruku bez said, his voice dropping. "It stalked a pack of ash-hounds. It used the terrain for cover, herded them into a narrow ravine. It didn't just unleash its power. It conserved it. It used its limbs, its environment, with a brutal economy. When it finally struck, it was a sequence of movements I've seen before."
He looked at Nyra, and the unspoken name passed between them like a current of ice.
"Soren," Nyra whispered, the word feeling like a betrayal.
"Every step," ruku bez confirmed, his nod grim. "The way it feinted left before striking right. The pivot on its heel to avoid a lunging hound. The precise, brutal strike to the throat to end the fight. It was his style. Not just similar. It was *his*. Burned into its very being. It has his muscle memory. His instincts."
A cold dread, sharp and visceral, cut through Nyra's composure. She had known the Withering King was drawing power from the fragments, from the pieces of Soren it had consumed. But this was something else entirely. This was not theft; it was assimilation. The King wasn't just using Soren's power; it was learning from him, wearing his history like a second skin.
"It's a template," Talia's voice crackled from the comms, her mind already working through the strategic nightmare. "The King is using the Scholar's absorbed consciousness as a blueprint. It's not just creating Bloomblights; it's creating soldiers. Personalized assassins."
The implications cascaded through Nyra's thoughts like a line of falling dominoes. Every plan, every predicted enemy behavior, was now obsolete. They were not fighting a force of nature anymore. They were fighting a reflection of their greatest champion, a twisted parody sent to destroy them.
"Did it see you?" Nyra pressed, her focus narrowing to the critical point.
ruku bez's face hardened, the terror in his eyes giving way to a grim certainty. "It let us watch. It performed for us. Then, when it was done, it turned. It knew exactly where we were, hidden a hundred paces away. It looked right at us. And it spoke."
The room was utterly still. The Bloomblights were silent horrors, their only sounds the shriek of torn metal or the roar of unleashed energy. The idea of one speaking was a violation of the natural order, a step so far into the abyss it was hard to comprehend.
"What did it say?" Nyra asked, though she already knew the answer.
"It was distorted, like the sound was being dragged through glass and gravel. But it was clear enough." ruku bez swallowed, the muscles in his throat working. "It said… 'Sor…'. It was trying to say his name. It was a warning. A taunt. I don't know. But it knew we were connected to him. It's not just hunting random targets. It's hunting *us*."
He took a step closer to the table, his hands flat on its cool surface, the holographic light glinting in the sweat on his brow. "It's not just a monster, Nyra," he said, his voice low and intense, driving the point home with the force of a physical blow. "It's a ghost wearing his face, and it's hunting us."
The declaration landed like a death sentence. The command center, a hub of activity and purpose just moments before, felt like a cage. The enemy was no longer an abstract concept. It was Soren. It was the memory of his every fight, every desperate move, every calculated risk, now perverted and turned against them. How could you fight a ghost? How could you raise a blade against a friend, even a monstrous echo of one?
Nyra's mind reeled. The first raid was scheduled to launch at dawn. A team led by Lyra, targeting a fragment in the ruins of a Sable League outpost. Lyra, who had fought beside Soren, who owed him her life. What would she do when faced with this thing? Could she even pull the trigger?
"Talia," Nyra said, her voice regaining its steel, the shock crystallizing into a cold, hard resolve. "Scrub the dawn raid. All operations. I want a full communications blackout to all field teams. New codewords, new encryption protocols. Now."
"Already on it," Talia replied, her fingers flying across an unseen keyboard. "But Nyra, some teams are already in position. We have assets en route to the Sunken City and the Whispering Canyons. I can't recall them without exposing their locations."
"Then they go dark," Nyra commanded. "They hold position and await new orders. No one moves until we understand what we're facing." She turned back to ruku bez. "You and your team are debriefed. Medical, psychological, the works. I need every nuance, every flicker of its movement, every shift in the ground beneath its feet. Everything."
She looked around the room at her stunned staff. "The rules of the game have changed. The Withering King isn't just setting traps anymore. It's sending hunters. And it knows us. It knows *him*."
Her gaze fell back to the holographic map. The red dots marking the Bloomblight fragments no longer looked like objectives. They looked like lures. Bait in a trap designed not just to kill them, but to break them, using the ghost of the man they were all fighting to save. The war for the Cinders had just become a war for their own souls.