Chapter 16: “Ashes That Speak”

The fire had long since died.

But the ashes?

They remembered.

Far across the continent, hidden beneath a mountain older than any written history, a dungeon trembled.

It was not dying.

It was weeping.

The dungeon was called Korrane.

Once, it was a marvel—a labyrinth of starlit halls and puzzle-bound sentient constructs. It had raised adventurers from nothing to legends.

Then, two years ago... it went still.

No new monsters. No mana draw. Just... silence.

Adventurers assumed it was dead.

They were wrong.

Inside Korrane, the air warped.

Cracks ran through the central core crystal—its mana bleeding like slow tears. Every few minutes, it would whisper a single name.

Not a name from its adventurer records.

Not from system data.

A name carved in raw emotion.

"Leo…"

Again.

"Leo…"

Again.

And somewhere far away, Leo heard it.

Back inside Leo's throne room, he paused mid-construction.

"...What was that?"

System Ping: Distant Core Echo Detected – Origin: Korrane (Designation: Type-Old God).

Echo carries emotional code: "Grief / Guilt / Longing."

Relationship: Unknown.

Leo stared at the prompt for several seconds.

"I don't know this dungeon."

"But it knows me."

The Mirror Beast beside him stirred—its obsidian hide flickering with inverted light.

"Respond?" the system asked.

Leo shook his head.

"Not yet."

Meanwhile—Naelia stood at the lake's edge, her feet bare in the frost-glazed water.

She'd been there for hours.

A fire elemental shouldn't feel cold, but she let the chill bite into her skin.

Something inside her was breaking—and she hated it.

"Leo didn't respond," she whispered.

"Why didn't he respond?"

The memory flame she'd sent should've done something.

Stirred something.

Instead, silence.

Worse than hatred. Worse than mockery.

Just… emptiness.

She reached into her system.

Opened her last echo.

Replay: "You broke this."

Her voice, broken.

"And you never said why."

In the background—a voice interrupted her memory.

"Because he couldn't say it."

Naelia turned, instantly on guard.

A woman stepped from the mist. Not cloaked. Not armed. Dressed in shimmering silk.

Thread trailing behind her like spiderwebs.

"You're from the Weavers."

The woman nodded, brushing white hair from her eyes.

"My name is Veyra. I am here on behalf of Mother."

Naelia's wings flared.

"Don't call her that. You think I don't know what your cult really wants?"

"You twist her words. You turn her kindness into prophecy."

Veyra tilted her head.

"And you turn it into fire. We all cope differently."

Naelia hissed—but the insult didn't land. Veyra's tone wasn't mocking. It was tired.

"What do you want?"

"To give you something," Veyra said.

She held out a thread—burned red-black, warm to the touch.

"This is his pain."

"You deserve to feel it."

Back in the dungeon—Leo's Ninth Floor was forming.

Maze-like halls shaped from mirrorstone. At every corner: statues of the Twelve.

Unfinished.

He hadn't completed their faces yet.

He wasn't sure how he wanted them to look.

"The Sibling Floor," he murmured.

"If she's going to walk through it, she'll see what I see."

Suddenly—his core flashed.

A pulse of mana like a heartbeat.

Incoming Message: Origin – Dungeon Korrane.

Type: Echo.

Classification: Terminal.

Leo frowned.

This time, he accepted.

The world shifted.

Vision:

A young man—barely older than Leo when he died—is cradling a small, glowing stone in his arms.

He's sobbing.

"They told me I could save them. I tried—I swear I tried."

The dungeon around him crumbles. Light flickers.

"But it just took and took and took... until I couldn't feel them anymore."

The stone fades. The boy collapses with it.

And before the world ends, he whispers:

"Fourth... I'm sorry."

The vision ends.

Leo's eyes opened.

His core pulsed. His hand clenched.

"...He was one of us?"

The system was silent.

Leo stood.

"The First? Second?"

"No," he muttered.

"He wasn't one of the Twelve."

"Then why call me that?"

Aboveground—Veyra placed the thread in Naelia's hand.

"He saw something die before you ever woke up."

"And when he broke the sword… it wasn't to hurt you."

"It was to protect you."

Naelia blinked—her fire flickering.

"Protect me from what?"

Veyra's smile was bitter.

"From what we all could become."

She turned to leave.

"Your anger is fire. But if you let it burn too long…"

"It'll consume your reason. Just like it did to the one who came before."

Back in the dungeon—Leo opened a new system interface.

[Dungeon-to-Dungeon Link Created]

Korrane Data Transferred.

He looked at the shattered map. Echoes of a construct system warped by emotional feedback.

"Too soft," he murmured.

"But maybe I needed to see that."

The Mirror Beast coiled beside him.

He turned to it.

"Start testing floor nine with behavioral responses. Prioritize memory distortion and emotional charge."

"If Naelia comes… I want her to see it all."