Chapter 6: Thirteen Echoes, Thirteen Shadows
Chapter 6: Thirteen Echoes, Thirteen Shadows
The night after the trial was not a restful one.
Kael stood at the edge of the ruins, eyes fixed on the fractured horizon. Ash clouds churned above Hollow Spire like smoke trapped beneath a glass dome. In the distance, the great obsidian peaks shimmered faintly resonating with something ancient, something alive.
Nysera sat cross-legged by the dwindling fire, her mirrored clone curled up beside her like a sleeping animal. She breathed in silence, but her brow was furrowed. Tyros, bruised and shirtless, leaned against a boulder and stared at his cracked vambrace, mumbling to himself in Drak'tharan tongue.
Kael felt it first the thread.
Not a voice.
Not a vision.
But a pull. Like invisible fibers of will tugging at the corners of his Oculith, drawing him toward something unseen.
> [System Notice: Global Oculith Resonance Detected.]
[Seven Eyes Active. First Chain Reaction Achieved. Consequence Cascade Initiated.]
He stiffened.
"What was that?" Nysera asked, standing up abruptly.
Kael turned slowly. "Other Sightbearers... they've awakened."
Tyros sat up, flames flickering instinctively along his spine. "Where?"
Kael didn't need to answer. The sky above them cracked.
---
Across the ocean, in the floating temples of Aerthilum, a young woman named Sariah of the Aeonblood Elves screamed as her second seal unlocked without warning. Her twin iridescent Oculiths reflected infinite sky. Thunder cracked around her, and a tornado of condensed memory twisted the temple spires into glass.
> [Oculith Seal II: Memory Entropy Activated.]
[Warning: Catastrophic backlash probability: 91%]
Priests fell to their knees.
The sky shimmered with her scream.
---
Deep below the desert lands of Thas'kar, a Noxkin called Ruum clawed his way free of a forgotten well, shadows dripping from his limbs like ichor. His eyes pulsed with violet-black rings the Eater's Oculith had awakened.
Around him, an entire caravan of tomb-raiders collapsed, their shadows torn from their bodies.
> [Seal I Activated: Shadow Extraction]
[Seal Cost: Vital Essence Conversion x3. Hunger State Triggered.]
Ruum licked his cracked lips, hunger howling behind his pupils.
---
Kael watched the sky fracture, then repair itself.
The Sightbonded were awakening. Thirteen... no, maybe more. Ripples across the world, subtle yet catastrophic. Some would burn out. Some would ascend. But the world was no longer quiet.
"We have to leave," Kael said.
"Where?" Nysera asked.
"To find the others. Before they tear the Low Realm apart."
Tyros nodded. "The Seal's getting stronger. I feel it inside me. Like my blood's on fire."
A soft cough interrupted them.
An elder stood at the ruin's mouth. Bent-backed, robed in charcoal feathers, and with glowing amber eyes the Elder of Hollow Spire, Maeryn, had arrived.
"I see you've triggered the Archive," he said calmly.
Kael stood straighter. "You knew?"
"I knew it was buried," Maeryn replied. "I did not know it would sing again."
Behind him, two other figures emerged. One was a young woman silver-scaled, with a single curved horn and moonlit eyes. The other, a childlike figure wrapped in voidsilk, genderless, with a single spiral-shaped eye.
Both radiated resonance.
Both were Sightbearers.
Kael's heart skipped.
"You brought them here?" Tyros asked, already flaring.
"I didn't," the Elder replied. "They came on their own."
The silver-scaled girl stepped forward. "My name is Lira of the Deepcrest. I carry the Serpent's Spiral. Second Seal active. Third... forming."
The voidsilk-cloaked figure tilted their head. "Name: Cehn. Function: Watcher. Seal progression... anomalous."
> [System Alert: Sightbearer Convergence Threshold Reached. Coordinated Events Enabled. Low Realm Protocol: Collision Tier I.]
"Five of thirteen," Maeryn murmured. "That's never happened before."
Kael swallowed. "What's going to happen now?"
The Elder turned, gaze heavy. "Now, the Low Realm changes. The seals will stir monsters and kings alike. And before the sun passes thrice, the first war over Oculiths will begin."
---
Later that evening, under a sky split by slow-moving comets of Oculith light, the Elder summoned Kael and the others into the council sanctum carved into Hollow Spire's spine. Dozens of glowing sigils formed around the obsidian walls.
"Sit," Maeryn commanded.
He gestured toward a projection of the Realms.
"You've heard the names," he began. "But now you must understand the path.
The Low Realm—where you now walk—is a place of fledgling power and raw awakening. You begin as Mortal, progress to Awakened, then pass through Ember Core, Spirit Pulse, and eventually become Ascendant Flame."
Kael took notes in his mind, each name slotting into his Oculith's memory thread.
"Each stage expands your resonance with your Seal," Maeryn continued. "Only two Seals may open here in full. Any attempt to push beyond will... fracture you."
He looked pointedly at Nysera, whose clone now trembled with feedback in the corner.
"The Middle Realm is another thing entirely. There, you will refine your body and law. You'll craft Soul Forges, gain Celestial Flow, and become Lawsteppers. But it is in the High Realm where you risk becoming more than mortal—World Binders, Cosmic Apexes, Devourers of Origin."
He paused, then fixed Kael with a final look.
"And it is only there, that your Oculith's final function will be revealed."
Kael felt his spine shiver.
---
Far away, on the isle of Devour's Grasp, another Sightbearer awoke. Their body was genderless, carved from void-stone, and their first Seal devoured the sea around them.
Their name was never known.
Only the screams that followed.