Echoes in the Walls
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The Clinic – Three Days Later
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Kael woke to whispers.
They weren't the fragmented memories he was used to—no burning torches, no ghostly visions of the Sovereign he once was.
These were soft.
Familiar.
They came from the walls.
He sat up slowly in his room. The lights were dim, set to low-echo mode. Rain tapped against the reinforced windows. His blade Ashwake rested near the headboard, wrapped in a cloth damp from the humidity.
He stood.
And the whispers stopped.
He listened, waiting.
Then—tap… tap… tap.
Not the rain.
Something inside the walls.
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Downstairs – Command Hub, 4:37 A.M.
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Selene was already awake, feet propped on a table, sipping from a half-cold cup of black tea and scrolling through incident reports.
Kael walked in, barefoot, shirt loose, eyes still haunted by the quiet.
"You hear it?" he asked.
She didn't even look up. "Yep."
"When did it start?"
"Two nights ago."
He frowned. "And you didn't say anything?"
Selene finally glanced up. "You were recovering. Zeke's still running diagnostics. Rin's been meditating in the south wing since yesterday. I figured—if it was going to kill us, it would've done it already."
Kael pulled up a chair. "It's in the walls."
"Correction," she said, tapping her screen. "It's under the walls."
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Sublevel Access – Clinic Basement, 4:56 A.M.
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Zeke met them halfway down the stairs, clearly operating on no sleep and two cans of something labeled "Spirit Surge: Astral Grape."
"I was gonna brief you when you woke up," he said. "But yeah, there's movement in the old tunnel chambers."
"What tunnels?" Kael asked.
Selene rolled her eyes. "The clinic was a converted shelter. Like most spirit-friendly facilities after the Fade Wars. It has foundation tunnels—reinforcement chambers lined with old containment glyphs and memory sealant."
"They're supposed to be dead," Zeke added. "Sealed off decades ago."
Kael raised an eyebrow. "So what changed?"
Zeke handed him a screen. It showed heat maps—pulse spikes, spirit resonance curves, and one reading marked in red:
Residual Echo Detected – Classification Unknown
Level: Pre-Devourer Artifact
Status: Dormant (Fluctuating)
Kael's mark tingled beneath his skin.
"I'll go," he said.
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Clinic Sublevel – Forgotten Maintenance Corridor
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Rin joined them at the access grate without a word. She moved in silence, blades strapped to her back, eyes focused and unreadable.
"I thought you were still meditating," Kael said.
"I was," she replied. "But something in this place changed."
Zeke powered open the grate.
A blast of cold air hit them.
It smelled of iron, moss, and… charcoal.
Kael drew Ashwake. "Let's find out what's breathing down there."
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Thirty Feet Below Ground
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The corridor bent in unnatural ways. The walls were still—stone and concrete—but the echoes bounced wrong. Too many layers, too many paths that didn't exist. Rin pressed a talisman to the wall.
"It's folding inward," she said. "Spatial recursion."
Selene stepped ahead. "That's not possible. We're not in a fracture zone."
Kael touched the wall.
And it breathed.
Not physically—but spiritually. The walls pulsed like a heart, faint and ancient. He stepped forward.
A door appeared where none had been.
A door with no handle.
Rin blinked. "That wasn't there before."
Zeke scanned it. "Nothing. No readings at all. It's… blank. Like the space itself was erased from records."
Kael placed his hand on the door.
The mark on his chest flared.
The door opened inward.
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Chamber of the Hidden Flame
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They entered a round room that shouldn't exist.
It was black stone, etched in spirals, filled with rusted relics and shattered statues. In the center stood a pedestal.
Upon it: a mask.
Bone white. No eyes. Just the faint curve of a smile carved into its face.
Rin stepped back instantly.
"That's a Nullmask."
Kael turned to her. "You know it?"
"They were used by ancient flame inquisitors," she said, voice low. "To suppress identity. When someone was chosen to carry memories too dangerous to own… they were masked."
Selene stepped closer. "Like a living archive?"
Zeke's hands trembled slightly. "No… worse. A living secret. If you put that on, it doesn't just show you something. It becomes you. And you become what it hides."
Kael stared at the mask.
The air around it warped.
And then—
"He still breathes…"
A voice. Not spoken aloud. Pushed into their minds.
"The Sovereign still burns…"
Kael's hand moved of its own accord.
The team reached for him—but he touched the mask.
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Flash Memory – The First Betrayal
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He stood atop a cliff of white glass, overlooking a battlefield burning with sapphire flame.
Corpses of both Fade and human cultivators littered the ground.
And beside him—
A figure in the mask.
Azuran's voice echoed through time:
"You gave me the truth. And I used it to kill them all."
The masked figure didn't speak. Just turned—and stepped backward, off the cliff.
Kael gasped—and tore his hand away.
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Back in the Chamber
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Blood trickled from his nose.
The mask had not moved.
Zeke steadied him. "You alright?"
Kael nodded slowly. "That… wasn't me."
Rin knelt beside the pedestal. "This mask is part of the chain."
Selene tilted her head. "What chain?"
Rin looked up.
"The one tying his past life to our present. These are the Anchors of Ash—fragments of Azuran's actions. Stored. Sealed. Hidden behind false walls."
Zeke's voice was barely above a whisper. "And this one wasn't supposed to be here."
Kael looked around.
And for the first time, he realized something.
This chamber—this entire clinic—wasn't just a base.
It had been a prison.
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Elsewhere – Unknown Location
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A woman walked through a gallery of floating memory orbs, her fingers trailing along their surfaces. Her robes were black and silver, her hair pale as frost.
She stopped before one glowing orb.
Inside it: Kael placing his hand on the Nullmask.
She smiled.
"So… the boy still has a key."
A second figure stepped into the room, wearing a veil of thorns.
"He's reaching the edge of the Initiate threshold."
"And when he crosses it?" she asked.
The second figure smiled beneath the veil.
"Then the true game begins."