The ash clung to his boots like regret.
Zayn moved through a forest that wasn't a forest anymore. The trees were warped, their bark pulsing faintly with fading Aether veins, roots twisting in patterns that weren't natural... or alive. Every few steps, he heard whispers in the wind, but the words were never clear. He couldn't tell if they were echoes of the Null Zone or the lingering thoughts of something else that had once passed through here. It didn't matter. The only thing that mattered now was forward.
He hadn't slept since the implosion. He hadn't needed to. Hunger, thirst, fatigue... they felt like distant rules that no longer applied. And that scared him more than he'd admit.
The Null Zone had changed him.
Not just his body. Not just his power.
Something deeper.
Zayn paused near a fallen pillar that might have once been a comms relay. Its surface was engraved with faded warnings and symbols, warnings in red paint that had run down in streaks like dried blood. Beneath it, he saw bones. Human. Crushed. Twisted into the metal.
He looked away.
Somewhere above, the sky cracked softly. A satellite blinked and adjusted its lens.
They were still watching him.
He didn't care.
But something else... something just outside of sight... did.
The world shifted.
Zayn stopped moving.
It felt like the air inhaled.
And then...
He heard it.
A voice, not like before, not digital or human, but something ancient... something not bound by time or breath.
"You walk a path not meant for feet."
He turned in every direction. No source. No shape.
"Where are you?" he asked, his voice barely audible.
The trees flickered... just slightly... like static in a dream.
"You are not alone... even when you are."
Zayn closed his eyes. The words weren't entering through his ears. They were imprinting directly into his thoughts.
"You carry the fracture. Do you feel it?"
"Yes," he whispered, voice cracked. "Every second."
"Good," it said, more gently now. "Then you are still real."
The forest bent around him. Reality shimmered like heat above fire. A figure emerged from the distortion, neither fully human nor entirely anything else. Cloaked, face obscured by a porcelain mask etched with Null glyphs, it didn't walk... it unfolded.
Zayn's heart remained still, but his instincts sharpened. This wasn't like the hunter from before. This wasn't an assassin.
"What are you?" he asked, bracing.
The figure tilted its head.
"I am what's left... of those who walked the edge and did not fall."
It raised a hand.
"I am Echo-Fold."
Zayn said nothing, but his mind grasped at the term. He'd seen it once, barely, in Velon's corrupted files. Survivors of failed Core bonding... anomalies who were not erased, but not saved either. Ghosts in human skin. Shapeless. Dangerous.
"You came to fight me?"
The figure laughed... a soft, hollow thing.
"No. I came to warn you."
Zayn narrowed his eyes. "About what?"
The air buzzed. The figure's cloak shifted. Beneath it, he saw fragments of circuitry embedded in the skin, pulsing with inverted energy... Null harmonics woven with broken Aether lines. Whatever this being was, it was broken in ways that mirrored him.
"The world has paths," the Echo-Fold said. "You stand at a fork between what you are... and what you can become."
Zayn clenched his fists.
"I've already chosen. I'm not turning back."
The figure moved closer.
"Then choose again."
The forest dimmed. A cloud passed overhead... only, it wasn't a cloud.
Zayn felt it.
Something massive moved above, layered in silence, like a leviathan cloaked in shadow.
The Echo-Fold turned its mask upward. "They found you. Earlier than I hoped."
Zayn raised his arm, ready to summon... something. The Null didn't obey him like a pet. It responded to intent, will, thought without thought. He had to feel it. He had to mean it.
The Echo-Fold didn't flinch.
"They will not descend to kill you," it said. "They will try to infect you."
Zayn blinked. "What?"
A tremor rippled through the ground.
The trees to the east bent away, as if something was approaching, something the forest itself feared.
From the fog emerged five figures in pristine armor, glowing with clean, white-gold Aether. Their helms bore the Watchtower's insignia — a sun split in half by a vertical line.
They were not foot soldiers.
They were Ascendants.
And one of them stepped forward, her visor retracting.
She looked young. Pale, with pale-gold eyes that glimmered faintly in the mist. Her voice was soft, but unyielding.
"Zayn Cael," she said. "You are walking toward fracture."
Zayn held his ground.
"You came to stop me?"
The woman shook her head.
"We came to offer you a seat at the table."
Zayn didn't respond.
She stepped closer.
"The Watchtower sees you not as a threat... but as proof. That the Null Line exists. That reality has further depths. We don't want to destroy you."
Another step.
"We want to make you whole."
The Echo-Fold whispered near Zayn's shoulder. "Do not listen. They will not bind your body... they will break your soul."
Zayn's gaze didn't waver.
"What do you want from me?" he asked the woman.
She smiled. It was genuine. Or it looked like it.
"Nothing you didn't already choose. You left the cage. You shattered their rules. But we offer you meaning. Direction. There are more like you. You were just the first to wake."
Zayn stared into her eyes. "You're lying."
"Am I?"
Behind her, the other Ascendants lowered their weapons. No aggression. Just presence.
"We know what's coming," she said. "And you're going to need allies."
Zayn could feel his fingers trembling.
Not from fear.
From pressure.
The world itself felt heavier here. Like her words were pulling on him.
Then the Null spoke again... not in words, but in instinct.
This was a choice.
Join. Or shatter.
He stepped back.
"No," he said.
The woman's expression didn't change. But the light around her did. It dimmed. Cooled.
"I understand," she said.
She turned.
"We'll be watching."
And then... they vanished.
No flare. No sound.
Gone.
Zayn fell to one knee, the air rippling around him.
The Echo-Fold placed a hand on his shoulder.
"You chose fracture," it said. "Now walk it."
Far above, in Omen Spire, a different meeting took place.
The seventh chair, long empty, now turned toward a figure in shadow.
A voice spoke.
"He refused."
Another voice answered.
"Good."
The first replied, "Shall I move the Ark?"
A moment passed.
Then, "Yes. Let him see what they've done with his bloodline."
Silence.
Below, Zayn stood up, fists clenched, eyes burning with that impossible black-glow that wasn't light at all.
He didn't know where to go next.
But he knew what he was walking away from.
Behind him, the forest returned to stillness... but not silence.
From the trees, the Echo-Fold watched.
And smiled beneath its mask.
The path ahead would break him.
But only broken things could reshape the world.