"There is a border between life and unlife, between memory and myth.We call it the Divide.We whisper because the dead whisper back."
The world twisted the moment Lucien stepped into the threshold.
The Sovereign Key Shard burned cold in his hand—pulling space itself apart. Guided by system coordinates and soul-instinct, Lucien stood before a narrow canyon flanked by obsidian pillars. The terrain bled mist and moonlight, neither solid nor spirit. This was not a place of distance.
It was a place of boundary.
[Location Entered: The Whispering Divide][Warning: Realm Cross Detected – Physical Law Undetermined][Note: Speaking above a whisper may summon Echo Revenants]
He adjusted his breathing, slowed his steps. Here, even the air listened.
As he crossed into the chasm, a sudden shift occurred.
His shadow vanished.
The path was narrow—no more than a dozen paces wide, flanked by walls of shimmering nothingness. They looked like water, but moved like silk caught in windless sleep. Beneath his feet, the ground wasn't rock.
It was names.
Endless, forgotten names etched into the floor.
Some Lucien recognized.
Some recognized him.
"You carry the sins of the first.""Do not let our silence be for nothing.""Do not speak what cannot be undone."
Each step weighed more than the last.
His Soulframe glowed faintly, holding back the weight of memory. The Echo Chains behind him whispered low tones—protective, warning, reverent.
Then, up ahead—movement.
A figure drifted from the wall.
Tall. Hooded. No face—just a mouth stitched shut.
An Echo Revenant.
Lucien slowed, lowered his weapon.
It raised a hand.
From its chest, a voice emerged—not a sound, but a vibration directly inside Lucien's head.
"Name... or passage denied."
Lucien clenched his jaw.
This place demanded identity—but offering the wrong name could shatter one's soul.
So instead, he whispered:
"I am the one who was unmade."
The Revenant paused.
Then bowed.
And vanished into the mist.
Further in, the world changed again.
The Divide widened into a cathedral of hanging bridges and pulsing light veins—floating like spinal cords through air. The mist parted to reveal the Divide's core: a giant spiral altar where souls that had not passed on echoed forever.
Lucien descended.
At the base, a glowing sigil waited—shaped like a shattered crown wrapped in thorns.
He placed the Key Shard into the center.
[Key Accepted. Vault IX Location Verified.][Vault Status: LOCKED][Condition: Soul Resonance Required – Inheritor's Memory Fragment Missing]
"What memory?" Lucien muttered.
The ground answered.
A massive hand of bone erupted from the altar, slamming into the floor beside him.
It dragged up a form ten meters tall—shrouded in tattered robes, bound in thousands of name-tags, each one bleeding spectral light.
A Guardian Revenant.
[Boss Encounter: Gatekeeper of the Divide – "The Bound Remnant"][Objective: Survive to Recover Lost Fragment]
Lucien exhaled.
"Of course."
The creature charged.
Lucien activated Echo Chain.
Twelve spectral blades burst outward, each striking with the fury of a name once lost. The Guardian retaliated with chains of its own—chains made of Lucien's forgotten selves.
For each blow Lucien struck, a memory was torn open—
Him, as a child, screaming inside a burning chapel.
Him, kneeling before a Sovereign, name stripped from his tongue.
Him, burying a girl with silver hair and tearless eyes.
The Guardian howled, slamming Lucien into the floor.
He coughed blood.
But then—something snapped into focus.
Among the Revenant's name-tags, he saw one still intact.
His original name.
"LUCIEN—VAELTHORN!"
He screamed it—not aloud, but within.
The chains shattered.
Light exploded outward from his core.
[Memory Fragment Reclaimed: Origin Echo – Lucien Vaelthorn][Soulframe: Harmonized][Vault IX Key Sequence Complete]
The Guardian halted, bowed deeply—and dispersed into ash.
Lucien stood at the center of the Divide, alone now, breathing heavily.
The mist parted behind him to reveal a distant vault door—immense, sealed by a clockwork of shifting runes and gravity-defying architecture.
His system chimed.
[Vault IX: ACCESS UNLOCKED][Warning: Contents Unknown. Entry is Irreversible.]
Lucien looked back once toward the Divide.
It whispered to him.
Not a warning.
A blessing.
"Remember us."
He stepped forward.