"This is the place where echoes come to drown.The sea remembers what history has forgotten."
The sky bled rust-red as Lucien emerged through the fracture gate.
The Graven Shore lay before him—an endless coast of broken monuments, bones the size of towers, and sand made from pulverized relics. The sea was not water, but a viscous silver mist that sloshed and sighed like it remembered what it once was.
[Region: The Graven Shore][Time Displacement: Unstable – Chrono Drift Detected ±4,000 years][Environmental Threat: Tidal Wraiths, Monumental Echoes, Memorystorms]
Lucien stepped onto the sand, Veyrion humming low, sensing the thinness between dimensions here.
To his left, the remains of a broken colossus jutted from the dunes—half of a face, still wearing a shattered crown. To his right, ruins of warships carved from crystal and bone were scattered like leaves after a storm.
The Hollow was strong here.
Not violent.
But mournful.
He didn't walk far before the wind began to whisper.
Not in words—but in names.
"Ashael…""Merev…""Kaen…"
Each name was followed by a cold breeze that wrapped around Lucien's shoulders like fingers made of memory.
He recognized some.
The Graven Shore remembers the dead of all realms, he thought.Especially those erased by Sovereigns.
He pressed on.
As he approached the remains of a temple half-buried in the dunes, his system pulsed.
[Sub-Quest Activated: Grave-Speaker's Covenant][Objective: Locate the Grave-Speaker and obtain the Echo Beacon]
Lucien narrowed his eyes.
"Finally," he muttered. "Something direct."
He drew his cloak tighter and descended into the ruins.
Inside the temple was a well—but instead of water, it held light.
Lucien stepped to the edge.
A voice rose from below—not spoken aloud, but layered across time, spoken by dozens of mouths.
"You carry the mark of the throne, but not its curse.""Speak, Hollowblood. What do you seek on these forgotten shores?"
Lucien knelt, out of instinct more than reverence.
"The Beacon," he said. "To signal what's coming. To awaken what was lost."
"And what will you pay for it?"
The light flickered.
"I offer a name," Lucien said softly. "My own."
"That is the price of kings."
The well pulsed—and from its depths rose a figure cloaked in seaweed and whispers. Its face was skeletal, bound in silver bands that shimmered with glyphs from no known tongue.
This was the Grave-Speaker.
It reached into the well and drew out a prism of fractured crystal, wrapped in faint echoes.
[Item Obtained: Echo Beacon – Graven Type][Function: Summons Vault-Echoes within 3km radius. May awaken deeper ruins.]
"Take it," the Grave-Speaker said. "But beware—the Beacon speaks both ways."
Lucien accepted it.
"Then let it speak."
He activated the Beacon atop a dune that overlooked the broken sea.
The light shot skyward, pulsing once, twice—then again, slower.
Moments later, the sea began to churn.
Not with waves—but with figures.
Hundreds of them.
Rising from beneath the silver tide—ghosts in armor, broken Sovereign war-machines, beings of light twisted into ash.
Lucien stood unmoved.
He raised Veyrion.
And the echoes bowed.
Not in fear.
In recognition.
From behind, a new voice rang out—mocking, elegant, laced with cruel amusement.
"The throne awakens, and already the corpses gather."
Lucien turned.
Standing on the air itself was a tall figure wrapped in crimson veils and stitched feathers. His eyes were burning rings, and his shadow moved against the wind.
A Chanter Lord.
[Hostile Entity Identified: Vaskharel the Red Hymn – Chanter of the Second Silence][Threat Level: Cataclysmic]
Vaskharel smiled.
"You've played your opening move well, Hollow King. But did you really think the Sovereigns wouldn't send a reply?"
Lucien didn't flinch.
"Send more."
"We will," the Chanter said. "And when you sit upon that throne fully—don't forget. We were the ones who sang you into silence once before."
With a flick of his fingers, the Chanter vanished, torn away by a symphony of red threads.
The air grew still again.
Lucien looked at the Beacon.
Still pulsing.
Still speaking.
And far beneath the misty waves, something ancient stirred.
[Main Quest Updated: The Hollow Chorus][Next Objective: Reach the Vault at Serath's Vein – Location: Beneath the Graven Shore][Caution: Unknown Sovereign fragments awakening across the Hollow Realms]
Lucien sighed.
The wind whispered again.
But now, it whispered his name.