The System returned two days later.
Not with a ping.
Not with a level-up screen.
But with a warning.
[ERROR: ECHO-BINDER DETECTED IN RESTRICTED SPACE]
[SYNCHRONIZATION: 0%]
[WARNING: SYSTEM STABILITY COMPROMISED]
It didn't fade like normal prompts.
It stayed.
Burned into the corner of Crispin's vision.
A constant reminder that whatever he had become… it wasn't supposed to exist.
The Test
He stood on the outskirts of Blackridge, at a burnt-down industrial zone long abandoned. There was no one around. No cameras. No Guild eyes.
Just a fresh corpse.
He didn't kill it.
This one had been Umbra's doing. Left for him on purpose—a creature wrapped in runes, clearly A-rank, throat torn out. No note. Just the blood still steaming and a faint smell of burnt metal.
He stepped closer. The Glyphs branded on the beast's skin burned red.
"You're mine now," he said, voice low.
He whispered the word.
"Arise."
The air bent.
The corpse rose.
Screaming.
Not in agony.
In protest.
Crispin stepped back as the Echo took shape—a grotesque fusion of monster and code. Runes floated around its body, crackling. Its skin peeled in layers, not forming bone or shadow like the others, but like something resisting the transformation. Its eyes bled blue light.
"This unit is protected," it snarled, not in a monster's voice—
But in the voice of the System.
And then—
It exploded.
The corpse, the Echo, the magic—all disintegrated in a blast of red lightning that threw Crispin backward across the pavement.
He hit hard.
Coughed.
Sat up slowly.
The message returned.
[SUMMON BLOCKED — THIS ENTITY IS PROTECTED BY CORE DIRECTIVE]
[DO NOT ATTEMPT AGAIN.]
He wiped the blood from his mouth.
And smiled.
So they're scared now.
Arlen's Breaking Point
"I know you're lying to me."
Crispin didn't even look up. He was sitting in the Blackridge common area, feeding mana into a dagger's hilt with one hand and texting Yara with the other.
"She said you came home last night looking like hell. Like… different."
Arlen sat across from him. His usual sarcasm was gone. Just tired now. Scared.
"What did you see in that Gate, Crisp?"
"Nothing I want to talk about."
Arlen slammed his hand on the table, drawing eyes.
"You think you're the only one going through shit? That we don't bleed too? I watched you get torn up out there, and I still stayed. But you're not letting me in. You haven't for weeks."
"I'm not your problem," Crispin muttered.
"I'm your friend."
Silence.
Then Crispin finally looked up.
And Arlen saw it.
Just for a second.
The eyes.
Like they weren't his anymore.
Like something else was peeking through.
"You should leave," Crispin said. "Before I start treating you like one of them."
Umbra's Second Invitation
The world went still at 3:17AM.
Crispin knew it not because of any clock—but because time itself froze.
The street outside stopped mid-wind. The rain hung suspended in the air.
And a figure stood in his apartment. No noise. No entrance.
Just there.
She was tall. Dressed in all-black robes that shimmered like oil under starlight. Her eyes were hidden behind a veil. No skin was visible. Only the red insignia pulsing at her chest: a Gate wrapped in chains.
Umbra.
The real kind.
"You've touched something you shouldn't," she said. Her voice was soft. Velvet over razors.
Crispin stood, summoning two Echoes behind him without a thought.
She raised a hand. And froze them mid-motion.
Not paralyzed. Not dismissed.
Paused.
Like scenes on a screen.
"You can't control what you don't understand," she continued. "And you've opened doors that even we don't walk through."
"Then why are you here?" Crispin asked.
"To give you the last choice you'll ever get," she said.
She reached into her robe and tossed something at his feet.
It landed with a faint clink.
A key.
Shaped like a Gate sigil. Made of bone and starlight.
"You can come with us now," she said. "We'll show you how to survive what's coming. Or…"
She gestured at the sky, where even now, cracks shimmered in the air. Cracks only he could see.
"You can die trying to hold back the tide alone."
Then she vanished.
The rain fell again.
Time resumed.
And his Echoes stared at him like nothing had happened.
Yara's Question
That morning, Yara poured herself cereal, humming quietly. A cartoon played in the background. Something light. Innocent.
Crispin sat across from her. He hadn't slept.
She looked up at him mid-chew and said, "Do you ever feel like… you're not my brother anymore?"
He didn't flinch.
Didn't move.
Yara blinked, unsure if she'd said something wrong.
Then Crispin said, "I don't know what I am anymore."
And Yara, for the first time in weeks, didn't answer with a joke.
She just kept eating, slower now.
Because deep down—
She didn't know either.
The Rising
That night, the city screamed.
A Gate opened above Blackridge itself.
Not a red one.
A black one.
No pulse. No warnings.
Just void.
The Guild scrambled. Alarms wailed. Helicopters roared across the sky.
Crispin stood alone on a rooftop, watching it unfold like a dream. Arlen was somewhere in the chaos. Yara was at home. Safe. For now.
Then the prompt appeared.
Not the usual kind.
This one was ancient. Different. Wrong.
[PROTOCOL: INITIATE RECLAMATION]
[THE FIRST GATE IS UNCHAINING.]
[YOUR BLOOD REMEMBERS.]
Crispin looked down at his hand.
The faint mark on his chest glowed again.
And somewhere inside the storm above
Something whispered his name.