The ruins weren't on any map.
Vos called it the Grave Vault.
The name fit.
The entrance was hidden behind a collapsed aqueduct, half-buried under centuries of ash and vine. A veil of illusion shimmered faintly, distorted by Kaelen's presence. It parted reluctantly, as if it recognized him but not kindly.
They stepped inside.
The air changed immediately.
Heavier. Older.
Kaelen's breath misted in the cold. His body still throbbed from the system backlash, the lingering residue of the Seed Fragment's raw memory. His vision swam, his skin itched, and the strange root-like marks across his arms burned faintly whenever his foot crossed a threshold in the dark.
Vos lit a wand of firelight and led the way. His voice was hushed.
"This place predates the Oathforged. It was built before systems. Maybe even before recorded paths."
Kaelen ran his fingers along the wall. Stone, but laced with veins of some metallic alloy. It pulsed faintly, as if remembering something old and painful.
"Why here?"
"Because no system trace can track you inside. Null influence is strong, but dormant. Unless we wake something."
They moved deeper. Columns wrapped in cracked runes lined a central hall. Murals had decayed but not vanished—scenes of winged giants bowing to a faceless king, of stars bleeding into earth, of gates sealed shut by silver chains.
And always, in the corners of every panel: eyes. Dozens of them. Watching.
Kaelen stopped in front of one carving.
It showed a figure—tall, cloaked, masked. Surrounded by a ring of fire and void. Hands outstretched. Chains broken at its feet.
"I've seen that image before," Kaelen murmured.
Vos squinted. "Where?"
"In a dream. Or maybe… from the system echo."
Vos hesitated. "Then we really shouldn't be here."
They made camp in what had once been a library. The shelves were shattered. Scrolls turned to dust. Only a few tablets remained, etched in runic shorthand neither Kaelen nor Vos could fully read.
Kaelen sat against a cracked pillar.
His thoughts circled.
The system had called him a Corruption Node. Not just an anomaly, not a malfunction. A threat. Something it could not bind or correct.
That meant one of two things.
Either he was broken.
Or he was becoming something the system had no words for.
He didn't know which frightened him more.
Vos handed him a ration, dry and bitter. Kaelen ate it in silence.
"Tell me something," Vos said suddenly. "Before all this. Before the betrayal. What did Kaelen Vire fight for?"
Kaelen stared into the dark.
"A promise," he said quietly. "To protect Virelith. To hold the line. To honor the oaths that bound us."
"Sounds noble."
"It wasn't." Kaelen's voice turned colder. "It was pride. We thought we were chosen. That oaths made us stronger than fear or ambition."
"And Darian?"
Kaelen closed his eyes.
"I still don't know why he let me fall."
Vos didn't answer.
Silence settled over the ruin.
But it didn't last.
A sound stirred in the hall beyond the firelight. Not footsteps. Not speech.
Breathing.
Wet. Heavy. Staggered.
Kaelen was on his feet in an instant.
Vos raised his wand. "It can't be one of the pursuers. Not this deep."
"It's not."
The noise grew louder.
Kaelen stepped toward the corridor. The markings on his arms flared slightly.
Then, out of the dark, something stepped into the firelight.
Not a man. Not fully.
A construct of flesh and stone, body warped by exposure to ambient void. Its face was half-masked, the other side melted into runes. Where a mouth should be, there was only a jagged opening.
And from it, came a voice.
Kaelen's own.
"I remember the fall," it rasped.
Kaelen staggered back.
Vos swore. "Echo-creature. Voidbound imprint. It's built from your memory."
"But why now?"
"Because this ruin isn't just hiding you. It's responding to you."
The echo-creature stepped forward. Its movements mimicked Kaelen's own—hesitant, pained, but exact. It dragged a broken sword, coated in flickers of dark mana.
Kaelen braced himself.
Then... The system pulsed.
[ Emergency Combat Protocol Engaged ]
[ Combat Subroutines Re-enabled: 32% capacity ]
[ Oathsense Active – Warning: False Oaths Detected ]
[ Void Affinity: Moderate – Passive bleed suppressed ]
Kaelen's blade, summoned from system memory, appeared in his hand.
It wasn't enough.
He parried the creature's first strike, but the echo moved like a mirror. Every motion he made, it twisted and improved upon.
Vos fired a burst of flame from his wand. It struck the echo's shoulder, staggering it.
"Don't fight like yourself!" Vos shouted. "It is you!"
Kaelen gritted his teeth.
He backed off, let the echo advance.
Then he did something unexpected.
He dropped his blade.
The echo raised its weapon, confused.
Kaelen stepped forward, barehanded, and reached toward it not with anger.
With recognition.
"I'm not the man you were," he said.
The echo hesitated.
Its blade wavered.
And Kaelen struck not with steel, but with will.
Void light surged from his hand, not as a weapon, but as a seal.
He gripped the echo's chest and spoke.
"I accept the pain. I remember it. But I don't belong to it anymore."
The markings on his arms flared white.
The echo screamed.
Its body cracked—stone splintering, runes bursting.
It collapsed into ash and whispers.
The cave shook slightly. A pressure lifted.
The system hummed.
[ Void Echo Defeated ]
[ Memory Reconciled – Fragment Stabilized ]
[ Soul Sync: 74% ]
[ Trait Gained: Echoborn – You may inherit passive qualities from slain voidbound constructs linked to your memory. ]
[ Passive Skill Upgraded: Oathsense (Rank II) – Now detects intent behind oaths, not just truth. ]
Kaelen dropped to one knee again, breathing hard.
Vos helped him up.
"You sealed it. Not destroyed it."
"It was me. Just… twisted."
Vos looked around uneasily.
"You're drawing attention, Kaelen. That construct should not have existed. And now?"
He pointed to the runes along the wall.
They were glowing faintly now.
All of them.
Kaelen stood and faced the carvings.
Whispers flowed through the chamber. Words in a tongue that scraped against his mind.
He understood none of it.
But the message was clear.
You are awake.
So are we.