The construct spoke, and the world grew larger and more terrible with every word. It spoke of the Proving Grounds, a vast collection of thousands of arenas, all designed as a brutal filtering system. It described how they were all classified as "New Souls," no matter how many cycles they had endured. It explained that death here was meaningless in the grand scheme, just a reset, a way to add another data point to the system's evaluation of a fighter's potential.
Olivia sat on the cold, black stone of the platform, forcing herself to listen. The refugees huddled nearby, their faces blank with shock. The sheer scale of the information was a weight, pressing down on their already exhausted minds. For warriors who had measured their entire existence by surviving the day, the news that their entire world was nothing but a violent kindergarten was a difficult truth to swallow.
The construct, who Olivia was now mentally calling 'Echo', finally paused its flow of information. The silence that fell in its wake was heavy, filled with the ghosts of their shattered assumptions.
"So, all this time," Lorcan said, his voice rough. He was sitting by his sleeping sister, his hand resting on her shoulder. "Every fight, every friend we lost… it was all just for an entrance exam?"
No one had an answer for him.
For a long while, nobody moved. They were a small, shipwrecked crew, washed up on a silent, alien shore. The immediate, frantic need to survive had passed, leaving behind a deep, bone-weary exhaustion and the bitter taste of their own insignificance. The petrified forest around them stood as a silent, grey witness, its stone branches like skeletal fingers pointing at the indifferent, green-tinged sky.
Finally, Olivia pushed herself to her feet. Her muscles ached. Her mind felt bruised. But if she let them all sit here in silence, the despair Seraphina had tried to weaponize would do its work for free.
"We need to make camp," she said, her voice sounding louder than she intended in the stillness. "We don't know what comes out when the light fades completely. Silas, can you scout the immediate area? Check for water, any kind of shelter among the rocks."
Silas grunted, a sound of affirmation, and pushed himself away from the stone tree he was leaning on. He gave Echo a long, distrustful look, then disappeared into the grey woods, his movements surprisingly quiet.
"Lorcan, stay with Elara," Olivia continued. "The rest of us… let's gather any loose stones. Make a perimeter. It doesn't have to be a fortress, just something that marks our space. Something to watch."
The simple act of being given a task seemed to break the paralysis. The refugees, moving slowly, began to stir. Olivia walked among them, offering a quiet word here, helping an old man lift a rock there. She was a fighter, yes, but for now, she had to be a leader. She had to build a new, temporary story for them to live in: the story of a group that survives the night together.
She found herself working beside Echo. The construct lifted heavy stones with an effortless, mechanical grace. It did not seem to tire. She worked in silence, the question of its existence a constant, humming presence between them.
After an hour, they had a crude, knee-high wall of black rock circling their platform. It was a pathetic defense, but it was theirs. Silas returned from his scouting mission.
"The forest is dead," he reported, his voice low. "No water, no animals, no wind. Just rock and dust. But," he added, "about a half-mile out, there are caves at the base of that ridge. They look defensible."
"Good," Olivia said. "We'll move there when Elara wakes up. For now, we rest."
As the green nebula began to slowly brighten, signaling the strange equivalent of a new day, a fragile routine began to form. People checked their worn gear, spoke in hushed tones, or simply sat, watching the unchanging, silent landscape. Olivia found a spot at the edge of the platform, away from the others, and sat down, pulling a whetstone from her pack. She began to sharpen her sword, the rhythmic shiiink, shiiink of steel on stone the only sound in the world. It was a familiar, grounding ritual.
A moment later, Silas sat down a few feet away. He didn't speak, just stared out at the forest.
"I can't stop thinking about it," Olivia said quietly, not looking at him. "Everything we did. The fight against Seraphina. It felt so important. Like the fate of the world was at stake. But it was just a squabble in the waiting room."
"Felt real enough when that mountain was trying to crush us," Silas replied gruffly.
"That's what bothers me," Olivia said, her hands stilling. "It was real. The pain was real. The fear was real. But the context was a lie. How do you fight in a war when you find out you're on the wrong map entirely?"
"You get a new map," Silas said simply. He picked up a small, black pebble and turned it over in his calloused fingers. "That thing," he nodded towards Echo, who was standing perfectly still near the center of the camp, observing the refugees. "What are you going to do about it?"
"I don't know," Olivia admitted. "The refugees… they look at it and they see their savior. They see Leo. If I tell them the truth, I might break the only thing holding them together."
"Hope is a fragile thing," Silas agreed. "Especially when it's built on a lie."
"But sometimes a lie is all you have," she countered. She finally looked at him. "He said the real Leo was 'moved.' That means he's alive. Somewhere in the real Tournament. Somewhere up there." She gestured vaguely at the sky. "To get to him, I have to go through whatever comes next. I need every advantage I can get. And that… thing… it's a living database of the Proving Grounds."
Silas tossed the pebble into the dusty woods. "So you use the lie." It wasn't a judgment, just a statement of fact.
"I have to," Olivia said, a wave of weariness washing over her. "For now."
Her decision made, she stood up and walked over to the construct. The refugees watched her, their expressions a mixture of reverence for their "savior" and respect for the woman who had led them here.
"I have a name for you," Olivia said to it, her voice clear and calm, for all to hear. "Your name is Echo."
The construct tilted its head. "A new designation? For what purpose?"
"Because you are the echo of my brother," Olivia said, choosing her words carefully. "You carry his story and his hope. And you are going to help us find our way forward. From now on, you are Echo."
She was not just naming him. She was defining him. She was taking control of the narrative. This was not the being that had lied to her. This was Echo, their guide, a tool to be used. The separation was small, but for her, it was everything.
"Acknowledged," Echo said, its voice still flat and neutral. "Designation: Echo. I will continue to assist."
A small sense of order had been imposed on their chaos. They had a camp. They had a guide, of a sort. They had a destination—the caves. And Olivia had a new, terrible secret to carry. She watched Echo turn to answer a question from one of the refugees, its face a perfect copy of her brother's, and felt the full weight of her choice. She had saved their hope by perpetuating the system's lie. It was a bitter, necessary compromise, the first of many, she suspected, on the long road up.