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CHAPTER 45 — The Echo That Shouldn't Exist
The sky above the Scorched Vale rippled like boiling glass, bending light into distorted shapes that made the horizon look alive. Ash trudged forward, his boots sinking into cracked earth that pulsed faintly under each step, as though the ground itself had a heartbeat. The air reeked of burnt metal and old magic — the signature of a world resisting him.
"It's quiet," he murmured.
"Too quiet," Ryn said beside him, her fingers twitching near the hilt of her blade. The girl's pale eyes flicked across the wasteland, reading signs only she could see. She had changed since the early chapters — stronger, sharper, yet strangely more fragile, as though half her soul was somewhere else.
Like mine, Ash thought.
Behind them, the rest of the party moved cautiously: Kael with his eternal scowl, Mira with her cold efficiency, and Lirien floating silently, her arcane threads weaving like silver hairs in the wind. They had crossed deserts, fought assassins and shadow beasts, but nothing in this world prepared them for the thing they were searching for.
The Echo Fragment.
A shard of the World Heart.
A piece of him.
Ash tightened his fist, feeling the faint pulse inside his chest react to the word — Heart. The sensation wasn't pain. It was recognition.
He exhaled slowly.
"Ryn," he said. "You said the fragment calls to those connected to it. Does that include you?"
Her footsteps faltered.
Then she nodded.
"Ever since the day we met," she whispered. "Ever since the world heart chose you… it's been calling me too. As if I'm supposed to guide you to it."
Ash studied her carefully. There were moments — especially in the early chapters — when she would look at him with an expression that wasn't entirely human. As if she remembered things he didn't. As if the world was moving according to a script she could barely resist.
"Is that why you… appeared in my dreams last night?" he asked quietly.
Ryn froze.
"I didn't enter your dreams," she said, voice trembling. "Ash… what did you see?"
He hesitated. Because the truth sounded insane.
But everything in his life was already a step beyond insanity.
"I saw you standing in a broken version of this world," he said. "But you weren't alone. There were… four of you. Each with different eyes. Different ages. Different emotions. And they all whispered the same thing."
"What?" she breathed.
"You don't belong here."
Ryn's breath hitched, her pupils dilating.
Before she could respond, the ground beneath them cracked violently. A deep, guttural pulse rippled outward, shaking dust into the air.
Kael drew his greatsword. "Something's coming!"
"No," Lirien whispered, her voice trembling in awe. "It's already here."
From the fractured earth, a mirror-like surface rose — a floating sheet of reflective crystal. It shimmered with the same eerie pattern Ash had seen in his dreams. The air distorted around it, forming ghost-like afterimages of Ash's silhouette.
Not reflections.
Copies.
Ryn staggered backward. "No… not this. Not—"
"Ash," Mira said carefully, "why does that thing look like you?"
Ash didn't answer. He couldn't. Because the moment the mirror finished forming, the ground stopped shaking… and the reflections stepped out of the surface.
Not illusions.
Not doppelgängers.
Ash stared at them — four figures, each with his face but not his eyes. One had a gaze full of rage, another fear, another emptiness, and the last… cold logic.
"What… are you?" Ash whispered.
The calm one stepped forward.
"We are what you left behind," it said. "Pieces of you that the World Heart rejected."
Ryn gasped. "Impossible…"
The rage-Ash snarled, pointing at him. "Thief. You stole our destiny."
The empty one tilted its head. "Or maybe… we're the ones who survived."
The fearful one trembled, whispering, "He doesn't know… he doesn't know the truth…"
Ash stepped back as his heartbeat thundered in his ears.
The World Heart was pulsing inside him. Harder. Faster. Almost like panic.
"Why are you here?" Ash demanded.
The calm copy answered.
"To warn you."
"Warn me?"
"You are unraveling."
Ash blinked, pulse freezing.
"What?"
"You think the power is changing you," the copy said. "But it's not. You were broken before you ever came here. This world didn't create your fractures… it magnified them."
Ryn reached for Ash's arm. "Don't listen—"
But the copies all spoke at once:
"You don't belong here."
The words hit Ash like a punch, reopening the echo of the dream.
Kael stepped forward. "Ash, say the word and I'll—"
He never finished.
Because the rage-copy launched forward, sprinting straight at Ash with a blade made of crystallized soul-energy.
Ash reacted instinctively — and the world around him twisted.
Light bent.
Space folded.
Time shuddered.
And Ash moved faster than he ever had.
Steel clashed with soul-light.
When the shockwave cleared, Ash was standing over the rage-copy with his hand embedded in its chest.
Its last whisper:
"You're losing yourself."
Then it shattered into glass-dust.
The others stared at Ash in horror.
Even his friends.
Even Ryn.
Ash looked at his trembling hand… and for the first time since his summoning, he wondered if they were right.
Was he unraveling?
Or was the world finally showing its true shape?
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