[SFX: Blade singing — rising, predatory ]
The blade sang as it came around again.
This time, Levi put everything behind the cut—shoulder, hips, the last scraps of breath he could still claim. Steel carved a flat, vicious arc toward the stranger's fraying midsection.
The figure did not harden to meet it.
Instead, his body parted like smoke.
The blade passed through harmlessly—but not without consequence.
A thin ribbon of black ichor clung to the steel for a heartbeat longer than it should have.
Then it snapped back toward the stranger like a living whip.
Levi felt the pull in his palm.
Sharp.
Electric.
Intimate.
Not pain.
Recognition.
[ SFX: Second heartbeat — lurching forward ]
The pulse in his chest surged—eager now.
Hungry.
The stranger reformed a pace closer. His outline was less human: shoulders too wide, arms trailing into liquid tendrils. The silver eye flickered like faulty wiring.
"You learn quickly," the figure rasped.
"Most break before they taste the second bite."
Levi didn't answer.
He stepped inside the reach and thrust—short, brutal, aimed low.
The stranger flowed backward. The thrust struck nothing.
But the tip brushed the dissolving edge of one arm.
[ SFX: Electric snap ]
The memory slammed into Levi without warning.
A woman's face—young, hollow-eyed, hair plastered to her skull with sweat.
A newborn in her arms. Wrapped in filthy cloth.
Her lips moved.
No sound.
Levi felt the ache in arms that weren't his. The bone-deep exhaustion of someone who hadn't slept in days.
Then—
A knife in the dark.
A single choked cry.
Not his.
The vision collapsed.
Levi staggered half a step.
The ichor surged in response—climbing to his waist now. It pressed inward, molding itself to muscle and tendon. Where it touched, sensation vanished in strips: his left thigh numb… then cold… then simply gone.
He could still move.
But the signal felt delayed. Sluggish. As if his body were learning a new owner.
Levi bared his teeth.
"Keep giving me pieces," he growled.
"I'll take them all."
The stranger laughed—wet and bubbling.
"Then choose," he said, gesturing toward the doors.
"Before the hunger finishes carving you from the inside."
Levi glanced at them.
The broken crown had twisted into a cage, grasping fingers nearly touching.
The bleeding hourglass cracked wider—black sand pouring upward, pooling against the ceiling like an inverted sea.
The split line had become a mouth. Narrow. Vertical. Tendrils writhing inside like tongues tasting air.
The ichor tightened around Levi's waist.
Breathing grew shallow.
Each inhale cost more.
One more exchange.
He feinted high—blade flashing toward the silver eye—then dropped low at the last instant, slashing for the knees.
The stranger anticipated the feint.
He dissolved upward.
[ SFX: Ichor roaring ]
A towering column lashed down like a scorpion's tail.
Levi rolled.
The strike obliterated the flagstones where he'd stood—stone turning to black dust. Shards peppered his back and shoulders.
Where they struck bare skin, corruption bloomed instantly—thin black lines racing outward like cracks in ice.
Levi came up swinging.
This time—
The blade connected.
Steel bit into the column's side—not deep, but enough.
A fist-sized chunk of ichor sheared away.
It hung in the air.
Quivered.
Then flew toward Levi's sword.
[ SFX: Wet impact ]
It struck the blade and stayed.
The black coating thickened.
The fuller filled—liquid flowing upward against gravity, tracing veins along the steel until it reached the grip.
The weapon grew warmer.
Not hot.
Alive.
Inside Levi's chest—
[ SFX: Second heartbeat — triumphant ]
One heavy thud.
Then silence.
For one perfect second, the world froze.
No rain.
No bells.
No dripping ichor.
Only the blade, humming softly in Levi's hand.
And then—
The hunger answered.
Not a voice.
A pull.
Bone-deep. Absolute.
It radiated from his sternum outward—down his arms, into his fingertips, up his throat. Vision dimmed at the edges. Every breath tasted of iron and old blood.
The stranger shuddered.
"You stole it," he whispered.
"The first echo."
Levi looked down.
The blade gleamed now—black sheen smooth and elegant. Where the grip touched his skin, there was no revulsion.
Only completion.
A missing piece clicking into place.
The stranger took a step back.
The first.
"The echo you took was mine," he said.
"A fragment of the death I dealt. Now it is yours."
Levi tilted his head.
"And what does it do?"
The figure smiled with what remained of his mouth.
"Ask it."
Levi closed his eyes.
He didn't search.
The knowledge was already there.
Quiet.
Certain.
Echo Devourer.
One stolen fragment at a time.
One dead thing's shadow.
One fleeting afterimage—of motion, of strength, of technique.
The more he took—
The more he became.
The more he became—
The less remained of what he had been.
Levi opened his eyes.
The stranger was dissolving—edges fraying into smoke. Crystals cracked and fell dark.
"You cannot stop it," the figure said, fading.
"Only choose how much of yourself you lose."
Levi stepped forward.
The ichor loosened its grip—sated, for now.
He stopped before the three doors.
The crown pulsed.
The hourglass poured faster.
The mouth opened wider.
Levi glanced back once.
"Which one leads out?" he asked.
The stranger laughed—soft, almost fond.
"All of them," he said.
"And none."
He collapsed into nothing.
The courtyard fell silent.
Only the blade hummed in Levi's palm.
And in his chest, the second heartbeat settled into a slow, patient rhythm.
Waiting.
Levi exhaled.
Then he stepped toward the door marked by the wound.
He pressed his free hand to the iron.
[ SFX: Flesh sizzling against metal ]
It was burning hot.
The mouth opened wider—
And swallowed.
[ SFX: Hard cut to black ]