The city's fractured skyline loomed like the bones of a dead god.
Up there—high above the rotting steel and flickering holo-ads—Kael Solhart stood alone on the rooftop of a forgotten tower. Wind clawed at his coat as he stared down at the map once more, its surface creased, stained, and tired—just like him.
A single symbol marked the parchment. Not coordinates. Not language.
A triangle intersected by a spiral.
And yet, it wasn't ink.
It was memory.
That strange, unseen weight coiled around his chest again—the same one he felt when he first touched the ring back in the Gathering Veil. But now, it pressed harder, like hands of the dead clutching his ribs.
"This place… has seen death. And not the kind that rests."
His whisper vanished into the night, swallowed by the moaning wind.
Kael turned and descended from the rooftop, slipping into the city's underbelly. The alleys here didn't echo. No footsteps bounced. No dogs barked. It was silence—not of peace, but abandonment. Even the rats seemed to know better.
It wasn't instinct guiding him. It was something older. Something deeper.
He passed graffiti-caked walls and toppled columns that once belonged to a station or temple—he couldn't tell anymore. Eventually, the path took him beyond the fringe of civilization into the slums' edge, where metal ruins spread like tumors across the land.
They called it the Hollow District. A forgotten carcass of the old world. Surveillance drones didn't patrol here. Civilians didn't whisper about it. Even the syndicates steered clear.
And Kael understood why the moment he saw it.
Tucked behind collapsed scaffolding and rusted support beams, a heavy gate stood like the mouth of something ancient. Iron flakes danced in the wind, but what mattered was the symbol carved into the gate—nearly erased by time, yet unmistakable.
A sword. Bound in chains.
Kael's hand gripped his side instinctively.
Why… did that hurt?
He didn't know.
Didn't hesitate either.
The gate groaned as he pushed it open.
A corridor greeted him—narrow, flickering, and wrong. The lights twitched like they were resisting being awake. Broken glass littered the floor. The walls buzzed with power that didn't belong to this era.
And when the gate closed behind him with a soft shhhk…
…it felt like being sealed in a tomb.
Ozone filled his lungs. The sting of burnt circuits and something older—like scorched parchment and dried blood.
Each hallway spiraled downward. The architecture felt alien, not in form but in emotion. This wasn't built. It was left behind.
At the very bottom—at the end of that quiet descent—was a chamber.
Circular.
Wide.
Breathing.
The walls were etched with script—glowing faintly, like runes dreaming in their sleep. Kael couldn't read them. But he felt them. Every line pulsed with something… alive.
At the center stood an altar. And above it…
A girl.
No—not a girl.
A projection. Translucent. Flickering. Human-shaped, but echoing like a ghost dragged across time.
Short hair. Hollow eyes. A voice stretched thin by centuries.
"Designation: Kael Solhart. Identity confirmed."
"The sequence has begun."
Kael flinched, stepping forward. "Who are you?"
"I am Echo-12. A data echo imprinted to this Remnant Node. You've activated me by entering with the ring's resonance."
So it was connected. The ring. The sites. Elira. Velkan.
They weren't just legends or outposts.
They were pieces.
"Wait," he muttered. "The triangle… the spiral… It's not random, is it?"
"It's a sequence," Echo-12 replied. "Twelve Remnant Nodes across the city. Twelve seals. When unlocked… the path reveals itself."
"The path to what?"
"To the truth you were never meant to remember."
Kael's jaw clenched.
Of course.
It always circled back to that—his past. His death. His resurrection. People whispered half-truths. Left riddles behind. Symbols. Prophecies. Fables.
But never the truth.
Never the damn truth.
He wasn't a pawn.
He wasn't a mistake.
And he sure as hell wasn't going to be left in the dark.
"Then show me," he said. "You said I'm part of this. Prove it."
The echo hesitated for a second, as if… contemplating.
Then her hand extended.
From the altar, a shard lifted into the air—a crystal, coin-sized, pulsing with dim white light.
"This contains the first fragment of your sealed memory. A piece of the forgotten Kael. But be warned… memory is pain."
Kael reached forward.
And grabbed it.
The moment his fingers closed around the shard—reality broke.
The chamber vanished.
He was somewhere else.
A battlefield.
Ancient. Broken.
Skies blackened. Towers burning. Ash falling like snow.
Soldiers in obsidian armor clashed with cloaked figures wreathed in light. Magic screamed across the earth. Thunder cracked open the sky.
And at the heart of it all—Kael stood.
Not this Kael.
Another.
His blade—longer, older, etched with runes—dripped crimson. His eyes didn't glow with rage, but something colder.
Betrayal.
Twelve silhouettes stood behind him—powerful, divine, forgotten. One of them stepped forward—a woman with silver hair and a voice like snow.
"Kael… don't forget who you are."
And then—
Darkness.
Kael collapsed in the chamber, coughing, gasping. Sweat slicked his back. His chest heaved like he'd just sprinted through fire.
The echo's voice returned, softer now.
"You were the thirteenth. The unbound."
"And they erased you."
Kael's hands trembled.
Thirteen.
The thirteenth…
That's why he didn't fit. That's why the world kept trying to bend him back into something he wasn't.
Because he'd been broken apart. Fractured. And hidden from himself.
He stood slowly, legs unsteady.
One memory. Just one.
But it was enough to know this wasn't just a second chance.
It was a reclamation.
"I'll find the rest," he said, each word carved in iron.
"Then beware," the echo whispered, fading. "You are not the only one gathering the fragments. Others seek the truth… to use it."
Kael turned.
The exit yawned ahead—dark and waiting.
But this time, his shadow stretched long behind him.
Like a blade.
Drawn and ready.
If the past was hunting him…
He'd carve his own path straight through it.