The tunnels twisted like a serpent's belly, damp with time and lined with fractured relics of a civilization long buried runes half-scrawled, names half-erased. Lucien's boots splashed through shallow water as he pulled Hana behind him, Ae-rin barely a pace ahead, her palm aglow with blue sigils that shimmered like stars in mist.
Behind them: whispers.Above them: cracking stone.Inside them: memories that didn't belong.
"Hana don't stop!" Lucien barked as she stumbled again.
But she had stopped.
Hands against her temples. Breathing hard.
"I saw him. A boy. He was… crying. He had your eyes, Lucien."
He froze. Ae-rin turned sharply, eyes widening. "What did you just say?"
Hana shook her head violently. "I don't know who he is, but I felt him—like I knew him. Like I'd lost him."
Lucien remembered the flickering vision in the sanctuary. A voice crying out to Hana. "You left me behind."
It wasn't a metaphor.
It was literal.
"We had a child," he murmured, more to himself than anyone else. "In our past life. Before she died."
"And the Echo remembers," Ae-rin added grimly. "That soul fragment… it's likely bound within the Echo itself. Feeding it. Or trapped by it."
Lucien turned his gaze to the darkness ahead.
Then clenched his jaw. "Then we're going to tear him free."
Somewhere Deeper – The Echo Vault
Lights blinked in rhythmic patterns across a webbed control interface, slick with age and humming with power. Shin Dae-hyun stood before the Echo Core, a pulsating orb suspended by magnetic threads, filled with fractal images of the past. He watched as Lucien and Hana appeared on its surface, running, breathing, remembering.
Next to him, the ghost of a child hovered in its blurry form, face uncertain.
"You'll be whole soon," Shin whispered, placing a hand on the interface. "Your father will come. And when he does... We'll collapse the boundary together."
The child-echo didn't respond.
But a single tear ran down its spectral cheek.
Back in the Passageways – Seoul's Underbelly
They reached a break in the tunnel, an ancient chamber marked with inscriptions in two languages: one was Korean. The other? The same ancient script was found inside the sanctuary.
Ae-rin ran her hand along the inscription.
"It's a soul gate," she whispered. "This… is where Yul tried to break fate itself."
Lucien stepped closer. "What do you mean?"
She looked over her shoulder, eyes haunted. "After the final war, Yul sacrificed his own memories to keep No-eul safe. But he left behind this gate. A fragment of his soul... and hers... were bound into a potential future."
Lucien's heartbeat was thunder in his ears.
"I left a part of myself behind…"
Hana stepped forward slowly, her fingers brushing the stone, and it responded glowed beneath her touch.
The gate opened.
And memories flooded them.
Not visions. Not illusions.
Real, lived pain.
Flashback – 980 A.D. – Final Days of the War
No-eul lay on the temple floor, blood seeping through her robes. The child was gone. Taken. Or worse never born at all. Yul stood over her, eyes burning as magic bled from his skin. In his hand: the Soul Shard of the Phoenix. His last weapon. His last sin.
"You said we'd leave," she whispered. "You said we'd run away."
"I lied," he said softly. "I wanted to believe we could."
She reached for him.
He knelt, pressing her palm to his chest.
And whispered, "Find me again. Even if it takes a thousand years."
Then he stepped into the soul gate and sealed the future behind him.
Present – Chamber of the Soul Gate
Lucien gasped and staggered, nearly falling. Hana clutched his arm, but she was pale almost translucent. The echoing effect of soul-link.
"You're destabilizing," Ae-rin warned. "The gate recognizes both of you. If you go any further in this state..."
"Tell me what's beyond the gate," Lucien demanded.
Ae-rin hesitated. "The past. Or what's left of it. The Echo has rooted itself in both your memories. If you enter… you risk rewriting who you are."
Lucien's voice dropped. "If that's what it takes to save her, and our son, I'll do it."
Hana grabbed his hand. "We go together."
They step through.
Everything shatters.
Inside the Echo
Lucien found himself standing in a field of ash.
Ruins stretched around him ancient Seoul twisted into something mythic. Floating pagodas, ruined skyscrapers fused with shrines. Time no longer obeyed rules here. Every breath was a lifetime. Every heartbeat a memory.
Hana stood beside him, her form flickering with her past life No-eul overlapping like ghostlight.
And ahead of them…
The child.
He stood in a circle of stone, surrounded by broken phoenix feathers, his eyes hollow.
Lucien stepped forward. "Who are you?"
The boy tilted his head. "You called me Dae-won."
Lucien's breath caught.
"That was the name we chose," Hana whispered. "Before I… before I died."
The boy looked at her, confusion in his face. "Are you my mother?"
Hana reached for him, voice trembling. "I think I am."
But before she could touch him
A blast of black flame tore the ground open.
Shin Dae-hyun appeared, cloaked in memory and malice.
"Ah, how touching," he sneered. "But I'm afraid this reunion must be... postponed."
Lucien drew his blade. "Touch them and I will end you."
"You'll try." Shin smiled, and the Echo screamed behind him an enormous shadow forming from every regret, every misstep, every unsaid goodbye.
It opened its mouth.
And called Lucien's true name.
"Yul."