"When a man is marked by death, he does not walk with footsteps — he walks with echoes."
— Inscription in the Shrine of Ekwensu
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Location: Forest Ruins Outside Enugu
The morning fog coiled through the trees like spirit fingers. A silence had returned, but not the peaceful kind. This silence watched. It waited.
Obinna's breath came in shallow, sharp bursts. His shirt clung to his back, wet from sweat and spirit rain. His fingers, still singed from the ritual, clutched the charred remains of his grandfather's staff.
The shrine behind him had crumbled, its energy spent. But something lingered in the air. A presence. Not Azụmiri. Not the gods.
Something older. Colder.
> "Who calls the Reaper without a price?"
The voice shattered the silence. It didn't come from the sky. It came from everywhere—the bark of trees, the stones, the blood in Obinna's veins.
He turned slowly.
The forest had shifted.
Mist now formed a wide circle around him, thick and unnatural. Within it, black feathers floated downward, as though from an unseen crow whose wings spanned the clouds.
Then the figure stepped out.
Cloaked in what looked like rags of darkness, stitched together by fate and war, the being's face was hidden beneath a deep hood. Only a crimson glow shimmered where eyes should be.
> "You smell of broken chains," the figure said.
"Of gods waking. Of destiny leaking into the world like spilled blood."
Obinna raised his weapon instinctively.
> "Who… what are you?"
The figure tilted its head, amused.
> "Names are for the living. But you may call me Idu. The Reaper of Forgotten Flames. And you…" — it stepped closer, unbothered by the rising heat from Obinna's spirit — "you are standing on borrowed time."
Obinna held his ground, sweat dripping from his brow.
> "Why are you here?"
"Because you called. When you awakened Azụmiri… you cracked more than the shrine. You cracked the veil."
The Reaper extended a single, bony hand. Black vines spread from his sleeve like veins, slithering across the ground toward Obinna's feet.
> "The Nine Rings aren't just power, boy. They are paths... and paths must be tested."
Obinna backed away slightly, the vines sizzling where they met his spiritual aura.
> "I didn't ask for this."
> "Neither did the dead you buried," the Reaper replied softly.
"And yet here we are."
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Flashback — The Moment Before Awakening
In the depths of his memory, Obinna remembered lying among the rubble. His mother's anklet still warm. His sister's blood drying on his skin. He had whispered a prayer that no god answered.
Until something did.
A heartbeat beneath the soil. A voice behind time. A shadow beneath light.
> "If they won't come," he had muttered through clenched teeth, "then let me become the storm that swallows gods."
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Back in the Present
Obinna lowered his weapon, slightly.
> "If I walk these paths… what happens to me?"
The Reaper chuckled.
> "Everything. You will bleed. You will burn. You will rise. Or you will break."
It pointed to the nine glowing glyphs now burned into Obinna's right forearm.
> "The first ring has accepted you. But the next awaits — and it's no shrine. It's war."
Suddenly, the Reaper extended both hands.
And the forest split.
A glowing tear opened in the air like a wound — revealing a battlefield. Corpses littered the landscape, Nigerian and Biafran uniforms alike. Explosions echoed in the distance, but the men didn't move. They were frozen in time.
Obinna stepped forward, compelled.
> "What is this?"
> "The moment your path begins. The Second Ring: Memory. You must enter and relive the deaths of others… through their eyes."
> "Why?"
> "Because power without memory breeds tyrants. And you, Obinna, are not allowed to become another tyrant."
Obinna gritted his teeth.
> "So I walk through their pain."
> "Yes."
> "What if I fail?"
The Reaper turned.
> "Then you remain here. Like me. Half-man, half-memory. A ghost cursed to watch but never touch."
Obinna inhaled sharply.
> "Then let me walk."
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Location Shift: Battlefield of Memory (Second Ring)
As he stepped into the rift, heat enveloped him.
Suddenly, he wasn't Obinna anymore.
He was Private Tunde Afolabi, age 19. A terrified Nigerian soldier crouched behind a crumbling wall in Owerri. His comrades had been slaughtered. His stomach ached from fear. His lips prayed in Yoruba.
Obinna felt the boy's thoughts. His fears. His love for his mother. His dream of becoming a teacher. His rage at being used.
Then he was shot.
Pain erupted in Obinna's real chest. He fell to his knees — gasping — though no bullet touched him here.
> "This… is too much," he coughed.
But the Reaper's voice returned:
> "Good. Let it break you. Only then can it remake you."
More lives came. He became a Biafran sniper, aged 17, who held his breath as he pulled the trigger on a convoy. A child soldier who carried a bomb not knowing it would kill his own family. A mother who shielded her infant from shrapnel with her own back.
Each time Obinna broke a little more.
Each time, his real body glowed with flickering marks.
When it was over, he collapsed to the earth — bloody, shaking, weeping.
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Return to the Forest
The rift sealed. The forest was silent again.
The Reaper stood beside him, no longer amused.
> "You walked their pain. You earned your second ring."
And sure enough, on Obinna's arm, another glyph now glowed — this one shaped like a tear-drop inside a flame.
> "And this?" Obinna asked weakly.
> "The price of memory," Idu said. "And a reminder — you are not fighting alone."
> "What now?"
The Reaper turned, its form already vanishing like smoke in wind.
> "Now? You find the others. The champions. Nigeria has theirs. Biafra will awaken theirs too. And the gods… the gods are watching."
> "Wait!" Obinna shouted. "Will I see you again?"
The Reaper paused once more.
> "Only when you bleed."
Then he was gone.
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📘 Mini-Dictionary (New Terms Introduced)
Idu (The Reaper) – A mythic being representing forgotten memories and cursed spirits. Tests chosen champions before they ascend.
Second Ring – Memory – A spiritual realm where the chosen relive the lives and deaths of others to gain perspective, empathy, and growth.
Glyph Marks – Tattoos-like symbols that appear on the body as a champion ascends the Nine Rings. Each ring grants a glyph tied to experience.
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