The crystal walls split like ice under pressure, shards hanging in the air, suspended in golden light. The ground quaked. Not just tremors—this was something bigger. Something waking up.
Elior spun around, staff pulsing in his grip. The golden flame that had lit the chamber was gone now, absorbed into the staff's core. In its place, darkness surged—liquid and alive. It poured from cracks in the walls, like smoke and tar mixed with memory. Screaming memory.
Seraphis leapt forward, fur bristling. "They followed us!"
From the darkness rose Echoes—not illusions, not ghosts, but twisted reflections of what could've been. Shadows of people Elior knew, or could've known. One looked like his father—but with hollow eyes and black fire leaking from his hands. One looked like Arien, lips curled in a cruel smile, holding the staff as if it belonged to her.
And one… looked like Elior.
But older. Cold. Eyes like ash.
"They're not real," Seraphis growled.
"No," Elior said, his voice low. "They're worse. They're what might've been."
The first Echo lunged. The false Arien moved in a blur—quicker than thought. Her blade hummed with voidlight, striking low. Elior met it with the staff, and the impact sent a ring of light across the chamber.
He slid back, boots scraping stone.
The Echo-Arien grinned. "You should've stayed in the Crucible."
Elior didn't answer. He swung the staff wide, tracing a crescent arc in the air. Flame burst from its edge—not red, but gold and white, searing with memory. It hit the Echo, burning through her like a windstorm through paper. But she screamed like she'd been real. And the sound stuck.
Seraphis launched past him, crashing into the shadow of the Wyrm-King—a hulking echo wrapped in chains of time. His claws tore at spectral flesh. His fangs ripped clean through a serpent's eye. The thing hissed, snapping its jaws around him, but Seraphis rolled beneath, tail lashing, eyes glowing like a dying sun.
The older Elior—the Broken Echo—walked toward the center.
Calm.
Unbothered.
"You've seen it," he said, voice like gravel and ice. "The end."
Elior raised his staff, stance low. "I saw what could happen."
"And what will," the Echo answered. His version of the staff twisted in shape—longer, darker. Not memory-forged, but regret-bound. It bled black mist with every breath.
They clashed.
A burst of gold and shadow. Sparks flew like meteors. Each strike cracked the chamber floor, rippling into the stone like thunder made solid. Elior's movements were fast—faster than before—but his Echo was relentless. Precise. They weren't fighting for control.
They were fighting for reality.
The Echo spun, striking low. Elior blocked, then countered with a sweep of the staff—channeling not flame, but light from the past. The room glowed with layered moments: a child running through the forest, a warrior kneeling in the snow, Lioran standing tall beneath a broken moon.
The memories surged and slammed into the Echo like a tidal wave. He staggered—but did not fall.
Seraphis howled, pouncing from above. The false Wyrm-King rose to meet him, its body warping—growing new heads, wings like blades. One of them bit into Seraphis' shoulder. Blood sprayed. He snarled through it and kept going—driving his claws deep into the beast's skull and dragging them down like cleaving stone.
Elior leapt onto a rising stone shard, using it as a launch point. Mid-air, he spun the staff once, twice—then pointed it forward.
"Break."
Golden chains burst from the staff's head—binding the Broken Echo's limbs mid-swing. The Echo snarled and pulsed with black fire, snapping one of the chains.
Elior dropped to the ground, sliding between shards of spinning stone, staff low. His heart pounded. Each strike, each motion—it was as if the staff moved with him now. Not as a tool. As a part of him.
He feinted left, then spun right, ducking a shadow-blade aimed at his throat. He slammed the staff into the ground.
The room shattered.
The Vault of Echoes split apart—walls peeling back to reveal the world outside the Interval.
And it was chaos.
The sky above was on fire. Not red. Not gold. But every color Elior had ever seen in his dreams—colors from forgotten dawns and unborn worlds.
Floating cities burned. Giants walked through clouds. Lightning arced between stars.
And something massive moved behind it all.
Not a creature.
A will.
Watching.
Waiting.
The Broken Echo laughed, bleeding from his mouth. "It's already begun. You just don't know it yet."
Elior raised the staff, now glowing with all the fragments—memory, flame, starfire, and pain. He slammed it down again.
A pulse of golden energy surged out. Not a blast. A cleansing. The shadows screamed, dissolving. The Echoes burned, vanishing into light.
But the Broken Echo remained.
Only scorched.
"Why won't you fall?" Elior hissed.
The Echo raised his head. "Because I'm the version of you that wins. The one who sacrifices it all."
"And still loses," Elior said. "I saw it."
He stepped forward. No big words. No speeches.
Just the truth.
"You were strong. But you gave in. You forgot what mattered."
Elior raised the staff high.
The light gathered.
The golden flame inside it blazed—pulling power from the ground, the air, from Seraphis, from the memories carved into the walls.
And then—he brought it down.
Not on the Echo.
But on the chamber floor.
It cracked open, the energy sucking the Broken Echo into the rift. The moment the Echo fell in, he didn't scream.
He whispered.
"Then save him."
The floor closed.
Silence.
Just Elior and Seraphis again.
The staff dimmed slightly. Still whole. Still burning. But calm now.
Seraphis limped toward him, blood still dripping from his shoulder. "You good?"
Elior nodded slowly. "Yeah. For now."
The chamber began to dissolve—walls fading into star-patterns, floor turning into mist.
Above them, the sky of the Interval peeled back like paper, revealing the real world again.
Or what was left of it.
A shattered continent.
Oceans rising.
A black sun cresting the horizon.
Elior stood at the edge of what used to be a skybridge. Seraphis beside him.
Below, armies moved.
Some looked human.
Others didn't.
In the distance, he saw something—someone—rising from the ruins of a dead city.
Velora.
Her silhouette flared with wings made of glass and storm.
She raised a hand.
And the sky bent.
"She's already started," Seraphis muttered.
Elior gripped the staff.
The final piece still warm in his hand.
He looked down at the battlefield.
And stepped forward.
No hesitation.
No prophecy.
Just choice.
Just war.
To be continued.