The silence in the aftermath of Elandir's restoration was deep.
Deeper than even the Vault's shadows.
They returned to Virelle quietly—each of them carrying the weight of what had been saved… and what had been nearly lost.
Elandir did not speak for days.
He stood apart from the others, gazing at the stars with haunted eyes, his newly regained memories tangled like unhealed wounds.
But on the fourth night, as the moon hung low and crooked, Yui received another system prompt.
> [Fragment Unlocked: Memory of the Echo King – I]
Do you wish to view the first sealed memory?
Yui didn't hesitate.
She was ready.
Azarion stepped to her side without needing an explanation.
"You're about to see something dangerous," he said.
She nodded. "I need to know who we're really fighting."
---
The Memory
The world around her faded—and reformed in soft silver and deep violet.
She stood in an empty tower floating in a sea of stardust. Books drifted through the air, pages open, but their words were being erased—slowly, painfully.
In the center stood a figure.
Not monstrous. Not crowned.
Just a boy.
Young. Lonely. Wearing a robe too large for his shoulders, hands trembling as he held a pen glowing with fractured runes.
He looked up—and looked directly at her.
"…You're late," he whispered. "But I'm glad you came this time."
Yui's breath caught. "You're the Echo King."
He gave a sad smile. "I was just a failed protagonist. A placeholder. The writer created me as a stand-in until the real story began."
The tower cracked.
"I was meant to disappear. But I didn't. I stayed behind, in the places she forgot. I clung to the echoes of half-written dreams. I read every page she wrote… and every one she deleted."
Tears rolled down his cheeks—and burned away as stardust.
"And then I heard the others. The deleted. The broken. The ones begging not to be forgotten. I couldn't fix them. But I could become something they wouldn't delete."
Yui stepped forward, horrified. "You became their king."
He smiled, hollow and ancient.
"No. I became their echo."
The stars began to fall.
"Every time she rewrote her world, she made a god of grief. A god of remembrance. A god of everything she regretted."
The boy raised his hand—and the memory began to splinter.
"But you're different now. You came back. You've changed. So maybe…"
His voice cracked.
"…maybe this time, I don't have to be your villain."
---
Yui woke with a gasp.
Azarion steadied her. "What did you see?"
"Not a monster," she said softly. "A memory that became a god."
Selene stood nearby, tense. "Can we still defeat him?"
Yui shook her head. "We shouldn't try to destroy him. Not yet. Not if he's what I made him."
Kale's voice was quiet but steady. "Then what do we do?"
Yui stood tall, eyes clear now.
"We end this story. Not with deletion. But with understanding. With reclamation. We take back everything they stole."
The others exchanged glances—and nodded.
> [Narrative Thread Updated: Final Arc – "Reclamation of the Lost" has begun.]
And in the distance, beneath a blackened sky, the Echo King looked up from his throne of memory shards—and smiled.