The walls whispered.
Not with words, but memories.
Each corridor Solan stepped through in the Veiled Labyrinth rearranged behind him. What had been a hallway of cracked marble turned to a mausoleum of mirrors. Then a corridor lined with portraits—each painting a distorted version of himself, masked, dead, or screaming.
Wyrm coiled behind him in silence, no longer whispering, but watching.
Above them, violet lanterns flickered. Beneath them, the floor pulsed with a faint heartbeat. Somewhere deeper, something called—a sound like someone sobbing behind a locked door.
He passed a mural. It had no paint, only engraved runes—one of them shifted as he stared. A symbol flickered, then vanished.
.
Symbol Drift: Moderate
Mental Load: Rising
Soulchain [Wyrm]: Stable
Reckoning Triggered: Trial of Echoes – Initiate?
.
He stopped walking.
"I don't remember this place," Solan muttered aloud. "But I know where it ends."
The labyrinth had no maps. Only paths made by those strong—or broken—enough to walk them.
He reached a black door with a symbol etched into it: a hollow eye surrounded by thorns.
The mark of Regret.
When he placed his palm against it, a cold spike of pain lanced into his spine. Vein by vein, the labyrinth acknowledged his presence. His soul burned—but the door opened.
Behind it: a massive cathedral drowned in moonlight.
At its center knelt a figure in black robes, head bowed, chanting in broken tongues. Its voice echoed not through the air, but through Solan's bones. When it raised its head, its mask was his own—but aged, cracked, crying blood.
The figure stood.
"I am the voice of what you refused to remember," it said. "And I will drag you back."
It lunged.
Solan barely avoided the first blow.
A tendril of black ichor lashed past him, embedding into a pillar. The masked Echo twisted its form—half-wraith, half-man—and split into two. Then four.
Each copy whispered a different line of guilt:
"You let them burn."
"You spoke the name."
"You abandoned your brother."
"You wanted power more than truth."
He tried to shout them down—but the Mask of the Forsaken Tongue turned his voice into lightning. One copy staggered, shrieking as its form unraveled. Another leapt through it.
Veilcraft flooded his mind. Runes lit across his arms without him drawing them.
He cried the first phrase he remembered:
"Silence the blood."
The glyphs surged outward. Two of the echoes froze, shaking violently as their bodies twisted into smoke. He rushed the third, driving Wyrm's shadow forward.
Wyrm snarled with hunger.
Chains erupted from the ground—black and ragged—snaring the final Echo's limbs.
Solan stepped forward.
"Name yourself," he demanded.
The Echo only laughed, and its mask shattered.
Underneath was Solan's own face, weeping black ichor.
"You know me," it whispered. "I am who you were before the system took hold. The self you buried in a corpse."
Solan clenched his jaw. "Then stay buried."
He struck.
Wyrm's mouth opened in the Echo's chest. With a howl of voidlight, the fragment of regret was consumed—and the cathedral trembled.
All fell still.
A single rune flared above him: completed.
.
Reckoning Complete
Soulchain Forged: [Echo of the First Sin] – Tier: Echo
Ability Unlocked: Griefpulse – Manipulate emotional weight into Veil energy
Mental Stability: +5%
Symbol Drift: Suppressed
.
His knees buckled.
But the system didn't relent.
.
Talent Evolution Imminent
Veilcraft Path Affinity: Archivist – 47%
Awakening Threshold: 50%
Memory Saturation: 32%
Damage Accumulated: 11% (Veil Burn, Cognitive Shear, Soul Compression)
.
The cathedral began to dissolve.
Shadows frayed like thread. Light fractured like broken mirrors. Solan reached toward the archway—only to be yanked backward by Wyrm's presence.
It didn't speak. But something passed between them.
Not words. Memories.
A throne room. A younger Solan in chains. Screaming. An execution. A deal made in silence.
Wyrm had been there.
Long before the Mask. Long before the system.
When the world twisted again, he found himself kneeling in mud, the ruins of Eidralune rising around him like the bones of a dead god.
The stars overhead flickered—three of them missing.
Rain had returned.
But so had something else.
He was not alone.
"Your soul's getting louder."
Solan flinched, spinning to face the speaker.
A girl stood on the shattered stairway behind him. Wrapped in gray robes marked by the Lantern Lodge's sigil, she carried a lantern filled not with fire—but a shifting eye of light.
"Serain Valen," she said, with a dry smile. "You scream when you sleep. Figured you were either Voidmarked, cursed, or both."
Solan steadied himself. "Who are you?"
She tilted her head. "Your only option if you want to survive Eidralune."
Her gaze fell to the Mask.
"Path of the Forsaken Tongue," she murmured. "You're either mad, or marked by something ancient. Probably both."
Solan didn't reply.
He noticed her hands bore runes—vein-burned marks of ritual scars.
"You've done Reckonings," he said.
She nodded. "Twelve. Maybe thirteen if I count the one that made me forget my mother's name."
He looked away.
Serain stepped closer.
"You're not safe here," she said. "The Inquisitorium is sealing the Outer Tier. They found signs of divine corruption in the trenches."
Solan raised an eyebrow. "Let me guess. A god's whisper?"
She smiled thinly. "Worse. A silence."
Lightning cracked over the ruined city.
In its flash, the symbol carved into Solan's hand pulsed again—then vanished.
Something new had begun unraveling.