The Reliquary opened like a wound.
No lock. No hinge. Just the slow splitting of iron as though pried apart from the inside. Kael's hands burned where they touched it, veins crawling up his arms like ink. The others stood back, cautious. Only the sound filled the cavern now, a low thrumming, like heartbeats echoing from the stone.
Then the light came.
Not bright, not warm. It was the color of raw marrow, pallid and shifting. It bled into the cavern until the walls themselves seemed to breathe. Kael staggered back, clutching his temples. The whispers hit him first.
Not words. Memories.
—A child running in an orchard under twin moons.
—The clash of bone-forged blades against iron spires.
—A queen with hair like burning copper, her face blurred but her eyes endless.
—Blood, everywhere, blood that remembered every name it had ever spilled.
Kael screamed as the visions rammed into him, too fast, too sharp. They weren't his, but they felt like they were.
System Notification: [Memory Contamination Detected]
[Personal Memory Fragment: Lost]
[Designation Removed: Sister's Laugh]
He froze. His chest seized.
"What, what was that?" His voice cracked.
The laughter. He could still feel it, could still sense it in the corner of his mind, but the sound, the actual sound, was gone. He reached for it and found only silence.
He turned on Duran, wild-eyed. "It took her voice. The cave—it—"
Duran shoved chalk sigils into the ground, pressing his bloody palm into them until the light steadied. "Not the cave. The Reliquary. It carries echoes, scraps from the First Vein itself. When it opens, it doesn't just show. It feeds. And you're the hungriest one here."
Kael's stomach twisted. He wanted to vomit, to claw his chest open and drag the shard free, but the Blood System pulsed inside him, drunk on the taste.
[New Protocol Unlocked: Echo Assimilation]
[Warning: Identity Stability = Compromised]
"Stabilize it!" Kael shouted, shaking, his voice raw. "Before it takes more."
"I'm trying!" Duran's hands were red to the wrist, his runes crawling like ants across the ground, barely containing the pulses of the Reliquary. "But it's already screamed your name to the world. Every Bloodhunter, every warlord, every scavenger with a Ledger-tied brand felt that pulse. They're coming."
Sereya swore, pacing like a caged predator. "So we're hunted again. What else is new?"
Kael staggered forward, fists clenched. "This isn't the same. The Red Ledger—"
The System chimed again.
[Ledger Update: Target Value Increased]
[Current Designation: Chosen of Hollow Will]
[Priority Ranking: Elevated — All Debtors Converging]
The cavern tilted. His name glowed against invisible pages. The mark on his chest seared until he nearly collapsed.
"I didn't ask for this," Kael hissed. His voice came out guttural, almost not his own. "I didn't—"
The Reliquary shivered.
The light twisted inward, folding like paper, and from its center something rose.
A shape.
No, his shape.
It stepped free of the Reliquary's glow like water dripping from glass. Skin, hair, stance, even the crimson pulse in the left eye. Perfectly him.
Kael froze. Every muscle locked.
The specter tilted its head, smiling with his mouth.
And then it spoke, with his voice, stronger, steadier, more certain.
"I did ask for this."
The silence stretched so long it hurt.
Sereya's knives were already drawn, gleaming in the pallid glow. "What in the Nine Veins—"
Duran's chalk snapped between his fingers. His voice cracked. "It's a Blood Mirror. An echo given shape. But it shouldn't, it shouldn't be this strong."
Kael backed up a step. His breath came fast, shallow. "That's… me."
"No," Sereya snapped. "That's a parasite. Kill it before it—"
The specter moved.
Not fast. Not threatening. Just… casually. Walking toward them with Kael's stride, Kael's posture, Kael's faint limp from the duel with the warlord. Every flaw, every scar replicated.
"You're wasting yourself," it said. Its smile never faltered. "You're clinging to memories that only weaken you. Why fight to remember laughter, when forgetting makes you sharper?"
Kael's stomach dropped. "You… you know what I lost."
"I know what you'll lose," it corrected. "Because I am what comes after. You think you're holding the System back, but every refusal, every defiance, it makes me stronger."
The cavern darkened. The Reliquary pulsed in sync with the specter, not with Kael.
System Alert: [Identity Discrepancy Detected]
[Mirror Entity Present — Awaiting Resolution]
Duran barked at Kael, desperate. "Don't engage it! The more you talk, the more it learns."
But Kael couldn't stop. He couldn't look away.
The specter's smile deepened, so familiar it hurt.
"I'm you," it whispered. "But better. And you know what the Ledger rewards, Kael? Not hesitation. Not mercy. It rewards survival. If you let me in, you'll stop bleeding for others. You'll win."
Kael's fists trembled. He wanted to scream. He wanted to run. He wanted to reach for his sister's laugh, but it wasn't there. And the hollow ache inside him whispered that the specter was right.
That maybe forgetting would make it easier.
That maybe this was who he was meant to be.
Sereya's blade flashed, grounding the moment with steel. She hurled it straight through the specter's chest.
It didn't flinch. The weapon passed through like water, clattering against the stone wall.
The specter chuckled, Kael's chuckle but colder. "See? Even your allies fear you. They see what I am already. They just don't want to admit it."
Kael's chest throbbed until his vision blurred red.
The System's voice cut again.
[Resolution Required: Destroy or Assimilate]
[Warning: Delay will result in permanent Identity Fracture]
Duran's chalk lines glowed furiously, but even he sounded shaken. "Kael! It's feeding on you. Whatever choice you make, you can't do nothing!"
Kael staggered forward, facing himself. His reflection mirrored the movement, smiling.
"Choose," it whispered. "Or I'll choose for you."
The Reliquary pulsed once more, louder than thunder. The cavern shook. Echoes howled from every tunnel. The light flickered, then went black.
And the last thing Kael saw before the dark swallowed him was his own face, smiling back with perfect certainty.