As the Celestial Wound surged through dimensional tides, its hull glowing with sigils older than the stars, a tense silence gripped the warship. Jin Long stood alone in the meditation chamber, his breathing slow, eyes closed, the Genesis Core resonating within him like a quiet storm.
The First Echo was gone—but his memory lingered like smoke. Jin Long had seen what he could become, what any of them could become, if their path strayed even a little. Power alone wasn't the threat. It was what that power was used to protect—or destroy.
Then the lights flickered.
A whisper reached his mind—soft, feminine, and terrifyingly ancient.
"You seek to change fate. But fate does not bend without a price."
His eyes snapped open.
—
In the control chamber, Yue Lan met him with urgency. "We've picked up a resonance signature—a psychic beacon from the ruins of the Oracle Star."
"The Oracle?" Jin Long asked, surprised. "I thought it was lost during the First Collapse."
"No," Yue Lan replied, "it survived… barely. And someone's activating it now. The coordinates align with the Third Echo's presence."
Jin Long's expression darkened. "Set a course. We're going to see the future."
—
The Oracle Star was a planet of crystalline ruins, once a nexus of timelines and prophecy. Now, it was cracked and bleeding ether. Floating above its surface like a spider in her web was a woman clothed in shadows and veils—Echo III: Madame Sinari, once the Oracle of a fallen future.
She was blind in the physical sense—but saw across time with terrifying clarity. She turned as Jin Long and Yue Lan approached.
"Welcome, Genesis Bearer," she whispered, her voice like silk stretched over bone. "Did you come for answers... or absolution?"
"We came to destroy you," Yue Lan snapped.
Madame Sinari smiled. "You don't destroy a prophecy. You fulfill it."
—
Inside the Oracle Spire, Jin Long stepped into a room of mirrors—each showing a different version of himself: triumphant, broken, dead, corrupted.
One version stood surrounded by corpses.
Another, crowned in gold.
Another knelt beside Yue Lan's grave.
"These are all truths," Madame Sinari said behind him. "You think you're different? That your will can overwrite destiny?"
"I am different," Jin Long said, drawing his sword.
"No," she said, lifting her hand. "You are simply next."
—
The battle was not physical—it was mental, spiritual, cosmic. Madame Sinari twisted time like thread, sending Jin Long into his own memories, his regrets, his fears. He watched Yue Lan die over and over. Watched himself turn into Zhan Wuhen. Watched Earth burn.
But deep within, the Core pulsed.
Remember who you are.
Yue Lan's voice pierced the vision. She had found him in the psychic storm, reaching for his hand.
"I'm still here," she said. "Come back to me."
—
Jin Long roared, shattering the illusion. His sword met Sinari's staff, and light cleaved through darkness. The Oracle screamed as her timelines burned, the prophecy undone.
Before she disintegrated, she whispered, "You may have beaten me… but you cannot silence the Voice in the Rift. Zhan Wuhen hears everything."
Then she was gone.
—
As they left the ruined spire, Yue Lan looked to Jin Long. "That was more than just another Echo. That one knew you."
"She saw futures I haven't even lived yet," he murmured. "And she feared one of them."
"Which one?"
"The one where I win."
—
Back aboard the ship, the countdown continued.
Eleven Echoes remained.
And with each, the weight of destiny grew heavier.
But so did Jin Long's resolve.