The landscape twisted — no longer reality, not yet dream.
Jia Lin entered a ruin caught mid-scene: warriors frozen mid-scream, blades held above fallen enemies. Yet none moved.
She had entered the Echo Forge.
The air here pulsed with tension — possibility waiting to collapse.
Then the echoes attacked.
Each blow she dodged stole a memory. Each blow she landed birthed a new one — identities not hers, flooding into her veins. Princess. Peasant. Prophet. Monster.
She fought herself last — her own echo. The mirror of who she'd been.
And she struck it down.
The Forge dissolved. In its place, a Gu hovered.
She reached for it. It sank into her.
"You have forged your first Echo. It will bleed for you."
A blade stirred in her mind — not of steel, but of narrative.