The crystalline chamber pulsed faintly, casting fractured reflections of Astha, Luv, and Naira against the cold stone walls. The sealed form of Saphthya, Goddess of Dissent and Balance, hovered just above a basin of silver liquid—frozen in time, yet unmistakably alive.
Her lips barely moved, but her voice echoed inside their minds.
"My mind is scattered... torn by the gods I once called kin."
Astha approached slowly, the soles of his boots clicking softly on the marble.
"You remember what they did to you?" he asked.
Her gaze shifted toward him. No rage. No grief. Just an unbearable weight of knowing.
"I remember everything. But they buried pieces of my consciousness across the Womb of Echoes — a realm formed from the dying prayers of my worshippers."
She turned her head weakly toward Naira.
"If I remain fragmented, I will fade. But if you bring my memories back… I will show you where the gods' corruption truly began."
Luv clenched his jaw.
"How do we enter this… memory realm?"
The liquid beneath her began to ripple.
The chamber dimmed. The symbols around them glowed.
"Place your hand in the basin," Saphthya whispered.
"But know this — the Womb of Echoes is not just my memory. It is a graveyard of erased gods. And they remember everything."
---
Entering the Womb of Echoes -
Astha reached forward, submerging his palm in the divine pool. It stung like acid and frost together — burning not his skin, but his soul. The others followed.
Suddenly, the room split open like paper, and they were swallowed whole.
When they opened their eyes, they stood in an infinite desert — not of sand, but ashes.
Above, a cracked sky.
Below, ruins of temples twisted by time and emotion.
Voices whispered on the wind. Forgotten gods. Forsaken mortals.
Saphthya's fractured mind echoed in the air.
"Find the fragments. Beware the sentinels."
---
[Echo 1 – The Dying Bell]
The first memory stood like a lone bell tower surrounded by thousands of skeletal hands reaching out from the ground.
Astha stepped forward, but the hands grabbed at him.
"These are prayers," Naira realized. "Desperate ones."
Luv summoned a surge of thunder, blasting a path clear. Inside the tower, they found the first fragment — a memory of Saphthya trying to defy a divine decree, sparing a mortal city from annihilation.
The gods punished her. They erased the city anyway.
And for disobedience — they shattered part of her divinity.
---
Sentinel of the Hollow
As they pulled the fragment from the bell, the ash solidified.
A sentinel emerged.
It was a malformed god, a fusion of multiple erased beings — howling in agony, bound in chains of holy script.
It attacked without mercy.
Luv clashed head-on, his silver armor glowing with a thunder seal that let him move in bursts of lightning.
Naira slipped into the shadows, blades drawn.
Astha stayed still.
Until—
Crack.
He snapped his fingers, and Tamsavrit appeared mid-air, spinning violently. He caught it mid-flight and sliced the sentinel clean in half, the weapon unraveling into triple-bladed form before reforming in an instant.
The ashes consumed the corpse. The tower crumbled.
"One fragment down," Astha said, his voice cold.
"How many more?"
"Six," Saphthya's voice replied. "And each is guarded."
---
[Return from the Echo]
The realm pulled them back violently. The liquid pool splashed around their feet as they returned to the present — breathing hard, scarred slightly, but alive.
Saphthya's voice was clearer now, her expression less pained.
"You have restored my defiance. But not my balance. Continue."
Astha turned to the others.
"We do this fast," he said. "Before the gods notice."
Luv cracked his knuckles.
"Then let's start a war in her mind."