The crypt fell into an eerie stillness, as if the walls themselves were holding their breath.
Raen's eyes remained locked on the masked warrior who had appeared—his presence radiated the terrifying calm of someone who had killed without flinching. The wind seemed to retreat from him, as though afraid to touch a man who brought silence in his wake.
"The Purger," Talin whispered, stepping to Raen's side. "He's one of the elite. A silencer."
Raen remained calm. "Then it's time I learned what silence fears."
The Purger took one step forward. The air behind him twisted, and the faint echoes in the chamber—Raen's constant chorus of whispers—vanished instantly. It was as if the very concept of sound had been drained.
Nira gasped. "My voice…"
She clutched her throat, and Talin did the same.
Raen's heart pounded. The Purger hadn't even attacked yet—he had simply removed sound.
But Raen… heard something still.
A whisper—not around him, but within.
"You are the last of the Whisper Line. You carry not just voices, but defiance. Let the blade sing."
Raen's fingers curled around the Silent Edge.
In a single breath, he drew.
His blade sang—not in sound, but in intention.
The room pulsed with force, the vibrations cracking the stone beneath his feet. The Purger raised his halberd just in time to meet the strike, but it wasn't a clash of weapons—it was a clash of philosophies. The blade that sang in defiance met the weapon that enforced silence.
The echo burst outward in invisible shockwaves.
Talin and Nira were thrown back. Ancient walls split. Mural dust filled the chamber.
And still Raen moved forward.
Each strike he made carried memory—a dying whisper from a forgotten swordsman, a silent scream from a fallen protector, a laugh cut short by betrayal. The Echo Blade at his side joined in, humming violently in its sheath, resonating with the Silent Edge.
Then, as the Purger raised his halberd for a sweeping arc meant to erase Raen entirely—
Raen let go.
Not of the blade.
Of control.
His body moved with the weight of all who came before him. The Whisper Arts were no longer just a technique. They were a living memory, a current that flowed through his muscles, spine, and soul.
He twisted, leapt, and sliced through the incoming silence.
And for the first time, the Purger flinched.
A gash tore across the man's chest. Black, soundless blood seeped from the armor.
The Purger backed away. The wind dared to return now, slipping through the cracks of the crypt.
"You… are no ordinary echo," the man rasped, his voice metallic and forced.
Raen stepped closer, blades sheathed, eyes calm.
"No," he replied. "I'm the rebirth of forgotten voices."
The Purger dropped a small obsidian shard. A pulse flared from it—and in a blink, he vanished into shadow.
Raen exhaled slowly.
Nira rushed to him, voice restored. "What… what was that?"
"A warning," Raen said. "The Severed Song knows. And they're afraid."
Talin helped steady the crumbling crypt as debris fell around them. "Then we've shaken something ancient."
Raen turned back to the book on the dais.
He opened it.
Inside were sketches of blades unlike any he had seen—fluid designs, alive with movement. And text written in the Whisper Tongue:
"Only those who listen may lead."
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End of Volume 3