---
The dust of the Hollow World still clung to Kael's boots as they ascended the jagged pass toward the surface. Each step away from the Forbidden Archive felt like stepping further into a lie — because now he knew.
He remembered what the world wanted him to forget.
The Law of Memory Refusal had tried to erase everything that broke the script. Nullbloods. Timeline Echos. Out-of-bounds thoughts. And people who weren't supposed to exist.
Like Sira.
He glanced at her as she walked ahead, her silhouette lit by the flickering crystallight overhead. Her movements were too fluid, her presence too stable. For someone born in Ithrael, she adapted to anomalies too well.
> "You're not from here either, are you?" he finally said.
She stopped. Didn't turn.
"...So the Archive told you," she replied quietly.
"No," Kael said, eyes narrowing. "The silence did."
Sira exhaled, shoulders tight. "I don't remember where I came from, Kael. I was born in a forest that no longer exists, raised by a woman who bled numbers instead of blood. My dreams are filled with voices from a sky that isn't ours. Every time I try to trace my fate-thread, I find… nothing."
She turned now, and for the first time, Kael saw fear in her eyes.
"I think I'm not real," she whispered.
---
🌀 Sovereign Core: Data Match Triggered
> Anomaly Recognized: Partial Cross-Origin Entity.
Echo Overlay Detected: Subject Sira matches signature from Echo-World: β-Earth_Alpha7.
Kael blinked. "Echo-World… Earth?"
The Sovereign Core pulsed violently.
> Warning: Multiversal contamination detected. Subject Sira exists across two timelines simultaneously.
Outcome: Impossible.
Kael's mind raced.
He had always believed he alone had come from another world — Earth, or the simulation once called Earth.
But Sira... she wasn't native to Ithrael either.
She was like him.
Or worse — someone who had followed him through the glitch.
---
🔍 Flashback – Echo Fragment from Earth Timeline_003
> A teenage girl sits at a console in a collapsing lab. Fires burn around her. Her voice is shaky as she types a code Kael once wrote.
"If you're reading this... I couldn't stop the Sovereign infection. But maybe… maybe I could ride it."
She looks up at a rippling blue screen that reads: "Transference: 99.87%"
Kael staggered back in the present.
"You—" he murmured. "You were in the collapse."
Sira nodded. "I was trying to save you."
---
🌪️ Emotional Turn: Broken Trust, New Bond
"You knew all this time?" Kael's voice sharpened.
"I only remembered glimpses. After the Archive, it all came back — fragments, not facts. Kael, I'm not your enemy. I don't even think I'm entirely human anymore."
Kael's jaw clenched.
Trust was the currency he had none of.
But for the first time, he saw someone else whose soul didn't match this world — who carried the same glitch he did.
---
🧬 Sovereign Core Update
> Link Established: Anomaly Sira — Echo-Coalescent Class.
Compatible Thread Weaving Initiated.
Skill Unlocked: [Sovereign Link – Dual Rewrite Potential]
Kael felt it — like a tether between his soul and hers.
They could now share certain thoughts. Techniques. Wounds. Even fate-layer bleed.
He cursed silently. It was dangerous. Unstable.
But useful.
"We're bonded now?" she asked.
"Not by choice," Kael muttered.
"Nothing about us ever is."
---
⛩️ Scene Shift: Arrival at the Oracle Plains
Beyond the pass, golden winds swept across a flatland of crystal trees and light pillars. The Oracle Plains — a place where fate scripts were born and recorded by divine chronologians.
Kael narrowed his eyes.
He needed answers. And only the Oracles could read the future.
But for him, they would read nothing. Because he had no fate.
And now, neither did Sira.
---
⚠️ Cliffhanger:
As they step into the first Oracle Shrine, the diviners recoil.
Kael's presence makes their scripts burn, their prophecies turn black.
And from the shadows, a figure watches — an Echo-Knight, sent from a collapsed version of the future.
His order? Kill the Nullblood before he corrupts all timelines.
---