The night before the attack, Aren didn't sleep.
Not because of fear, but because of something deeper—awareness.
He sat alone on the watchtower ledge, eyes fixed on the horizon, feeling the slow shifting of the world around him. He could sense it now—threads in the spirit-veil moving unnaturally, like puppeteers tugging invisible strings.
The Mindkeepers were coming.
And they would not bring an army.
They would bring silence.
Below, the Painted Ones prepared the sanctuary as best they could. They were artists, not soldiers. But spirit-painting had its uses. Murals woven with sigil-ink shimmered across the tower's interior walls, forming barriers that responded to emotion and memory.
Kaeliah paced along the corridor, armor half-worn, her blade already at her hip.
"You should rest," she said when she saw him return.
Aren gave a slight shake of his head. "I can't. Not while we still don't know what kind of weapon they're sending."
Leiran appeared behind them, brushes floating, hair streaked in crimson dye. "You don't understand. The Mindkeepers don't use soldiers. They send Echo Walkers—memories given flesh, bound by oath and truth."
Aren frowned. "A spirit construct?"
"Worse," Leiran said grimly. "They send your own past against you."
[System Notice: Sovereign Domain Breach Imminent]
Threat Detected: [Echo Knight – Level ??]
Memory Signature: Forbidden Tier
Objective: Redact Altered Threads / Purge Sovereign Interference
Estimated Manifestation: 00:24:17
The countdown ticked in his vision like a drumbeat.
Aren looked at Kaeliah. "We need to evacuate the villagers."
"They won't go," she said. "Veema already tried. They said if the Mindkeepers wipe this place, they want their stories to be remembered."
Aren nodded solemnly. "Then we'll give them a story the world can't forget."
They reinforced the central chamber—where the mural of Aren's origin stood. Around it, spirit-ink traps were layered into the floor. Each stroke encoded with intent: freeze, blind, fracture.
And still, Aren knew it wouldn't be enough.
Not against something that remembered you better than you did yourself.
The system flickered.
[Sovereign Skill Activated: Memory Reflection]
Scan Complete.
Vulnerable Thread Identified: "Trial of Purity – Age 16"
His stomach turned.
"That's what they'll use," he murmured. "They're sending me."
The tower trembled as the veil shattered.
Wind didn't enter through doors or windows—it bled through memory itself. A tearing of reality, like the pages of a story being forcefully rewritten.
A single figure stepped through the rift.
Tall. Pale. Clad in ceremonial Spiritbound armor—but faceless, his head a mask of white porcelain etched with Aren's trial number: Vahl-0017.
Kaeliah raised her blade. "Echo Knight!"
"No," Aren whispered. "It's worse. That's my trial echo. That's the version of me who failed."
Leiran's breath caught. "A dead self, preserved by the Mindkeepers to enforce silence."
The figure spoke—its voice perfectly Aren's, but colder, emptier.
"You do not belong," it said. "You died at sixteen. You were erased."
It raised a blade of glasslight. "I am the truth the world remembers."
The battle began.
Kaeliah lunged forward with a wide arcing slash—but the Echo Knight dodged before she moved, as if predicting her strike. His blade countered with a flick, catching hers and freezing it mid-air, the edge locked in time.
"Not real," she snarled. "You're just a construct!"
"I am what you refused to grieve," the Echo said. "Aren Vahl, who begged for a spirit and was denied."
Kaeliah stumbled as her blade was flung away.
Aren stepped between them.
[Skill Unlocked: Throneless Reversal]
Trait: Sovereign Defiance – Your erased memory grants immunity to mirrored echoes.
Effect: Can nullify Echo attacks once per combat round.
Cooldown: 30 seconds
The Echo Knight raised its blade.
Aren did not flinch.
The strike came—swift, clean, devastating—and Aren caught it with his bare hand.
It should've sliced through him.
But instead, the blade shattered like porcelain.
The Echo stepped back. For the first time, it hesitated.
"You've rewritten your end," it whispered.
"I never ended," Aren growled. "I just stopped being what you wanted me to be."
The spirit-traps activated all at once. Paint flared across the room, forming a dome of shifting color.
The murals came alive—visions of all the Painted Ones' history: families lost, cities fallen, victories small and immense. The very essence of what had been stolen from them.
Aren raised both hands.
[Memory Graft – Domain Scale Attempt]
Input Anchor: "The Forgotten Will Not Fade"
Attempting Imprint Override…
Power surged through his veins. Shadows and ink curled around his body like armor.
The Echo charged one final time—its form destabilizing, growing monstrous, sprouting dozens of mirrored faces along its body.
Aren met it in the center of the room and plunged his shadowblade into its heart.
[Override Successful]
Echo Knight Purged.
Data Absorbed: Trial Fragment – Spiritbound Purification Ritual
System Update Unlocked:➤ Sovereign Ability: Echo Banish➤ Function: Permanently erase constructs of false memory.➤ Side Effect: Temporarily destabilizes your own identity.
The figure collapsed in Aren's arms.
Its mask crumbled.
Beneath it… was his own younger face.
Frail. Innocent. Terrified.
"I didn't want to die," it whispered.
Aren closed its eyes.
"I didn't," he said. "But I had to forget you to live."
He let it fade—finally laid to rest.
Outside, the sky cleared.
Kaeliah limped to his side. "It's over?"
"For now."
She looked at the place the Echo had fallen. "You fought yourself… and won."
"No," Aren murmured. "I just stopped running from who I used to be."
Later that night, Veema painted a new mural.
It showed the faceless knight facing the new Aren—older, burned, defiant. No crowns. No thrones. Just a man standing between the past and the people he chose to protect.
Above it, a single line in silver ink:
"The throneless king does not forget. He remembers for all."