The Shattered Dream Horizon faded like a mist behind them as Zhen, Liuyan, and Qiyue stepped through the shimmering veil. Before them sprawled the Echoing Realm — a realm whispered about in the annals of the multiverse, a place where time itself fractured, splintered, and folded back upon itself in impossible ways.
The air shimmered with a prismatic haze, bending reality like light passing through a cracked crystal. Sounds came out of sync; voices echoed before they were spoken, footsteps reverberated backward. The ground beneath their feet felt both solid and fluid, shifting in subtle rhythms, as if the realm itself breathed with fractured memories.
Zhen inhaled deeply, feeling a mixture of awe and dread. "This place… it's like standing inside a memory that keeps breaking apart."
Liuyan's violet eyes scanned their surroundings, her flame flickering uncertainly. "Here, time doesn't flow linearly. Past, present, and future collide and bleed into one another. We must be cautious — one misstep and we might be trapped in a moment that isn't ours to hold."
Qiyue's gaze was steady, her veil catching the shifting light like a mirror reflecting endless possibilities. "The next fragment is held by someone who is both prisoner and warden of this realm. They exist between the echoes — lost in time's endless corridors."
Their journey began as they stepped forward onto a path of shattered glass and flickering shadows. Each shard reflected not only their forms but fleeting glimpses of possible futures and forgotten pasts — choices made and forsaken, victories and defeats folded into one.
Suddenly, the world rippled.
From the fractured air emerged a figure — a young woman with silver hair cascading like liquid moonlight, eyes deep pools of swirling stars. Her presence resonated with the realm itself; time bent and swirled around her in an intricate dance.
"Who trespasses in my domain?" Her voice was both melodic and distant, like a half-remembered song.
Zhen stepped forward, spear raised but calm. "We seek the fragment you hold. The multiverse is unraveling — we need your power to mend it."
The woman's gaze pierced through them, searching souls as if reading a book written in forgotten tongues. "Power? Or folly? Time is no gentle mistress — it devours all who try to command it."
Before they could reply, the ground shattered beneath them, plunging them into a swirling vortex of memories.
Visions assaulted their minds — battles fought in endless loops, faces lost to time, promises whispered and broken. The trio struggled to hold their identities amid the storm of echoes.
Liuyan's flames flared, weaving shields of light to protect their minds. Qiyue reached out, weaving dream-threads to anchor their souls.
Zhen clenched his spear, grounding himself with a mantra — "I am here. I am now. I am myself."
The vortex slowed, depositing them on a plateau suspended above an ocean of stars and fractured time. There, the silver-haired woman awaited, now calm but watchful.
"I am Aelya, the Timekeeper," she said softly. "I guard the echoes that bind past, present, and future. But my chains are of my own making."
Zhen's heart tightened. "Why hold yourself prisoner?"
Aelya's eyes shimmered with tears and starlight. "Because to break free would unravel time itself — and destroy all I strive to protect."
Qiyue stepped closer. "Then together we will bear the burden."
The fragile alliance formed, but as they spoke, shadows stirred beneath the ocean of stars. Dark tendrils of distorted time — the Chronophage — began to rise.
The Chronophage were devourers of time fragments, consuming moments, erasing memories, and leaving voids where existence once was.
Zhen, Liuyan, Qiyue, and Aelya prepared to battle — their powers intertwining in a dance against oblivion.
The fight would test their wills, their bonds, and the very fabric of reality.
Because in the Echoing Realm, every choice echoed forever.
The dreamscape twisted again.
One moment, Zhen stood upon the glimmering mirror-lake beneath a fractured sky, stars swirling in reverse motion. The next, he was pulled into a whirling tunnel of golden dust, voices whispering in fragmented tongues. Time folded, memories bled into illusions, and reality flickered like a dying flame.
He blinked—and found himself standing in the center of an ancient coliseum.
But this coliseum was not built from stone or steel. Its walls were composed of time itself—bands of light circling like massive sundials, their edges sharp, their surfaces reflecting countless versions of himself.
Each reflection was different.
One Zhen wore the crown of a world emperor, his eyes cold and vast, ruling over billions.
Another stood cloaked in black, a void blade in hand, surrounded by the bodies of gods.
A third was… dead. Lifeless. Empty.
"Welcome," a voice boomed from above.
Zhen looked up.
Floating above the arena was a man wrapped in gold-trimmed robes, his body translucent, like an echo barely clinging to form. His eyes shimmered with shifting hues of past and future, and a massive hourglass floated behind him, pouring stardust through an endless loop.
"You've reached the Trial of Echoes," the figure said. "The second gate of the Echoing Realm."
Liuyan and Qiyue appeared beside Zhen in a shimmer of light, breathless and disoriented.
"This place is absurd," Qiyue muttered, holding her temples. "I just saw myself speaking a language I don't know and controlling firebirds."
"I was flying," Liuyan whispered, wide-eyed. "But not with wings. I was wind."
Zhen clenched his fists. "Illusions or possibilities?"
The echo-being smiled faintly. "Both. In this realm, your past, present, and potential futures all converge. To proceed, each of you must face the fragment of self you fear—or desire—most."
The arena shifted again. The hourglass cracked.
Suddenly, Zhen was alone.
---
The sands beneath his feet were warm. The sky above was lavender and bleeding gold. In front of him stood… himself.
But this version of Zhen was older. Taller. His presence was thunderous, cloaked in silver flame. On his back was a weapon unlike any Zhen had ever seen—formed from countless celestial shards, vibrating with ancient laws.
"You know why I'm here," the future Zhen said, voice heavy. "This is what you could become. But only if you destroy the hesitation still lingering inside you."
"I've destroyed worlds to get here," Zhen said flatly.
"Yes. But you've also saved people. Loved them. You hesitate because you still believe there's something sacred in life."
Zhen's breath slowed.
Future Zhen raised a hand. A portal of time opened behind him, showing glimpses of battles—futures where Liuyan died, where Qiyue was erased, where the system turned on him. Endless timelines where he lost everything.
"Choose, Zhen," the echo said, stepping forward. "Embrace the ruthless certainty of ascension—or protect your heart and risk ruin."
Zhen stepped forward.
The ground trembled.
The blade on his back pulsed, responding to both fury and restraint. Memories surged—of Ruyan, of the palace, of chaos fragments, of the first time he bled for power and the first time he cried for someone else.
"I'll be both," Zhen said quietly. "Unyielding… and human."
Silver lightning burst from his body.
The two Zhens clashed.
Blades of time, fire, and essence rang through the void.
---
Elsewhere, in a fractured layer of the Echoing Realm, Liuyan faced her trial.
Before her stood a version of herself crowned in black lotus petals, her eyes glimmering with starlight and sorrow. This Liuyan had consumed a phoenix core, ascended as a Time Empress, and ruled over a realm where everyone who betrayed her burned to ash.
"You let love weaken you," the echo said. "I chose power. I chose vengeance."
"I chose Zhen," Liuyan said softly. "And I don't regret it."
"You will," the echo whispered. "When he leaves you behind."
Flames roared. Lotus blossoms ignited the skies. The two versions of Liuyan soared upward, clashing with spears of burning wind and time petals that cut reality.
Farther still, Qiyue faced a hall of mirrors—each reflecting a different path she could have walked. In one, she was a blind priestess of fate. In another, a bloodthirsty goddess of nightmares. In yet another, a child who never awakened her potential.
But it was the mirror where she had no system, no guidance—just her own will—that terrified her most.
"I'm nothing without it," she whispered.
The mirror shattered.
From its shards rose a version of Qiyue who fought with raw talent alone—no stats, no interface, just spirit and instinct.
And she was winning.
Qiyue screamed and surged forward, awakening a latent technique she'd never used before—a Time-Splitting Arrow that divided her attacks across infinite moments. It struck every version of herself simultaneously, restoring her unity and balance.
---
Hours—or moments—later, the three of them returned to the coliseum center. Bruised, changed, glowing with faint trails of power.
The echo-being nodded. "You've passed."
Cracks spread across the hourglass. The light around them pulsed.
But then—something went wrong.
A dark presence entered the realm.
Not a dream, not a memory. Something real.
The sky ripped open.
A figure descended—cloaked in voidlight, armored in rusted cosmic chains. His presence shattered the stability of the realm. The reflections screamed and melted.
Zhen stepped forward, instinct burning. "Who are you?"
"I am the third fragment-bearer," the figure said. "And this realm… is mine now."
The moment Zhen stepped deeper into the rippling corridor of stilled echoes, the world around him began to hum with an unnatural rhythm — as if time itself were breathing. Each step he took left behind afterimages that shimmered in place for a heartbeat before vanishing like smoke.
Liuyan walked at his side, her expression unusually serious. The silver runes on her wrist pulsed with radiant light, reacting to something deeper within this place. Behind them, Qiyue's long silver hair fluttered, her gaze fixed on the translucent wall ahead — where past and future blurred into a mosaic of infinite reflections.
They had entered the Hall of Temporal Reverberations, the third layer of the Echoing Realm.
"It's reacting to us," Zhen murmured. His eyes traced a swirl of violet mist, inside which a younger version of himself flickered, swinging a rusted sword, surrounded by the shadows of beasts long slain. "Or perhaps... it remembers us."
"It remembers everything," Qiyue said softly, her voice echoing not just through space, but through time itself. "This place is not bound by chronology. It is memory... personified."
Suddenly, Liuyan stopped. Her pupils dilated slightly as a ripple of dreamlight washed across her vision.
From one of the mirrored walls, a projection of herself stepped forward — not the Liuyan of now, but a version cloaked in celestial white flame, her eyes gold as suns, and bearing wings formed of crystallized runes.
Zhen instinctively stepped between them, raising his hand — but Liuyan held out her own. "No," she whispered. "She's not an enemy."
The projection blinked, then raised a hand. With a slow gesture, she pointed toward the shimmering floor beneath them, where a symbol burned itself into the surface — an ancient sigil shaped like a spiral of stars surrounding a mirror.
"The Mirror of Fates," Qiyue whispered. "A divine artifact lost during the collapse of the Thousand Echoes Era."
Liuyan closed her eyes. "She's showing me the path to it." As the projection faded, the sigil remained, pulsing once before disappearing into the corridor ahead.
Zhen frowned. "Why now?"
"Because," a voice answered — one that did not belong to any of them.
From the left corridor, the mist thickened — and from it emerged a being unlike anything they had yet faced.
It was neither man nor beast, but something caught between ages. Its form constantly shifted: at one moment a cloaked figure in royal armor, at another a spectral beast with three serpentine heads. It spoke from all mouths at once, voice layered in echoes from countless eras.
"I am Yushi, the Keeper of Broken Time. You tread paths forgotten by all but me."
Zhen narrowed his eyes. "Are you friend, foe... or just a test?"
Yushi's ever-changing form chuckled, a dissonant sound that rattled the walls. "I am none and all. But your presence... threatens to unweave the threads I've kept intact for eons. Therefore, I must decide."
Without further warning, Yushi extended a limb — and the air twisted violently. Time reversed in a sharp surge.
Zhen suddenly found himself back in the trial arena of the Heavenly Combat Hall, surrounded by roaring flames and phantom adversaries. But this time, he was alone.
His heart pounded. "An illusion?"
"No," Yushi's voice echoed in his mind. "A test of resonance. If your present self cannot conquer your past regrets... your future shall never unfold."
A tiger-formed flame beast surged forward — one Zhen remembered from his early days. But this time, its power was far beyond what he recalled. His body moved instinctively, dodging left, his [Heaven-Slaying Ascension Sword] igniting in a flare of crimson lightning.
The battle was swift but brutal. Every strike he landed invoked a memory — every wound he took reawakened pain he thought buried. His doubts, his failures, the faces of those he failed to protect — they rose like ghosts around him, screaming for justice.
When Zhen finally impaled the illusionary beast, a chain of shadows snapped around his limbs — and the illusions shattered.
He was back in the corridor.
Liuyan was kneeling, her palm on the ground. Runes had formed around her, creating a mirrored lotus array. Qiyue stood behind her, eyes shut, chanting in an ancient tongue Zhen had never heard before.
"We had trials too," Qiyue said, eyes opening. "This realm... it peeled apart the seams of our fate and stitched them together differently — then made us walk the new thread to see if we'd break."
Zhen exhaled, and his fingers flexed around his sword. "But we didn't."
A pause — then the corridor pulsed again, but this time not with threat.
Instead, it opened.
Before them, the walls folded away like pages, revealing a vast spiral staircase made of translucent crystal and floating hourglasses. At the center hovered a suspended orb of light, crackling with timelines that split and rejoined endlessly — as if the past and future were having an eternal conversation.
"The Echo Nexus," Liuyan whispered in awe.
Zhen stepped forward, feeling a pull — not of gravity, but of destiny. "This... is where the true trial begins."
From above, a new voice emerged — soft, female, yet filled with command.
"Only one who has walked through the echoes of ten thousand lifetimes may claim the Fragment of Origin."
Descending the crystal stairs was a woman wrapped in blue twilight, wearing a veil of stars and a crown of moons. Her aura resonated with a power that made even Qiyue's expression shift.
Zhen's eyes met hers. "And if we fail?"
She smiled faintly. "Then your thread will be cut... and never woven into the multiversal loom again."
The world shimmered.
As Zhen took his next step through the distorted passage, the marble floor beneath his boots flickered between three different states—one broken and overgrown with moss, one spotless and polished as if newly built, and one scorched black by fire and conflict. Each shift lasted less than a breath, and yet each variation whispered to his senses like fragmented memories.
Liuyan walked beside him, her eyes shimmering faintly with golden starlight. Her breathing had slowed, not out of exhaustion, but concentration. She was listening—though not to him.
Behind them, Qiyue paused before a fractured wall where thousands of runes shifted like fish in water. Her fingers hovered before one of the runes, which pulsed in response, humming with a gentle but eerie sound. A second later, her expression tightened.
"This place... it's not just reflecting time. It's editing it," Qiyue murmured.
Zhen turned. "Meaning?"
She gestured toward the wall. "The fragments are reacting to us. Not passively showing the past, but actively choosing which version to show—and which version to hide."
Liuyan added, "I can feel it too. Something is watching through the veil. A presence... no, several. Some ancient. Some familiar."
The silence that followed was broken by a soft chime—an echo, ringing through the corridor like a bell that never stopped. Zhen instinctively reached for his weapon. The chime was neither hostile nor kind. It was curious.
Suddenly, the corridor bent sharply, and they emerged into a dome-shaped chamber unlike any before.
The air shimmered with liquid glass, and above them, the sky was wrong. It wasn't sky at all, but a spiraling vortex of mirrors. Each mirror rotated slowly, displaying not reflections, but possibilities—Zhen fighting versions of himself, Liuyan burning with divine flame or lying in shadowed chains, Qiyue disappearing into stardust or ascending into godhood.
A floating figure hovered at the center of the dome, faceless, clad in garments stitched from light and shadow. Its voice did not come through sound, but memory.
> "Zhen of the Falling Realms...
Liuyan, Starblood Heir...
Qiyue of the Silent Moon...
You trespass where echoes dream."
Zhen's hand clenched. "Who are you?"
The figure extended an arm, revealing a spiral rune embedded in its palm—an ancient mark that pulsed in sync with the entire realm. "I am one who failed... and one who remembers. A guardian of forgotten trials."
Before Zhen could respond, the vortex of mirrors overhead began spinning faster. Each shard cast visions across the chamber.
In one, Zhen was crowned atop a throne of corpses. In another, he lay broken beneath the foot of a crimson-robed tyrant.
In a third, Liuyan and Qiyue stood across from him—enemies, not allies.
"No," Liuyan whispered, shaking her head. "These are illusions... right?"
The guardian's voice entered their minds again.
> "They are all true.
Some may happen.
Some already did—elsewhere.
The Echoing Realm reflects the weight of your paths.
To pass, you must not resist the truth... but survive it."
The light shattered.
All three were thrown into different parts of the dome. Zhen crashed into a silvery platform, alone, surrounded by nothing but endless versions of himself—each bearing different scars, weapons, and even eyes. Some looked heroic. Others... monstrous.
One stepped forward—taller, draped in a cloak stitched with celestial beasts. He smiled darkly. "I am what you would become... if you let go of mercy."
Another stepped forward, golden-eyed and solemn. "I am what you could become... if you sacrifice everything."
The copies circled Zhen.
He drew his weapon. "I don't need to become you."
"No," the dark one said. "But you already are us. You just haven't chosen which yet."
---
Meanwhile, Liuyan stood in a palace that looked like her own memories—but twisted. The banners were wrong, the stars burned a different color, and in the throne room sat a future version of herself—cold, eyes glowing with divine fire, wearing a crown shaped like a burning sigil.
"Why do you cling to weakness?" her future self asked. "Why trust Zhen? Why hesitate when you could rule?"
Liuyan raised her hand, starlight gathering in her palm. "Because I haven't forgotten who I am. And I never will."
"Then you are already fading," the other whispered, and the palace ignited.
---
Qiyue stood before a sea of glass, where a child version of herself—silent, alone—played with broken stars. A shadow loomed over the glass sea, muttering her old name in a voice like cracking bone.
But Qiyue stepped forward, light blooming from her fingertips, forming runes older than the stars.
She whispered, "You are not me. And I am no longer yours to haunt."
---
At the heart of the vortex, time twisted.
Zhen fought his shadows—not just physically, but in truth. For every strike he parried, a memory surfaced: a life lost, a friend betrayed, a moment of doubt. The mirrors weren't weapons. They were judges.
But Zhen roared, his aura flaring crimson and gold, his body shimmering with the resonance of the multiversal sigil carved on his soul.
"I don't care how many reflections you show me," he growled. "I choose my path. Not because it's clean—but because it's mine!"
The mirrored realm cracked. All the false Zhens screamed, dissolving into shards.
In that instant, the dome collapsed—revealing Liuyan and Qiyue, each having survived their own echo trials.
The guardian figure watched silently. Its form flickered, as if satisfied.
"You have passed the First Echo. But know this: deeper echoes await. And they do not simply reflect what you might become—but what you have already lost."
The world blurred again—and they were falling.
Falling toward the Second Layer of the Echoing Realm.