Kael stumbled out of the Hollow Maze once awakened, each step a weighty echo of the trauma left behind. The maze closed behind him like a memory trying to forget itself over and over.
Echo hovered beside him—her body still translucent, a ghost of circuitry and instinct and power.
[Echo]"You passed the first Fractured event," she said prominently.
[Kael]"Is that what that was?" Kael coughed. [Kael]"Some twisted therapy session with knives?"
[Echo]"You survived a mirror of yourself. Most don't. The system rewarded evolution promptly."
The earth trembled underfoot vastly.
Pain bloomed in his chest—raw, searing his insides.
Kael screamed.
Not from a wound. But from something growing inside him greatly.
Veins lit up with burning blue. Like circuitry.
His body convulsed over and over. Echo didn't touch him. She only scanned.
And from his hand—something formed.
Not summoned. Not granted.
Just Born from thin air.
A jagged blade of translucent crystal, pulsing with heat. Every edge vibrated with a rhythm that matched Kael's own heartbeat and very soul.
[RESONANT WEAPON UNLOCKED: SHARDBLADE — BOUND]
[FORGED FROM NEURAL PAIN AND FRACTAL IDENTITY]
He stared at it, disbelief mixing with horror.
[Kael]"I made this?" His voice trembled.
[Echo] nodded. "From pain. From self. From the echo of your fractured will and identity."
He gripped the blade harder.
It pulsed with breath as if it was himself.
And he whispered, "Then let it hurt and grow with me."