The air was still.
Kael stood in the silence after the battle, his blade dripping with fading echoes of the creature he'd just slain. The shimmering mist that had obscured the chamber slowly retreated, revealing stone walls marked with forgotten runes—pulsing faintly, as if awakened by his victory.
But it wasn't the silence that unnerved him.
It was the whisper.
"So... you've awakened again."
Kael spun around, but there was no one.
Only shadows shifting across the walls—moving without a source.
He gripped his sword tighter. "Who's there?"
The voice didn't answer in words. Instead, it weaved through his thoughts like smoke through a broken window, neither male nor female—just ancient.
[System Notification]Memory Sync Progress: 2%New Trait Unlocked – Battle Instinct I: Slightly enhances reaction time during combat.
"More fragments," Kael muttered, wincing as a brief surge of pain lit up the back of his mind. Each gain came at a price.
Then the voice returned—clearer this time, almost familiar.
"You stand at the threshold... yet know nothing of what you are."
"Then tell me," Kael said quietly, stepping forward. "Tell me what this tower is. What I am."
The mist gathered again, curling into shapes—almost forming faces before melting away.
"You are not the first... nor will you be the last. But unlike the others, you carry a key—one forged in forgotten time."
Kael's chest tightened. "What key?"
"Your choices. Your echoes. Every floor you climb reawakens a version of you lost in the void."
A sudden gust of cold swept through the chamber, and Kael stumbled. His fingers grazed the wall—and the runes blazed to life.
A flash.
For a moment, his mind wasn't in the tower—it was somewhere else.
A battlefield.He was older. Stronger. Surrounded by corpses. His hands… were soaked in blood not his own.
He gasped, jerking back.
[System Notification]Ancestral Echo Fragment Detected.Vision Stabilized.
His breathing was ragged. That version of him—so brutal. So focused.
"Who… was I?" he whispered.
The voice came again, now a murmur behind his ear.
"The Tower remembers, even when you do not."
From the mist, a shadow took form.
A tall, shrouded figure. Cloaked in black. A face hidden behind a broken porcelain mask. No weapon. Just presence.
Kael's pulse surged.
[Warning: Unknown Entity Detected]Designation: ???Threat Level: High
"You've seen what lies ahead," the masked figure said softly. "But will you survive long enough to reach it?"
Kael raised his sword without thinking.
"I intend to."
The masked figure didn't move. But the air around them thickened, humming with pressure.
"Then prove it, Echo of the Forgotten."