He remembered the warmth first.
It wasn't the blistering heat of fire or the dry tang of blood drying on skin.
It was something gentler. A quiet breath on the back of his neck. A whisper threading between the folds of thought and dream.
—Magic.
The boy had known magic once. Not the clumsy, stammering kind they taught in this world's broken academies, but something older—intimate, almost sacred.
That day had begun like any other. Tower bells ringing through corridors of silver and stone. A thousand footsteps in sync, robes sweeping against carved glyphs in the marble floors. And at the heart of it—
A child, standing alone in the Chamber of Echoes.
His arms trembled. Not from fear, but from something else. Something that couldn't be named.
The ritual had already begun.
They had drawn a circle. Not with chalk, but with memory. Twelve lines, spiraling inward, converging upon him like a mouth waiting to devour.
He stepped forward.
The Grandmaster's voice echoed from a hundred places at once.
"Let the flame remember you."
He closed his eyes.
And in the darkness—he fell.
Not through space.
Through himself.
[Mana Alignment Detected]
— Primary Affinity: Fire
— Secondary Affinity: Wind
— Tertiary Affinity: Echo
[Origin Vein Awakened – Worldsong Connection Established]
It was not unlike drowning.
But in place of water, there was sound. And silence. And weight.
He saw it all.
The threads.
Thin silver veins connecting everything—stone to root, blood to breath. The lattice of meaning beneath the skin of the world.
That was what they called mana.
Not energy. Not power.
Memory, made obedient.
And it remembered him.
Even now.
Even here.
...
Tower of Final Rites – Present.
Arthur opened his eyes.
His breath left him in slow coils. The cold stone beneath his feet was real again. The weight of the mask in his hand, undeniable.
But the fire had not faded.
It now stirred behind his ribs.
Not Valen's fear. Not Caelum's pride.
Something new.
Something that did not yet have a name.
The room smelled of dust and death, but the mask still pulsed with warmth. As if it, too, had remembered something.
He raised it slowly.
Worn bone. Hairline cracks spidering across the surface. The kind of thing one might find buried under grave dirt, or passed down in silence.
But inside—runes.
Etched into the inner curve of the mask's surface.
Words. Names.
One of them he recognized.
'Witness.'
He hesitated.
Then placed the mask over his face.
Darkness.
Then sound peeled away like wet skin.
Then—
A girl's voice.
Soft. Measured. Like someone reciting an old prayer.
"You carried it even when no one else saw you bleed."
The voice did not come from outside.
It came from behind his eyes.
Then—light.
Blinding.
And when it cleared—
He was no longer alone.
[Echofold Triggered – Resonant Memory Manifesting…]
He saw himself.
Strapped to the altar.
Arms tied. Gag in his mouth. Blood soaking the runes beneath him.
Valen.
But younger. Gaunter.
More afraid.
Around him—figures.
Five masked silhouettes. All silent. All still.
One moved.
The one with this mask.
It didn't speak. It didn't laugh like the others.
It only watched.
The real Arthur stood behind, invisible. A ghost. A remnant.
He stepped closer.
The masked figure flinched.
Arthur blinked.
And in that moment—he heard it.
"I will come back."
A whisper. Barely audible.
But it wasn't from the victim.
It was from the mask.
From him.
From the one watching.
The vision collapsed.
Arthur ripped the mask away.
The world snapped back.
He stood in the chamber once more, sweat crawling down his spine.
The mask trembled in his hand.
"Marcus…"
He didn't say it aloud.
Didn't need to.
The name burned behind his teeth like old iron.
He turned to the wall behind the pedestal.
Earlier, it had been blank stone.
Now—it glowed faintly.
A sigil. Circular. Seven-pointed.
The same mark from the vision.
He reached out.
His fingers brushed against the stone.
The sigil shimmered, then split.
Stone hissed and receded into the floor.
A hidden stairway unfurled into the dark.
He stared down into it.
A wind stirred from below, dry and whispering.
And somewhere in the distance—bells.
Not ones that marked time.
But ones that welcomed the dead.
He did not hesitate.
Arthur descended.
Each step echoed like a memory returning.
The staircase swallowed the light with each step he took.
Stone walls closed around him like a throat, ancient and breathing. Somewhere above, the seal had shut once more, sealing him in—cutting him off from the world of trembling skies and crumbling towers. Down here, time held its breath.
His footfalls were devoured by silence. Not absence of sound, but a silence so thick it pressed against the eardrums. As though the space itself resented intrusion.
He descended further.
And the dreams began again.
Not visions. Not delusions. But echoes.
A girl crying in a tongue no longer spoken.
Chains rattling against bone.
Laughter that knew your name before you had one.
Arthur flinched as a gust of dry air kissed his cheek, bringing with it the scent of burnt parchment and old prayers. The kind offered by desperate men in desperate times.
Then, finally—a threshold.
He stepped through.
A chamber unfolded before him. Circular. Vast. The walls covered in weathered runes that pulsed faintly, as if sighing in sleep. In the center stood an altar. Not one for worship, but for remembrance. Stone worn smooth by time, blood, or both.
Around it—masks.
Hundreds of them.
Each impaled on black iron spires that spiraled outward like ribs from the altar's heart.
None of them looked the same.
Some were delicate—almost beautiful, carved from ivory and pearl. Others were crude. Broken. Sewn together with wire and malice. And yet—
They all watched.
Even without eyes.
Arthur took a breath.
And the air thickened.
[You have entered a Forbidden Depth – 'Hall of the Bound Witnesses']
[Restriction Level: 5 – Silence of the Crown]
[Unauthorised Entry Detected]
[Warning: Memory Interference at 7% and rising]
[Proceed at own risk]
He stepped forward.
The altar responded.
The rune beneath his feet lit with a dull, crimson glow.
There was no turning back now.
The mask in his hand had grown hot—alive almost. It trembled, its inner runes bleeding pale silver across his palm.
He placed it onto the altar.
Silence cracked.
The air screamed.
A shriek without voice, echoing from the very bones of the earth. The masks began to rattle. One by one. A wave of motion, like the wind in a graveyard of the forgotten.
Then—
A figure rose.
Not from behind the altar. Not from shadow.
From within the mask.
A wraith of ash and memory, clothed in smoke, with a single eye burning beneath a shattered crown of light.
It didn't speak.
But the runes around the chamber flared to life.
And Arthur heard it all.
Every moment. Every death. Every betrayal that had soaked into these stones over a thousand years.
Then—
One voice rose above the rest.
Familiar.
"You came back. I told them you would."
His breath caught.
It was her.
Sarah.
But not the girl from his dreams. Not the soft, quiet presence beside a window in his fractured memories.
This voice was colder.
Older.
Tired.
The ash wraith coalesced into a silhouette. Not quite human. Not quite spirit.
Its mouth did not move, but Arthur heard her words as if they were whispered against his heart.
"We burned for you."
He stepped back.
The masks began to weep.
No tears. Only black dust that trickled from their eyes like sand through a broken hourglass.
The system flared again.
[Neural Load at 43% – Recommend Termination of Witness Event]
[Ancestral Binding Detected – Memory Chain forming]
[Source: ??? – [Name Redacted]]
Arthur clenched his fists.
He should've turned back.
He didn't.
Because somewhere in that dust, in that pain—he heard a name.
His name.
Not Valen.
Not Caelum.
The one they had buried.
The one that had been stolen.
His real name.
But before he could seize it—
The chamber shattered.
Not the stone.
The moment.
The illusion.
The entire hall collapsed into darkness.
And when he opened his eyes again...
He was somewhere else.
Somewhere older.
Somewhere alive.
To be continued...