By the time they reached the ridge overlooking the southern basin of the Shrouded Wilds, the sky had deepened into a bruised gray. Storm clouds gathered in unnatural spirals, crackling faintly with violet light. Aelira tensed the moment they crested the hill.
"There," she said, pointing to a broken structure half-buried in the valley floor. "That's the Vault."
Ethan squinted. It looked less like a vault and more like a collapsed crater—twisted stone and tech-wrought steel bent together in a jagged halo. Despite the decay, it radiated power.
"What is it?" he asked.
"An old Dominion relay bunker. Rumor says they used it to study time echoes—glitches in causality itself. Most who entered never came back."
Ethan gave her a look. "And this is my next drill?"
"Not a drill," Aelira said. "An initiation."
Before he could question her further, the System pulsed.
[System Notification: Chrono Nexus Detected]
[Status: Dormant – Requires Activation by System Host]
Aelira handed him a small, triangular device etched with glowing lines. "Shard key. You'll need it to stabilize the inner chamber. Once you're inside, the system will do the rest."
"Define 'the rest,'" he muttered.
But she was already walking away.
Ethan descended alone.
The Vault's interior pulsed with residual energy—like static clinging to his skin. As he stepped across the threshold, a field shimmered into place behind him. Locked in.
[Chrono Nexus Activating…]
[Causality Drift Detected. Time Flux Level: Moderate.]
Lights flared, and the world shifted. For a heartbeat, Ethan stood in two places at once—then the echoes snapped together, and he found himself in a circular chamber with mirrored walls and floating shards of broken memories.
One shard drifted toward him and dissolved against his chest.
Memories flooded in. Not his. Kaelen's.
—A duel with a twin-bladed woman beneath a red moon.
—A promise made in desperation.
—A voice whispers: "If you fail, the cycle begins again."
[Memory Sync Achieved: Partial Lineage Recovered]
[Trait Evolved: Echo-Bonded → Echo-Touched]
[New Ability Gained: Reflex Sync – Tap into combat responses from recovered memory threads for 10 seconds.]
Ethan staggered, heart pounding. The room began to collapse around him, the time distortion destabilizing.
He ran.
Just as the Vault exploded in a sphere of blue-white light, he dove through the barrier.
Outside, Aelira waited, arms crossed.
"You survived," she said, tone unreadable. "Good. That means you're ready."
"Ready for what?" Ethan gasped.
She tossed him a small patch of fabric—black, stitched with a symbol of an eye encircled by gears.
"The world."