The moment Arix's fingers closed around the hammer, everything changed.
The shard inside his chest didn't just flare—it sang.
It wasn't resistance. It was recognition. The hammer responded with a deep, resonant pulse that climbed up his arm, through his spine, and into the raw architecture of his mind. For the first time since Thorne's death, the team's world did not feel like it was unraveling.
For the first time, something held.
The chaos around him stilled for a heartbeat, and in that breath of stillness, he remembered.
Thorne's voice. His rough chuckle after every hard-earned win. The way he stood between danger and the rest of them, unflinching. The weight of his conviction. His shield. His sacrifice.
And then Arix moved.
The next Reclaimer that lunged toward him never had a chance. Thorne's Echo—no longer a relic but a living pulse of Rift-forged power—crashed down like a divine verdict. The blow struck with a force that split the ground, and the creature disintegrated in a flash of violet and white light, not even a scream left behind.
Calyx, from her higher vantage, saw the burst of light and the unmistakable silhouette wielding the hammer.
"Is that—?" she started.
She didn't need to finish.
Arix didn't answer. He surged forward, into the heart of the storm.
Where his blade had once danced, the hammer commanded.
Each swing turned air to thunder. Each strike echoed with memory, as if the weapon itself remembered the hands that forged it. And it was not silent. The hammer spoke—not in words, but in will.
> [Echo Integration Level: 74% – Signature Stabilizing]
[Legacy Artifact Channeling – Combat Efficiency Increased]
On the far ridge, the Mirrorborn stilled. Its blade, black as midnight and twice as long, shifted against its back. The mirrored face rippled once—not with confusion, but amusement.
Reflected in the glass was not Arix's face—but Thorne's.
"You think this changes your fate?" it asked in Arix's own voice, fractured and layered.
Arix gritted his teeth, lifted the hammer, and hurled it.
The air rippled. The sound that followed was not just impact—it was judgment.
---
The hammer struck the Mirrorborn's shoulder like a comet, cracking its armor and sending it skidding back through the debris field. The ground beneath its feet fractured, spiderwebbing out in every direction. Exposed core filaments glowed like dying stars.
Arix didn't wait. He blinked forward through Rift compression, caught the returning hammer mid-air, and drove it down into the advancing Reclaimers like a war priest delivering an oath.
The battlefield responded.
Kael dropped two grenades into a hollow, detonating a cluster. Selis rerouted power from the cradle to her turret lines, laying down precise suppressing fire. Calyx, steady despite her injury, sniped from above with surgical precision, picking off any Reclaimer that flanked too far.
The tempo changed.
What was retreat became resistance.
What was defense became defiance.
> [Combat Link – Active]
[Unit Morale Level: Elevated]
[Echo Imprint Harmonizing – Command Pulse Available]
Arix felt more than movement—he felt the field, the echo of each footfall, each pulse of intent in his allies' actions. The hammer linked him to them, and for a moment, the four of them moved like a single living organism: breathing, fighting, surviving.
The Mirrorborn answered.
It descended the ridge with inhuman speed, closing the distance in a blur. Its blade came down like a guillotine. Arix caught the blow with the hammer head, the collision ringing like the toll of a great cathedral bell.
He slid backward, boots gouging furrows in the stone.
"You are delay," the Mirrorborn said. "You are not change."
Arix panted. His arms ached. His vision blurred around the edges.
"I'm both," he said, blood dripping from his lip.
They clashed again—two storms meeting in the center of a dying world.
Each strike lit the battlefield in stuttering bursts of Riftlight. Calyx turned away only briefly, just enough to reload. When she looked again, she saw Arix pushed to one knee, the Mirrorborn looming over him.
She screamed his name.
> [Warning: Cognitive Drift Detected – Focus Required]
The shard inside Arix pulsed—then aligned.
A voice whispered—not imagined, not constructed, but remembered.
"You're the wall now, kid. Don't let them break through you."
Thorne.
Arix stood with a cry and drove the hammer into the ground.
> [Command Pulse Engaged – Echo Thread Alignment 100%]
[Thorne's Echo – Legacy Activation Triggered]
The head of the hammer flared, runes igniting with deep violet fire.
A pulse burst outward in a perfect ring. Reclaimers were thrown like leaves. The Mirrorborn was knocked back, its blade gouging the rock as it staggered to remain upright.
Kael took the opening and charged, laying down heavy fire. Selis pushed the cradle forward, amplifying her turret's range. Calyx moved to Arix's side, covering his flank.
Still, the Mirrorborn rose again.
"You fight with ghosts," it said. "With memory. With grief."
Arix steadied his breath. "They're stronger than you'll ever be."
The final clash was not fast. It was slow. Deliberate. Every strike calculated. Every move personal.
The Mirrorborn adapted.
It grew sharper. Faster. More precise.
But Arix wasn't alone.
Every time he faltered, Calyx's voice steadied him. Every time the hammer wavered, Thorne's memory steadied his hand. Every time the Mirrorborn threatened to close in—Kael or Selis was there, reminding him that he was not the past.
He was the future.
With one final roar, Arix leapt high and brought Thorne's Echo down in a brutal arc.
The hammer connected with the Mirrorborn's chest.
A shockwave split the storm.
The Mirrorborn's mirrored face shattered, revealing not a face—but a void.
Its body crumpled, dissolving into streaks of light.
Its last words came not with rage, but certainty:
"You've only buried me inside you."
And then it was gone.
The storm broke.
And Arix fell.
---
When the smoke cleared, nothing moved.
Calyx reached him first, sliding to her knees beside his crumpled form. She touched his face, her gloves leaving streaks across blood and dust.
"Don't you dare," she whispered, voice cracking. "Don't you dare leave me here."
His chest moved.
She let out a breath that turned into a quiet sob.
Kael appeared seconds later, hand resting briefly on Arix's shoulder, then on hers. Selis stumbled from the cradle, coughing, eyes wide.
No one spoke for a long time.
Thorne's Echo lay beside him.
Cracked.
Still glowing.
The Core tower loomed ahead, pulsing not like a threat—but like an open hand.
And the door—finally—was open.