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Chapter 43 – Homefield Traitor
> [Forsaken Layer: Ash City – Origin Point of Rebellion]
[Advantage Applied: HOMEFIELD TRAITOR – All stats x2, Cooldowns halved, Skill Mutation Enabled]
[Warning: SYSTEM AVATAR ADAPTATION IN PROGRESS – Estimated Time: 01:43]
The ground trembled beneath Erevan's feet.
No, not just ground—memory.
Every stone of the Ash City whispered echoes of his rage.
He stood atop a crumbling tower of obsidian bone and shattered rebellion banners, Spiralbreaker hovering behind him in a slow, violent orbit. The Avatar Knight, his collapsed star blade still humming with condensed oblivion, rose again from the crater Erevan had left him in.
But something was different now.
The Tower's influence was weak here.
The laws twisted.
Time jittered.
And Erevan remembered.
"Osirax," he said, voice low and sharp like a predator's growl. "This is the place where I first burned the Tower's chains. You know what that means, don't you?"
Osirax floated in, robes pristine, unshaken even by the pressure rolling off Erevan in waves. He glanced around.
"I see ruins," he said calmly.
"No," Erevan stepped forward, and the world responded—pavement twisting into steps, the wind forming blades behind him, torches lighting on their own. "You see the scar I left behind."
The world cracked.
And Ash City awoke.
All around them, the Forsaken Layer shifted. Buildings aligned into impossible angles. The sky turned a deep blood-red, and screaming data streams surged through the clouds like electric veins. Ancient rebel constructs—long dead—trembled.
And answered.
> [Hidden Subsystems Activated: Echo Constructs – Ghosts of the Rebellion]
[Summoning: Revenant Battalion – Limitless Duration while in Homefield]
A wall of flame erupted behind Erevan.
And out of it marched soldiers—not real, but twisted echoes of those who had once followed him. Their armor was cracked, their eyes hollow, but their movements sharp, synchronized, burning with hatred for the Tower.
One knelt before him.
"My Tyrant," the revenant said, voice dry and rusted. "We failed once. But now… we rise again."
Erevan placed a hand on the soldier's shoulder, nodding once. "Then let's end it properly."
He turned.
And charged.
Everything broke at once.
Spiralbreaker fractured into seven shards, orbiting him in complex geometry as Erevan blurred forward, weaving between realities mid-step. The Avatars responded instantly—Osirax raising his hand to restore order, the Star Knight vanishing in a blink, others circling to flank.
But Erevan wasn't alone now.
The Revenant Battalion struck like a storm of ash and wrath.
Elemental war twins screamed as they were buried under an avalanche of blade-wielding ghosts. One of them, the frost twin, froze half the city—
And Erevan answered with fire from beneath the city's own core.
> [Skill Mutation: Hell-Scarred Pulse – Converts layer foundation into sentient flame]
[Ash City Accepts You – Flame Intelligence Boosted]
The streets breathed fire.
Buildings came alive, launching steel beams like spears.
The Avatars fell back, but the Knight came through it all, that cursed void-blade slicing echoes in half. He leapt toward Erevan.
And Erevan caught the strike with his bare hand.
CRACK.
Bone fractured.
But his hand didn't burn—it adapted. Skin melted into gravitational folds, absorbing the blade's field and redirecting it.
> [New Evolution: Gravity Bender Skin – Short-range mass redirection active]
[Effect: Blow Nullified – Counter Mode Enabled]
He grinned—and threw the knight straight into the sky, so high he collided with the Forsaken Layer's firmament. A loud gong echoed across the Ash City as the stars themselves shattered.
Osirax's eyes narrowed.
"You're warping everything."
"No," Erevan's voice came out layered—one tone mortal, the other ancient, rebellious. "I'm taking it back."
The Custodian raised both hands now. His body shone white-blue as he invoked Absolute Balance—a system-level override designed to wipe and reset the layer.
> [Warning: Absolute Balance Charging – 15%...]
Erevan didn't wait.
He teleported behind him, Spiralbreaker now a two-handed cannon-staff.
The blow struck Osirax directly in the back.
It did nothing.
The Custodian's form warped reality too perfectly.
But that wasn't the point.
Because the moment Erevan struck—
The city struck too.
All of Ash City focused.
A scream rose from every wall, every ghost, every shadowed alley.
And the world itself roared.
> [Final Layer Function Activated: Rebellion Pulse – Converts historical defiance into explosive energy]
[Detonation Type: Directed Soul Bomb]
[Target Locked: Osirax – Custodian of Law]
Light exploded.
Not fire.
Not magic.
Memory.
A billion failures.
A billion deaths.
All turned into a weapon.
Erevan stood in the center of it, arms out, screaming into the raw storm as Spiralbreaker turned black from overload.
Osirax tried to anchor himself.
He failed.
> [Warning: Avatar Core Integrity – 4% Remaining]
[Auto-Ejection Failed – Layer Disruption Too High]
The blast hurled the Avatar across dimensions. He didn't land. He didn't crash.
He was unwritten.
Gone.
Silence fell.
Only ashes remained.
Erevan dropped to one knee, gasping, arm broken, skin scorched with system error burns.
But he smiled.
Because in that moment—standing in the ruins of his old rebellion, surrounded by the phantoms of those who had once followed him—he felt something stir.
> [Passive Skill Unlocked: Towerbane – When fighting on corrupted or abandoned layers, you are recognized as an opposing authority.]
[Warning: GLOBAL SYSTEM ALERT ISSUED]
And then came the voice.
Not the Tower.
Her.
> "Hello again, Erevan."
"Did you think I'd forgotten you?"
His eyes widened.
No.
Not her.
Not—
The screen lit up.
> [PALE CHOIR: OBSERVER INSTANCE – CONTACT ESTABLISHED]
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