Pain was the first thing Kael felt.It was not sharp or sudden. It was a slow, gnawing agony, like something hollowing him out from the inside.
He gasped awake, his body jerking violently. The cold stone floor of the forgotten chamber scraped against his skin. His vision was blurred, shapes twisting and bleeding into one another. His lungs burned as he sucked in air that tasted like rust and something fouler, something older.
Where am I?
The memory hit him like a hammer. The pedestal, the crystal, the voice that was not a voice.
You are mine now.
Kael shuddered. His fingers curled against the ground but he could not feel them properly. It was like his body was no longer entirely his own. There was a strange pressure inside him, a deep thrumming, like a second heartbeat that did not match the rhythm of his own.
He sat up slowly, every muscle screaming in protest. The chamber around him looked the same, but something had changed. The walls were still cracked and ruined, but now faint glyphs pulsed across the stones, symbols older than any language he knew. They shivered with faint light, responding to the Echo that now lived inside him.
Kael forced himself to his feet. His knees buckled but he caught himself against the nearest wall, panting.
"I have to get out of here," he muttered hoarsely.
The Echo did not answer. Not in words. But Kael could feel its presence, coiled deep inside him, silent and waiting.
The tunnels leading away from the chamber were darker than he remembered. The Spire's lower floors had always been shrouded in gloom, but now it felt suffocating, like the walls themselves were watching him.
Kael moved carefully, one hand trailing along the rough wall to guide him. Every few steps, he had to stop and catch his breath. His body was a mess, weak and feverish, but beneath that, there was something else. A new strength, faint but undeniable, like embers buried under ash.
He did not know if it belonged to him.Or to Ruin.
Minutes or maybe hours passed. Time had a way of slipping through his fingers down here. Eventually, he stumbled back into the familiar chaos of the lower floors. The noise hit him first. Shouts, scuffling footsteps, the occasional crack of gunfire.
Life in Oblivion Spire's depths was a brutal thing. Survival was an endless, merciless battle.
Kael kept his head down, pulling the hood of his ragged jacket over his face. His mind was still fogged, but instinct told him that whatever had happened in that chamber would make him a target. People could smell weakness here. And now, maybe they could smell something worse.
Something inhuman.
He turned down a narrow alley, hoping to lose himself in the shadows, but his luck was already running thin.
"Well, well," a voice sneered behind him. "Look what we have here."
Kael froze.
He knew that voice.Garron.
A petty gang leader, one of the scavengers who made their living robbing and killing those too sick or too weak to fight back.
Kael slowly turned. Garron and two of his thugs stood at the mouth of the alley, blocking the only exit. Their faces twisted with the cruel hunger of men who had long ago traded their souls for survival.
"You look half dead already," Garron said, smirking. "Makes my job easy."
Kael's heart pounded in his chest. His body screamed at him to run, but he knew he would not get far.
Not like this.
Not without—
The Echo stirred.
He did not understand it, did not know how to control it. But it was there, whispering in the back of his mind, a dark promise.
Power comes at a cost.
Kael gritted his teeth.If I use it, what will it take from me?
"Hand over everything you have," Garron growled, stepping closer. His knife caught a glint of the dim light. "Maybe we will even let you live."
Kael glanced down at his empty hands. He had nothing. Nothing to give. Nothing to bargain with.
Only one choice.
The moment Garron lunged, Kael reacted without thinking.The world around him slowed, the edges of reality blurring. It was like he was moving through water but he was moving faster than them, faster than thought.
His hand shot up and a pulse of dark energy exploded from his palm.
Garron's eyes widened too late. The pulse struck him square in the chest, throwing him back into the alley wall with a sickening crunch. His thugs stumbled, shouting in panic.
Kael staggered, the effort nearly dropping him to his knees.
Not enough... need more...
The Echo whispered again, urging him forward.
Kael obeyed.
He moved like a shadow, closing the distance between himself and the nearest thug. His hand brushed the man's shoulder, and darkness surged from his skin into the thug's body. The man screamed, a raw, gurgling sound, as the energy tore through him, ripping away something unseen.
The second thug turned to flee, but Kael did not give him the chance. Another surge of energy rippled outward, catching the man mid stride and slamming him into the cracked stone wall.
Silence fell.
Kael stood there, panting heavily, his hands trembling. The three men lay sprawled around him, unmoving.
He had won.
But at what cost?
His skin felt wrong, too hot and too tight. His heart hammered painfully in his chest. He could feel the Echo inside him, pulsing with satisfaction.
You see now, the voice of Ruin murmured, the power that is yours. The price is merely... yourself.
Kael fell to his knees, his vision swimming. He wanted to vomit, to claw the thing out of his chest, but he could not. It was part of him now.
And somewhere deep inside, a terrible realization sank in.
This was only the beginning.
The sound of footsteps broke the silence.
Kael forced his head up. A figure approached from the mouth of the alley. Tall, cloaked, moving with a strange grace that set every nerve in Kael's body on edge.
Not a scavenger.Not a thug.
Something else.
The figure stopped a few feet away, studying him. Beneath the hood, Kael caught a glimpse of a sharp, angular face and eyes that glowed faintly in the darkness.
Not human.
"You touched the Ruin," the figure said, voice low and dangerous. "You do not know what you have done."
Kael tried to speak, but his throat was dry.
The figure knelt in front of him, close enough that Kael could feel the cold aura radiating off him.
"There are others who will come for you now," the figure whispered. "Others who will not be as merciful as I am."
Kael swallowed hard."Who... who are you?"
The figure tilted his head slightly. A thin smile played across his lips, one that did not reach those cold, glowing eyes.
"Your only chance at survival," he said."But even that may not be enough."
Before Kael could respond, the figure straightened and turned, melting back into the shadows as silently as he had appeared.
Leaving Kael alone.
Alone, with the bodies at his feet, the ruin inside him, and the terrible knowledge that whatever hunted him now was already closer than he could imagine.