They left before dawn.
No goodbyes. No ceremony. Just the crunch of boots on dirt and the quiet resolve of those who had no other choice.
Lucien led the group southwest through Korea's mist-veiled countryside, the Moon Compass clutched in his gloved hand. Its glow never faded. The compass pulled him like a tether an invisible thread guiding them not just across land, but toward a place outside it.
Behind him, Hana walked silently, the wind brushing strands of hair across her face. Since the night in the shrine, something had shifted between them not quite spoken, not quite undone. An understanding. A promise wrapped in uncertainty.
Ae-rin and Seonwu followed in their own measured silence. She scanned the trees constantly, while he checked for traps that only old syndicates or sects would think to set.
The landscape grew stranger the closer they drew to the edge of the mortal realm. Trees stood farther apart. Rocks began to hum. And then no birds. No sounds at all.
Only the compass, spinning gently in Lucien's hand, then locking in place as they approached an overgrown tunnel entrance carved into the mountainside.
Ae-rin stepped forward and cleared moss from the stonework.
The inscription read:
"For those who dare return to what was lost."
Lucien exhaled. "This is it."
Inside the Tunnel – Moments Later
It wasn't just a tunnel.
It was a memory sealed in stone.
The walls breathed with ancient runes, each one flickering faintly with blue light as they passed. Dust floated in midair like ash, undisturbed by time. The deeper they went, the less they felt grounded, like walking underwater, with no true sense of gravity.
Then the tunnel opened into a vast underground cavern.
In its center stood a Gateway , two curved pillars of obsidian wrapped in silver etchings. At their center, a tear in space shimmered with lightless energy, like a scar in the fabric of the world.
Hana's breath caught.
The Gate to the In-Between.
Seonwu scanned the perimeter. "No guards. No traps. Too quiet."
Ae-rin frowned. "There were supposed to be sentinels."
Lucien approached the Gate. "Maybe the Gate called them away. Or maybe..."
A sound interrupted him. A scraping.
Not stone.
Bone.
From the dark walls of the cavern, they emerged figures half-rotted, half-armored, their eyes glowing silver.
Echo Wraiths.
The Gate had lured them.
"Back!" Ae-rin shouted, drawing her blade.
Seonwu unleashed twin daggers, stepping into a fluid, deadly rhythm.
Lucien grabbed Hana and pulled her behind a pillar.
"We have to get through the Gate now," she said breathlessly.
"They'll follow."
She looked at the Compass. "Not if I use it to collapse the Gate after we pass."
Lucien's eyes locked on hers. "No. That's too dangerous."
"I can do it. You said we're in this together. Let me prove it."
Wraiths surged forward. Ae-rin struck cleanly, slicing through two with a shriek of broken metal. Seonwu caught one mid-leap and drove a blade through its mouth.
More came.
Lucien turned. "Do it. I'll hold them."
Through the Gate
As the Gate flared open, Lucien fought off the last Wraiths, his hands slick with blood and dark energy. Hana pressed the Compass against the Gate's frame.
A pulse of light shot upward and then downward, cracking the stone arch.
Lucien reached her just in time.
They leapt.
Time bent.
The In-Between
They landed on nothing. A field of air. Sky stretched in all directions, colored in twilight. Fragments of cities hovered around them like shattered glass bits of ancient Seoul, a Joseon-era palace, a burning street from a past war. All colliding. All floating.
Lucien staggered, pulling Hana up. "We made it."
"Barely."
Behind them, the Gate collapsed in a flash of silence.
Ae-rin and Seonwu landed beside them a second later. Ae-rin's arm was bleeding, but she grinned. "Still breathing."
Lucien turned.
There it was.
The Fortress of Echoes.
Floating at the center of this fractured realm, like a crown of obsidian and gold, surrounded by a protective mist. Towers spiraled upward, impossibly tall, and bridges dangled from nowhere into nothing.
Hana took a slow step forward.
This was where their son was hidden.
Where the Echo wanted rebirth.
And where fate would decide if love alone was enough to sever the cycle.
Elsewhere – A Different Realm
The woman in red moved her hand across a pool of silver water. An image surfaced.
Lucien and Hana are crossing the In-Between.
"They found it."
Beside her, a masked figure bowed. "Shall I intercept?"
She tilted her head. "No. Let them walk deeper. Let them believe."
The masked man hesitated. "And the girl?"
"Prepare the seal. Her bloodline's awakening is faster than predicted. She will either be the key..."
"Or the final lock," the masked figure finished.
The woman in red nodded.
"And if she chooses wrong…"
Her red lips curled into something both cruel and sorrowful.
"…we burn this life down to birth the next."