The gates opened with the sound of breathing stone—like the mountain itself exhaled for the first time in centuries.
Inside, a hallway stretched downward into shadow and starlight. Not torchlight. Not tech. Just soft, suspended memory-light, drifting in the air like fireflies trapped in a slow dream.
Ethan stepped across the threshold.
[SYSTEM STABILITY: Flux Equilibrium Holding][Location Verified: Thronefall Temple – Primary Interface Zone Detected]
Aelira moved beside him, blades at the ready. "This doesn't feel like any ruin I've been in. It's like… a mind. Not a place."
Ethan nodded. "Because it is. This temple doesn't remember what it was. It remembers what it could've been."
They entered the central chamber—vast, circular, lined with mirror-crystals and old throne-chassis rusted into the walls like broken bones. Symbols pulsed faintly.
In the center sat a pedestal—hovering inches off the ground—with a sphere of swirling liquid glass above it. A faint shape flickered inside.
Ethan reached for it—
[WARNING: SYSTEM BARRIER BREACHED][ERROR: MEMORY LOCK OVERRIDE][FORBIDDEN ENTRY – ACCESSING CLASSIFIED THREAD…]
[Log Begins – Identity: Kaelen Varros, Thronebound | Cycle 17 | Status: Deceased]
A projection flared.
Kaelen—whole, unscarred—stood before a throne of burning silver. Behind him were legions of armored warriors with no faces. Before him, an Unnamed One knelt, offering a core wrapped in chains.
"I accept the burden. I wear the echo. I will not fail again."
Ethan staggered. The vision wasn't just playback. It was transfer.
[SYSTEM UPDATE: Legacy Core Fragment Absorbed – Identity Thread: Kaelen Varros 17th Cycle][New Ability: Echo Armament – Summon fragments of past selves for limited combat/time-skew support]
The projection collapsed.
The sphere turned black.
A pulse shook the chamber.
From the far end, a sealed wall slid open, revealing a stairway spiraling downward, cut from obsidian streaked with stardust.
[SYSTEM NOTICE: Origin Beast Echo Detected – Proximity Unstable][WARNING: Psionic Layer Breach – Host May Experience Altered Reality / Perceptive Loops]
Aelira grabbed his arm. "You hear that?"
Ethan blinked. "What?"
She paused. "...You were humming something. Sounded like a song."
He hadn't even realized.
The melody wasn't his.
It was the throne's lullaby.
They descended into the abyss.
And below—far below—the last Thronebound Guardian waited.
Its body fossilized in starlight.
Its heart still beating in echoes.
And it remembered Kaelen.It remembered Ethan.And it remembered the First Fall.