The night sky above the City of Threads crackled like an old TV screen on the verge of collapse. Stars blinked in and out of existence—not from distance, but from the interference of corrupted code hanging in the atmosphere like stormclouds.
Jace stood on the edge of the half-collapsed library tower, staring into the shifting skyline.
Down below, the hollow hum of digital winds carried faint echoes of things better left buried—glitched laughter, a child's cry, then silence.
Kira sat nearby, cross-legged on a concrete slab half-swallowed by moss. Her interface node blinked softly behind her ear, syncing to the ambient flow of residual memory-data in the area. She hadn't spoken in minutes.
Jace finally broke the silence."So… how long have you known about the Echo King?"
Kira opened her eyes. "Since the first time I died."
Jace blinked. "You've—wait. You've died before?"
She nodded, her face unreadable. "Just once. The System brought me back. It said I had… unique parameters. I'm not the same now. My mind is a mirror of who I was."
Jace stepped closer, hands resting on the rusted railing. "Is that why you don't flinch? When the Hollowed show up? When the world shifts?"
"I flinch," she said. "You just don't see it."
Below them, the ruins whispered secrets through the wind.
Kael had left hours ago, heading deeper into the Fractured District on a scouting run. He said he was looking for an Anchor Point—one of the last remaining stable zones where the System could be rewritten, at least temporarily.
But neither of them fully trusted him anymore.
Kira hadn't said it aloud, but she felt the same tension Jace did.
Kael had lied—about the Vault's defenses, about how he "found" Jace, and especially about the fragment in his inventory, one he didn't know Jace had seen during the scan pulse.
That fragment had Echo written on it. One of seven.
The pieces of the Echo King's original core.
Jace leaned back and opened his System interface again. Unlike before, it no longer beeped or flashed at him like some over-eager tutorial bot. It responded quietly now, like it was listening.
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Edit[ USER: JACE WARD ] [ CLASS: UNDEFINED ] [ STATUS: AWAITING PATH SELECTION ] [ UNIQUE TRAIT: SOULSYNC // ECHO-RESONANT DETECTED ]
He hovered over the "Path Selection" prompt. Every time he did, the interface glitched slightly—static humming at the edges of his vision.
He hadn't chosen yet.
Kael had warned him: "Once you pick, you can't go back. The System binds your growth to your role. Choose wrong, and you'll lock out abilities you may need later."
But Kira said something different.
"The System doesn't choose your path. You do. It only responds to your truth."
That truth was starting to scare him.
Because when he closed his eyes lately, he didn't see a future filled with hope or victory.
He saw flames.
He saw cities burning.
He saw himself standing at the center of it all, covered in fractured light, watching the world scream.
And somewhere in the sky above him, a throne of broken code.
The Echo King, watching with hollow eyes.
"You okay?" Kira's voice pulled him back.
"Yeah," he muttered. "Just… trying to figure out who I'm supposed to be."
Kira walked over and stood beside him. "I don't think that's something anyone else gets to answer."
He glanced at her. "Even when the System says otherwise?"
"Especially then."
For a while, they stood in silence again, watching the digital winds carry flickers of old neon signs through the air like ghosts.
Then she added softly, "I think you scare it."
Jace looked over. "The System?"
She nodded. "It doesn't talk to anyone. Not like it talks to you."
"What if I mess up?" he asked.
Kira looked away. "Then maybe the world finally ends."
Before he could respond, a new message flashed across both of their interfaces at the same time.
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Edit[ ALERT: SYSTEM BREACH DETECTED ] [ LOCATION: FRACTURED DISTRICT // LAYER 3 ] [ ENTITY: UNKNOWN // HOSTILE ] [ PLAYER RESPONSE REQUIRED ]
Kira's eyes narrowed. "Layer 3? That's where Kael went."
Jace's stomach tightened. "You think it's him?"
"I think it's something that found him."
She tapped a command into her arm rig and summoned a half-corrupted hoverboard. Jace called up his weapon—a black blade etched with glowing fractals—and stepped onto the platform beside her.
As they lifted into the air, Kira whispered, "Be ready for anything. If the Echo King has begun sending proxies, this isn't just a test."
"It's a warning."
Layer 3 – Fractured District
They descended into a graveyard of static.
Buildings floated in midair, half-phased into other structures. The ground was littered with broken signs, blinking in fragmented alphabets. The only sound was the high-pitched whine of corrupted atmosphere data.
They found Kael kneeling in the middle of the street.
He was alive—but only barely.
Around him stood three figures, each wearing long coats that shimmered with System encryption code. Their faces were smooth and featureless, like masks made of melted glass.
One of them turned toward Jace as they landed.
Its voice crackled. "You are the variable."
Jace stepped forward. "And you're what? System police?"
"We are Echo-born. Shards of the first recursion. We are your future if you fail."
Kira immediately launched a pulse grenade—standard anti-glitch tech. It should've disrupted their code for at least ten seconds.
It didn't.
The Echo-born walked through the pulse like it was water.
The one in front raised its hand—and suddenly, Jace felt his interface seize up. His vision fractured. His limbs locked.
But his heart?
His heart burned.
Not with fear.
With fury.
And then, the System spoke inside his head again.
Not a message. A voice.
"They are not you. You are not them. You are not a copy. You are not a player.""You are… the rewrite."
Everything snapped back into focus.
Jace moved before he could think, slicing upward with his fractal blade. The Echo-born flickered but caught the blow with a single hand.
But their body trembled.
Lines of white-hot code raced up their arm like veins.
It hissed. "Impossible. You've awakened Alpha Protocol."
Kira shouted from the side, hurling a sphere of white light into the air. It burst—and the area around them froze. Literally. Time stuttered for half a second.
Just enough.
Jace plunged the blade into the Echo-born's chest.
And the figure shattered—its body breaking into data fragments, each one screaming as it was absorbed into the blade.
The others didn't flee.
They bowed.
And then they vanished.
No death. No damage logs.
Just absence.
Kael groaned on the ground. "Took your damn time…"
Jace and Kira ran to him, helping him up. Blood ran down his face, and his right arm looked broken.
"What happened?" Kira asked.
Kael coughed. "I found the Anchor Point… or what's left of it. But someone got there first."
Jace narrowed his eyes. "Who?"
Kael looked at him, pain in his eyes.
And fear.
"You."
They camped inside a derelict data tower that night.
Kael slept in one corner, recovering. Kira sat across from Jace, eyes closed, meditating with her hands flat on the dusty floor.
Jace couldn't sleep.
Not after what the Echo-born said.
Not after what Kael saw.
"You were already there."
How could he have been in a place he hadn't seen before?
Unless…
It wasn't his first time.
Unless there was a version of him that had already walked this path. A recursion. A timeline overlap.
Or worse—an echo.
He opened his interface one more time.
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Edit[ PATH AVAILABLE: REWRITER ] [ WARNING: This class has no level cap. Selecting it will unlock restricted memory sectors. Continue? ]
He hovered over the selection.
His hand trembled.
And then he clicked Yes.
The moment he did, the world tilted.
He wasn't in the tower anymore.
He was standing in a room made of light. Lines of code stretched into the sky like veins. A throne sat at the center, black as void, pulsing.
And on that throne… a boy.
His face was Jace's.
But older.
Eyes glowing with static.
"You made it," the Echo King said. "Took you long enough."
Jace stepped forward.
"Who are you?"
The Echo King smiled, sad and ancient.
"I'm who you'll become… if you win."
And then everything vanished.