"Some relics are made. Others… remember themselves."
Kael stared into the still-glowing core left behind by the Hollow Fang.
It pulsed softly—like a heart beating in silence.
Not alive, not aura-infused, but something older. More deliberate.
"That's not a relic," Drayke said, squinting. "That's a goddamn scar."
Kael didn't answer.
Because he felt it too.
The core wasn't meant to be taken.
It was meant to lure.
[System Update: Memoryforged Core Identified]
Status: Sealed Echo Relic – Requires Ashen Adaptation to Bind
Warning: Forging this relic will bind the user to the Forgotten Tier. Proceed?
Kael's fingers twitched.
Forgotten Tier…?
He hadn't seen that classification before.
He tapped into the Ashcore's pulse—letting the Ember Veins inside him flare.
"Show me its memory."
The core obeyed.
And Kael's mind was swallowed whole.
[FLASHBACK: The First Vanguard]
He stood inside someone else's skin.
A woman—tall, radiant, wielding twin blades of searing light.
Veyl Solane.
Leader of the original Sunspire Vanguard.
She stood before the Hollow Fang—but it was smaller then, barely formed.
"Don't give it a name," she said to her team. "Names make it real."
She charged, her aura blazing gold.
The Fang whispered.
Half her squad forgot how to fight.
The other half forgot why.
Veyl didn't.
She stabbed it in the mouth, shouting a name Kael hadn't heard before:
"I claim you in the name of the Crown of Memory!"
The Fang screamed.
And Kael saw it—the Crown.
Not an object.
A concept.
The ability to forge relics… from what should never be remembered.
Kael gasped as the vision ended.
"You good?" Drayke asked.
Kael nodded slowly, eyes still glowing faintly from the memorytrace.
"I think I know how Veyl sealed the Fang."
"How?"
Kael held the core tightly.
"She didn't just fight it. She turned its past into a weapon."
[New Mechanic Unlocked: Memoryforging]
Relics can now be forged using Memory Cores from Apex or Eternal-class enemies.
Forged relics are unique, unstable, and evolve based on the user's aura type and dominant emotion during the memory fusion.
"You're gonna forge that thing, aren't you?" Drayke asked, raising a brow.
"Not yet," Kael said. "We need someone who understands memory-bound aura tech."
"You're thinking Zera."
"Yeah."
They returned to the edge of the marsh days later.
Zera was already waiting.
Leaning against a crumbling obelisk, cloaked in her usual haze of mist, bell chiming lightly on her wrist.
"So…" she said, eyeing the core. "You brought me a living curse. Sweet."
"I need to know how to bind it," Kael said. "Without losing myself."
"You don't," Zera said flatly. "Memoryforged relics want to rewrite you. The moment you fuse it, you're letting it decide part of who you are."
Drayke chuckled. "And that's different from our current path how?"
Zera tossed him a small black vial.
"Drink this before you attempt the fusion. It'll stabilize your Ashcore long enough to choose the emotion that locks the relic's form."
Kael took the vial, staring at it.
"What happens if I choose the wrong one?"
"Then you forge a crown that remembers your weakest self."
Later that night, Kael stood alone by a hollowed-out shrine.
He uncapped the vial.
His Ashcore pulsed as the memory core floated in front of him.
Visions flickered—
Lyra's desperate healing in the Rift.
Drayke's reckless laughter during their last battle.
Zera's cold stare, always watching too closely.
His brother's back as he walked away, leaving Kael to burn alone.
The Seeder's dying words echoing still: "Let the ash decide."
He chose resolve.
Not anger. Not hope.
Resolve to stand alone, if needed.
He downed the vial.
The core snapped open.
[Relic Forged: Memoryforged Crown – Form I: Ashking's Burden]
Type: Echo Relic
Effect 1: Grants resistance to memory-affecting aura attacks.
Effect 2: Can store one "forgotten skill" per battle – a technique used once, then erased.
Effect 3: Ashen Pulse Echo – Kael's next aura adaptation automatically learns the enemy's dominant trait.
Kael staggered slightly as the crown—not physical, but etched into his aura—settled over his being.
Zera stood silently, watching.
"So…" she said. "How much of you is still in there?"
Kael looked up, eyes burning silver over black.
"Enough."
"Good," Zera said. "Because the next Eternal-Spawn you face won't be a memory-eater."
"What then?"
She smiled faintly.
"A memory maker."
Somewhere far from the marsh, in the floating library-city of Myreth's Rest, a scholar watched his runes flicker violently.
"A new Crown has awakened…"
He stood, adjusting gloves inscribed with glyphs that pulsed like veins.
"And the past is no longer buried."
He turned.
The wall behind him was covered in portraits—
Every wielder who had ever tried to forge memory.
All of them?
Dead.
Except the last.
"Kael Arclight. Let's see if you last longer than the rest."