"In silence, the past does not rest. It screams."
The gate sealed behind them with a low, grinding hiss.
Inside, the Hollow Archive breathed.
It was no ordinary dungeon.
This one pulsed like a lung—walls made of organic parchment stretched between spires of inkstone. The light was dim, golden, and flickered like candleflame through translucent ceilings lined with moving text.
Each step echoed with whispers—some familiar, some foreign.
Kael walked first, Ashen Veil drawn but not ignited. His presence was steady, but his aura roiled beneath his skin. That parchment from the Archivist still burned in his chest like a second heartbeat.
Lyra glanced at him from behind.
"You okay?"
Kael didn't answer right away.
The truth was—he wasn't.
He had seen his name written in the script of collapse, held the page that tied him to disaster. And yet, some part of him—deep, stubborn—refused to be what fate had written.
"I'm fine," he replied. "Stay close."
Drayke trudged beside them, Infernal Gauntlets faintly lit. He was visibly uncomfortable, his aura lashing in bursts.
"This place is wrong. Not dangerous like the marsh. Wrong like it knows you."
Zera, unbothered, was gliding ahead. "Because it does. The Archive shows what we bury. It's not meant to be conquered."
"Good," Drayke growled. "I wasn't planning to conquer it. I'm here to burn it."
Kael stopped as the first chamber unfolded before them.
A wide, dome-shaped space greeted them—pillars of obsidian holding up a ceiling painted with a thousand eyes, each blinking slowly in sequence.
Then the whispers stopped.
Then the doors behind them vanished.
And the eyes began to cry.
First Trial – Reflection Chamber:
The tears from above hit the floor, glowing on contact. They pooled together, forming a mirror of liquid light.
Kael stared at it.
The surface shimmered... then shifted.
A boy appeared. Alone. Training with a wooden sword.
Drayke Arclight stood beside him, older, stricter. He barked commands. The younger Kael bled from his palms.
"Again!"
The real Kael said nothing.
The vision changed. Kael kneeling in a ruin. Holding a dying man's hand—Drayke, impaled by an Eternal-blessed spear. The elder brother's last words barely audible.
"It should've been me."
The water rippled. The younger Kael screamed.
The scene turned violent.
Kael's aura flared in real time.
"No," he muttered, voice low. "This isn't—this isn't how it happened."
But the Archive didn't care.
It twisted the memory until Kael stood over his own brother, blade drawn.
"Why didn't you save him?" a voice whispered—not from the illusion, but from inside his mind.
Lyra reached for him. "Kael—"
He raised a hand.
"Don't."
His aura exploded.
Ash-grey particles scattered through the air, his Ashen Veil forming jagged streaks across the floor.
Then the memory dissolved—scorched by his will.
Kael's voice came quiet, but sharp.
"This dungeon doesn't get to write me."
Second Trial – The Chorus Aisles
They moved on.
The next room was worse.
A corridor of tall, narrow walls—each engraved with lines of script. Names. Thousands. Tens of thousands. Written in blood.
Zera stopped at one.
Her fingers trembled.
There it was—Zeraphine Vaelith.
Lyra read it aloud. "'She who broke the veil and survived. Whisperborn half, cursed in full.'"
Zera said nothing. Her eyes shimmered with mist. Behind her, shadows tried to reach out—hands of people she'd left behind. Faces half-forgotten.
One called her daughter.
Another, murderer.
"Enough," Kael said, stepping in. He slashed through the shadow hands with clean precision.
Drayke let out a low whistle. "Nice to see someone else has ghosts."
He reached for one of the walls—then froze.
His own name glared back at him.
Drayke Norr – The Broken Flame.
Underneath it: 'He burns brightest before betrayal.'
His gauntlets glowed as rage surged.
"I haven't betrayed anyone," he snarled.
Zera looked at him. "Not yet."
He turned, about to strike—but Kael caught his wrist mid-motion.
"Don't give the Archive what it wants."
Their auras crackled—fire and ash ready to clash.
But the tension broke when Lyra's voice rang out.
"Look!"
Ahead, the corridor ended in a massive sealed door. Runes of light glowed around its edges.
It read: To Rewrite Fate, Spill Memory.
Third Trial – The Memory Well
The door opened into a circular chamber, the centerpiece of which was a deep well filled with golden ink. Around it, stone pedestals held three aura cores, each pulsing with different light.
Lyra approached one.
"It's... mine," she whispered.
The aura pulsing inside was Celestial Light. Pure. Warm.
But then the glow darkened.
Lyra saw herself—years ahead. Wounded. Surrounded by corpses. Healing no one.
"I—I don't want to see this."
Kael stepped beside her.
"This is a test. Not the future."
Zera moved to her pedestal—hers shimmered with Mist. Faint, flickering.
But the vision it showed was powerful.
Her holding Kael's broken body.
Smiling.
Then whispering, "It had to be this way."
Zera blinked it away. "The Archive loves showing lies. Don't let it become prophecy."
Kael finally stepped to his own.
The aura was not just Ashen.
It was warped—a fusion of Flame, Mist, and Celestial. His future self had taken in the traits of all those he defeated, evolved beyond classification.
The projection showed a throne of relics. A continent in ruin.
Kael stood alone—eyes empty.
He didn't flinch.
"I won't let that happen."
The well spoke.
A voice ancient, genderless, beyond time.
"Then spill a memory. And prove it."
Kael closed his eyes.
Then lowered a hand into the well.
He gave it his first kill.
The moment he ended a creature's life in the Emberdeep.
Not just the act, but the emotion—the guilt, the thrill, the fear.
The well accepted it.
The dungeon rumbled.
The path opened again.
Beyond the chamber was the final stretch—no illusions now. Just silence. The kind that meant something terrible was waiting.
At the far end stood a lone figure—hooded, cloaked, and humming.
Its back turned.
Then it spoke.
But in Kael's voice.
"Haaah... what a strong aura."
Kael drew his blade instantly.
The others reacted too—but froze when the figure turned.
It was Kael.
Or at least—a version of him.
Eyes hollow. Aura burning with dark ash. And around his neck—a Memoryforged Crown, cracked and bleeding.
The Archive had manifested his possible future.
Now, he had to fight it.