Chapter 104: Echoes in Fire and Silence
—When the Abyss Whispers—
The battlefield was a desolate mountain stretch east of the old leyline fault.
No civilians. No soul towers.
Just wasteland.
A perfect test site.
That's how the Spirit Tribunal labeled it.
But Harak didn't see it as a test.
He stood at the peak alone, bare-chested under the shifting haze, ash drifting from his skin like dust from a burning scripture. He didn't summon a weapon. He didn't call for allies. He simply looked outward—waiting.
And soon, they came.
Thirty Dark Soulbornes, handpicked from the Veil's lower ranks. Sent not to win—but to die.
They didn't know that.
Harak didn't move.
He waited until they crossed the line—the moment their corrupted soul energy bled into the air like oil into water.
Then he exhaled.
The flame didn't erupt.
It unfolded.
An ancient fire, born not from temperature but from soul memory. A slow-consuming wrath that knew names and ranks and burned through defense as if it had already seen how they would fail.
By the time the last one tried to scream, the mountain had collapsed.
And Harak was already walking away.
No expression.
Just embers trailing behind him.
"You wasted my morning," he muttered.
"Next time, send someone with a name."
---
Elsewhere, in the quiet corners of Soul Academy—
In the dead hours of night—
Karen Lockwood dreamed.
But it wasn't a dream.
It started in the void.
Where her power usually breathed.
But something was already there.
A presence.
A shadow within her shadow.
Soft. Slow. Familiar.
"You're not afraid of the dark," it said.
"Because it's never been a stranger to you."
Karen turned—lucid within the dream, a skill honed through soul training.
But this was not her soulscape.
It had been altered.
Infiltrated.
A mirror rose before her.
In it—she saw herself.
But not as she was.
This version of Karen had eyes ringed in obsidian mist. Her soul aura leaked like spilled ink across a broken floor.
And behind the mirror… stood Mirex.
No words.
Just his reflection. Watching.
"You think your darkness is obedience," the mirror-Karen said, walking forward.
"That it's a tool to master. A thing to forge into discipline."
She smiled.
Not kindly.
"But what if it's you that was forged by it?"
Karen clenched her jaw, aura rising—
but the dreamspace bent.
Her power didn't respond.
Because here, the Abyss was the host.
And she—was the guest.
"We know what you are," the voice whispered again.
"The child who survived by hiding inside herself. You never outgrew that."
Karen didn't speak.
But her soul flared in resistance.
Even here.
Even in a space not hers—
She refused to kneel.
And that's when the pressure shifted.
Mirex stepped forward from the mirror—not into her, not to attack—just… closer.
His voice, a thousand broken tones:
"They trained you to fight with restraint. They chained your instincts. But I see it… buried in the folds of your silence."
"You don't fear your darkness, Karen Lockwood. You're just afraid of what happens if you ever let it speak."
The dream began to collapse.
She forced it shut.
Willed herself awake—
Her eyes snapped open in her dorm bed, breath ragged, sheets soaked in cold sweat.
The window was dark.
Outside, nothing stirred.
But in the reflection of her desk mirror—
for half a second—
Her eyes were not hers.
They were ringed in black.
---
Elsewhere, Mirex stood at the center of a soulstorm projection chamber, veiled eyes closed.
Nyel approached him cautiously.
"You reached into the girl's soulscape?"
Mirex didn't open his eyes.
"I offered her a reflection."
"And if she resists?"
"Then we wait."
He turned. Slowly.
"But every Abyss has a center. And she's already closer to it than she wants to believe."
---