The world was supposed to be at peace.
Kaito stood atop the citadel ruins, staring at the place where the Veil Lord had fallen. Sunlight washed the shattered battlefield in gold. But in the heart of that silence, the ground still breathed—slow and pulsing—like something beneath the stone hadn't died… only waited.
"Can you feel it?" Elyria asked, stepping beside him. She wore no armor now—only her travel cloak, wind whipping at her dark braid.
Kaito nodded. "Nightcleaver hums every time I step near. Like… it's calling."
The blade at his back—once split, now whole—glowed faintly with shifting sigils neither of them recognized. Riven had tried deciphering them. So had the temple scribes. None succeeded.
"It's not over," Kaito whispered.
And as if in answer, the earth cracked.
A spiral of white fire erupted from the stones. Kaito shoved Elyria back just in time. He stood firm as the pillar of flame formed a circle—floating, spinning, a rift.
From the center, a voice echoed—not spoken, not heard, but felt.
"Return… home."
Kaito's knees buckled. His vision blurred. In that moment, he saw a city that was not his. A throne not his. A war fought centuries ago—with his face at its center.
Elyria grabbed him. "Kaito, don't!"
But he was already stepping forward.
"I have to know who I really am."
And he vanished into the light.
He fell through silence.
Then light became pain.
And pain became sound.
He landed on stone—jagged, warm, humming like a living thing. The sky above was fractured—split into mirrored panels, each reflecting different realms. Rain fell upward. Fire bloomed in spirals.
A realm unchained by logic.
A voice greeted him.
"Welcome, Wielder of the Echo Flame," it said. "Welcome to the *Realm of Echoes.*"
Kaito stood.
Before him stood a woman with silver eyes and midnight hair.
She wore a robe of living ink, patterns shifting with every blink. A strange sword hovered near her, its sheath suspended by nothing.
"I am Isha," she said. "Blade-Warden of the Echo Gates. You are not the first to return. But you may be the last."
Kaito drew Nightcleaver instinctively. "Where am I, really?"
Isha smiled. "Where you were made."
Behind her, mountains hovered upside down. Shadows with human shapes stalked the edges of the light.
And high above, on a fractured moon, sat a throne of bone and flame.
The Echo Sovereign was watching.
Kaito had entered a realm built on memory, regret, and prophecy.
And the past was hungry.