For a moment, Aurel thought he'd gone insane.
The voice didn't echo. It resonated. Like a presence behind his own eyes.
"Darkest Knight… You were not meant to wake."
The tank's liquid shimmered. The thing inside twitched. Then, for a split second, its sealed eyelids cracked open.
No pupils. No iris. Just endless silver.
Aurel's instincts screamed.
This thing isn't human.
No… it used to be.
Suddenly, the system UI reappeared.
[Hidden Quest Activated: "World Echo" Phase I]
Objective: Survive the Interface Rejection Protocol]
WARNING: Unregistered Class Detected
Skillset exceeds allowed parameters for a Level 1
Executing Countermeasure: Neural Wipe
"No you damn don't—!"
Aurel's hand shot forward. He didn't know why, but his body moved.
Without chant, without training, without thought—he activated a skill from a lifetime ago.
[Mana Reversal: Core Distortion Lv.??? – ACTIVATED]
The air shattered. Like glass.
The entire chamber convulsed. Monitors exploded, alarms wailed, and the fluid inside the tank boiled into steam.
The humanoid's body convulsed violently. Its eyes fully opened—and locked onto his.
And then it whispered.
"Aurel… You are not the only remnant."
The next thing he knew, he was on the floor outside the facility.
Smoke rose from the building. Sirens blared. People screamed.
But not from the explosion.
From the sky.
Far above the city, dozens of crimson cracks began forming in the clouds—like fractures in the atmosphere itself. Through the largest one, a single object began descending. Not a monster. Not a ship.
A gate.
It pulsed with raw mana and unfamiliar runes, twisting reality in its wake. The cracks it brought weren't just in the sky—they were in the world's very logic.
[Dimensional Alignment Detected]
Warning: Fantaso Interface Layer—LEAKING]
Aurel barely had time to process what was happening.
A voice—a real one—called out to him through the smoke.
"YOU! Hey! Are you Chosen?!"
He turned. A squad of armed response units—government-backed Chosen—were surrounding him. Some wore tactical armor, others wielded weapons that vibrated with unstable energy.
One woman stepped forward. Her badge read:
UNIT 9 – Interface Sanitation Team
Captain Elara Min
"You just triggered a system burn," she said coldly. "Either you explain what you just did, or we'll drag you to Recalibration."
Aurel didn't respond.
Because they weren't real Chosen.
He could see it now. A faint aura leaking off their bodies. Artificial. Constructed.
"You're not human anymore, are you?" he muttered.
Her smile faltered.
Aurel stepped back.
"You were the first test subjects."
The moment he said it, one of the soldiers opened fire.
The next five seconds were a blur.
Aurel didn't remember moving. He didn't remember thinking.
His hand moved.
The bullets stopped mid-air.
And then—
[Elite Swordsmanship – Level Up]
[Hand-to-Hand Combat – Level Up]
[Title Activated: Phantom Reclaimer]
The air around him tore open—just for an instant—and in his hand materialized a blade he had buried lifetimes ago: The Crimson Fang, forged in the Demon Lord's flame.
He exhaled.
Then moved.
When the dust cleared, only Captain Elara remained—wounded, kneeling.
"You're one of them," she gasped. "A remnant from the old wars…"
He stepped closer. "How many are there like me?"
She gave a hollow laugh.
"Not enough to win. Not anymore."
Then her body convulsed. Her skin split open—revealing a twisting mechanical core. She was never alive.
Just a shell.
And behind her broken frame, a message carved itself into the cracked wall of the burning facility:
"COME HOME, DARK ONE."
"THE DEMON LORD HAS RETURNED."