The spiral cracked open beneath him—petal by petal, like stone blooming into light.
Kael stood still as the platform peeled away, revealing a hollow beneath, impossibly deep and painfully silent. Light did not shine down. It waited, caught in suspension like breath before a scream.
The Echoheart had gone still. Not dead—just… done. Its pulse no longer guided. Its purpose had been fulfilled.
Kael stepped into the chasm.
He descended without falling.
Thought curled around him—ribbons of light and memory twisting in his periphery. Shapes formed in the dark, almost faces, almost moments, and then faded.
Here, nothing held shape unless Kael thought it into being.
Here, truth bent.
When he reached the bottom, there was no ground—just the pressure of finality. Beneath him, a sphere floated. Massive. Ancient. Cracked.
Runes crawled along its surface in looping patterns that stuttered and rewrote themselves. From inside came no sound.
But Kael could feel it watching him.
He approached the sphere, hand at his side. The light around him pulsed once—and his breath caught.
It wasn't a presence.
It was a mind.
A thought not his own flooded into him.
So many spirals. So many Bearers. And still they come, thinking they are different.
Kael staggered back, eyes wide.
I am not evil. I am what remains. The memory that would not fade.
The sphere shifted, showing Kael visions—not illusions, but possibilities. He saw himself as a child, nameless. As a tyrant, crowned. As ash scattered in wind. As all of them.
Then the world cracked open.
He saw the origin.
A time before relics. Before seals. Before the Vault.
A moment when the world tried to think too much of itself—and it broke. And from that fracture, a will emerged. Not god. Not demon.
Just the need to finish what was never finished.
I am the thought you buried alive.
Kael dropped to one knee, overwhelmed.
He thought of his sister—not the day she died, but the days he didn't know how to live after.
The pain hadn't faded. He had just grown used to walking beside it.
The entity whispered into him—not with words, but weight.
I offer release. Open the core, and I will dissolve all memory, all repetition. A world without fate, without seal, without spiral. Free.
Or bind me again—and watch this echo become someone else's burden. Over and over. Until forgetting feels like mercy.
Kael raised his head.
The Echoheart—still in his chest—began to fracture. Its light bled outward, threading into his arms, into his spine, into his thoughts.
There would be no second chance.
There would be no third seal.
Just a choice.
The containment sphere began to crack louder now, fractures glowing with pale heat. The air trembled. Memory warped.
Kael did not speak.
But he felt his answer rising—not in defiance, not in surrender.
In understanding.
He was not chosen to win.
He was chosen to choose.
The Vault did not close.
It held its breath.
And waited to see what Kael would become.