The forest didn't move.
Even the wind had stopped, caught in the moment between silence and surrender. Branches twisted toward the altar as if bowing to the one who had awakened beneath them.
Malik stood in the clearing, one foot forward, spine straight, expression unreadable.
Beside him, Elaris adjusted the cloak of shadows and feathers draped across her shoulders. Where Anacaona carried herself like royalty and Obsidian like wrath, Elaris felt like tension—wound tight, barely restrained. A storm in mourning.
"I remember the oath," she said, her voice quiet and razor-edged.
"You should," Malik replied calmly. "You swore it before the ash ever cooled."
She nodded once. "And now you've summoned me. Again."
Naomi stepped forward cautiously from behind a line of trees, eyeing the new summon. "She doesn't look like a beast."
Elaris turned her head. Her eyes were silver slits beneath a feathered hood. "Because I am not a beast. I am judgment."
Anacaona, standing a few paces back, didn't move.
"She was the last summon you bound before the collapse," the spear queen said, her tone neutral.
"I don't remember the collapse," Malik replied, still watching Elaris.
"But she does," Anacaona finished.
The silence between them pressed against the trees like a weight.
Elaris exhaled slowly. "Do you remember what they did to me, Sovereign?"
Malik's jaw clenched slightly. "No."
"I do."
She took a step forward, and for a second, the trees bent away from her, as if reality itself refused to resist her passage.
"They broke my body," she said. "Burned it. Trapped me in a soul-mirror for three hundred years. And when I refused to scream, they shattered the mirror and scattered my essence across the Leyline fields."
"I pulled you back," Malik said calmly.
"You always did," she replied. "Even when you shouldn't."
Another step. This time, Malik met her eyes head-on.
"You were always too wild," he said. "Too angry. Too proud."
"You liked that," she said.
"I needed that," he corrected. "But now… I need control."
A beat of silence.
Elaris cracked a smile—thin, cold. "Then earn it."
Naomi stared, unsure whether to step in. "Earn it? Is she going to fight you?"
"She's going to test me," Malik said.
Anacaona lowered her spear to the ground. "She cannot be forced. Not like Obsidian. Not even like me. She will not yield unless she believes you still deserve her."
"And if she doesn't?"
Elaris raised her hands.
The entire clearing ignited with silent flame.
Then everything went black.
He stood in a world of shifting storms and broken ground.
Elaris floated above, her cloak extended like wings, her body framed by the memory of the sun.
"Show me," she said.
Malik closed his eyes.
Then opened them slowly.
No words. No warnings.
He stepped forward with purpose.
She launched toward him, streaking through the air like a falling star.
Malik didn't flinch. At the last second, he sidestepped, turning on the ball of his foot, arm sweeping outward in a controlled motion that redirected her momentum.
She crashed into a column of stone.
Dust exploded.
She came again.
This time faster.
He whispered a word, and Echo poured into his veins.
Obsidian flared within him, fire threading through his fingertips. But he didn't release it yet.
He caught her again—barely—and this time let her drag him across the ground.
Then he twisted his body, planted his foot, and threw her skyward with all the precision of a seasoned duelist.
When she landed, he was already there.
Palm to her throat.
No power. No magic.
Just force.
"I don't need to break you," he said. "You're already mine. I came to remind you."
For the first time, she blinked.
Then smiled.
"Welcome back, Sovereign."
Malik returned to the real world with a breath.
The forest rustled again, the wind no longer held in place.
Elaris stood beside him, hood drawn back, revealing a face that was both beautiful and terrible—a woman who had seen too many deaths and survived each one on purpose.
She knelt.
Only slightly.
"Three are bound," she said.
"And two more to go," Malik replied.
Naomi looked between them. "Two more?"
Anacaona nodded. "You had five. Two you summoned at the start. Three you forged yourself. All unique. All dangerous."
Naomi frowned. "So… what's next?"
What came next was blood.
Not Malik's.
Theirs.
News spread faster than wildfire in Echo-heavy cities. Even faster when something unregistered hit a dungeon in broad daylight.
At exactly 12:01 PM the next day, the Guild-owned dungeon off Interstate 285—designated Zone Gamma-Four—went silent.
Seventeen Guild scouts. Two Silver-Rank Reapers. One Echo Biologist.
Gone.
No signal. No return Echo trace.
Just silence.
The kind of silence Malik had begun to understand far too well.
He didn't wait for an invitation.
He just showed up.
He stood at the mouth of the dungeon like it was an old friend. Naomi beside him, Elaris to the left, Anacaona to the right. Obsidian paced just behind them, eyes glowing with anticipation.
Naomi tilted her head. "Are you sure about this?"
Malik didn't respond.
He just walked inside.
The dungeon was different now.
The walls pulsed. The air was thick with something that wasn't just Echo—it was memory. Like the place remembered who had walked here. Who had died here. Who was coming back.
As they descended, the lights dimmed, then failed entirely.
Elaris summoned a whip of light, sweeping it in a wide arc. "No bodies," she said.
Malik nodded.
"No resistance," Anacaona added.
"That's what worries me," Malik said.
Then, at the third level…
They found the first body.
Except it wasn't a body.
It was a shell.
A husk of someone who had once been human, now hollowed out from the inside. Skin wrapped around nothing. Echo burned away.
"What did this?" Naomi whispered.
Malik stared at the symbols etched into the nearby wall.
"They're not from here," he said.
"Unknowns?" Anacaona asked.
"No," he replied.
"Worse."
He stepped forward, pressed his hand against the rune.
The entire room shifted.
Walls peeled away.
Reality cracked.
And Malik stepped through.
The pocket realm was cold.
Stone floors. Shattered altars. Floating orbs of light that trembled as Malik approached.
A figure stood at the center.
A girl.
Maybe seventeen.
Hair white. Eyes blind.
She wore no armor. Carried no weapon.
But Malik stopped anyway.
Because the air knew her.
And feared her.
"You're him," she said.
"You're not supposed to be here," Malik replied.
"Neither are you."
She stepped forward.
And Echo bent around her like she owned it.
"You carry a throne in your chest," she said. "But you forgot where it was buried."
Malik narrowed his eyes. "Who are you?"
"A witness," she said. "And soon, a rival."
Then she vanished.
When Malik stepped back through the gate, the dungeon trembled behind him.
Naomi rushed to his side. "What happened?"
He stared at the walls.
"They weren't just killed," he said.
"They were harvested."
As they left the dungeon, Malik's face was unreadable.
Fierce.
Focused.
Every step was measured.
Every breath deliberate.
The guards didn't try to stop him.
The Guild's black cars didn't try to follow.
His name had reached them now.
And already, it moved differently.
In the coming days, they would speak of a young necromancer who walked into one of the Guild's locked dungeons, recovered seventeen Echo patterns, left without permission, and wasn't touched.
They'd whisper of a boy whose summons didn't need to speak to terrify, whose calm made others panic, whose stillness broke the balance of rooms.
And they'd remember his name.
Malik Graves.
The one who doesn't raise his voice.
Because he doesn't have to.