The Pit was no longer a place.
It was a presence.
And it was watching him.
Crispin stood at the edge of what once had been a forgotten construction site in Blackridge's underbelly—now transformed into a Gate unlike any he had ever seen. The sky above it curled like torn fabric, stitched together by lightning veins. The air buzzed with energy that made every molecule in his blood scream.
And then the Gate opened.
No flash. No explosion. Just a reversal of gravity. A slow inhale of the world around it, like it had been waiting. Like it had been hungry.
Crispin stepped in.
He didn't hesitate.
Didn't look back.
Didn't ask permission.
---
The inside was… quiet.
Not silent.
Quiet in the way a haunted chapel was quiet—where even breath sounded like a sin.
The Pit's interior wasn't stone or fire. No lava flows. No twisted forests or elemental madness.
It was a throne room.
Endless. Wide. Open.
The floor beneath him shimmered like obsidian glass, reflecting stars that didn't exist. The air was warm but still, and the sky above wasn't a ceiling, but a firmament of broken constellations drifting in spirals.
Crispin exhaled and took a single step forward.
The floor didn't crack.
It sang.
Low and distant.
A note that made his chest vibrate.
He gritted his teeth. "What the hell is this?"
"Home."
The voice came from everywhere.
And then—there it was.
A creature emerged from behind a twisted pillar.
It wasn't walking.
It unfolded.
As if space had wrapped around it like a cloak and was now shrugging it off. Its form was ever-shifting: part skeletal, part cloaked, part mist. But its eyes—if they could be called that—were old.
Older than language.
Older than pain.
And yet familiar.
"Welcome," it said, "King of Echoes."
Crispin didn't flinch. "You've got the wrong guy."
"No," the creature replied, smiling in a way that made Crispin want to destroy it. "I've been waiting for you."
---
He summoned his weapon out of instinct.
The jagged blade of onyx pulled from one of his strongest Echoes.
The creature didn't move. Didn't react.
"You won't hurt me here," it said with certainty.
"Try me."
"You can't draw power in a Gate that belongs to your origin."
"What origin?"
"You were born here."
Crispin froze.
"That's a lie."
"It's a memory."
"Then prove it."
The creature raised one clawed hand and the entire Gate trembled.
And then—he fell.
---
He landed on stone soaked with blood.
But it wasn't his.
It wasn't recent.
This was the past.
He could feel it in the air—dense with mourning.
Before him stood a man. Tall, broad-shouldered. Not cloaked in armor or symbols, but in presence. He held a child in his arms. An infant, wrapped in cloth glowing faintly.
Around him—chaos.
Otherworldly figures argued in languages that bled into each other.
"This is a violation!" one screamed. "You brought mortal flesh into a sacred conflict!"
The man didn't answer.
He knelt at a strange altar—half-living, half-machine.
The voice echoed from above: "You've doomed him to choose. You've created a creature that belongs to neither realm."
"He belongs to both," the man whispered.
And then the baby cried.
The sound shattered the illusion.
Crispin snapped back into the present.
Sweating.
Heart racing.
Breath short.
"You've seen it," the creature whispered gently. "Your father sacrificed his place in the Eternal Accord to bring you here."
"That wasn't my father."
"You share his blood. You share his eyes."
"Then where is he now?"
The smile widened. "Dead. Forgotten. Just like you'll be, unless you accept what you are."
Crispin's rage boiled.
"You don't know me."
"I know what you're becoming. Your Echoes—those shades you summon—aren't just tools. They're fragments of your soul. You're not a summoner, Crispin David. You're a Reclaimer."
"A what?"
"A King of the Forgotten. You don't command the dead—you remind them who they were."
Crispin staggered back.
This was too much.
He had come here to mourn Arlen.
Not to find purpose.
Not to find some destiny wrapped in madness.
But the creature didn't relent.
"Your friend," it said softly. "You tried to summon him. Didn't you?"
Crispin's fists clenched.
"Yes."
"And he refused."
"...Yes."
"Because he wasn't Echo-bound. He was whole. Untouched. But others—those you've taken? They were waiting for you. Calling for a King to restore what death erased."
"No one made me a king."
"But the System did."
Suddenly, the Gate's air shimmered with heat.
Another voice cut in.
Digital. Cold.
[Gate interference detected.]
[Unauthorized Echo signature. Watcher-Class threat approaching.]
Crispin's head snapped up.
The creature froze.
"Too soon," it whispered. "They found you faster than I expected."
"What's coming?"
"Your first executioner."
From above, a rift tore into existence like a scream turned inside out.
And from it—descended a Watcher.
Crispin couldn't describe it.
Not fully.
Its form was… incomplete.
A body that kept rewriting itself as if reality didn't know how to contain it. Eyes flickering in and out. Mouths forming prayers in languages no god should speak. Limbs bent forward and backward all at once.
And its presence was pure deletion.
Not death.
Not pain.
Erasure.
[Watcher-class Entity: has arrived.]
[Intent: Erasure of corrupted asset.]
[Level: ???]
Crispin tried to summon his Echoes.
Nothing came.
The System denied him.
[You cannot command within a primordial Gate.]
[You do not yet have full Dominion.]
The Watcher landed in front of him like judgment given form.
The creature beside him—the old, smiling one—screamed.
It hurled itself at the Watcher, warping into shadow-swords and shrieking winds.
And was torn apart in a blink.
Not killed.
Erased.
Crispin backed away slowly.
He wasn't ready for this.
Not alone.
---
The Watcher took a step toward him.
And then—
Everything shattered.
The Gate glitched.
Time broke.
Crispin found himself in a white room.
Alone.
Except he wasn't.
Someone else sat across from him.
Same build.
Same hair.
Same everything.
Except one thing:
The man across from him wore a crown made of silence.
And his eyes were glowing gold.
"You're me," Crispin whispered.
The crowned man nodded. "I'm what you become if you say yes."
"Yes to what?"
"To what the System wants you to be."
Crispin narrowed his eyes. "What the fuck are you?"
"I'm the version that doesn't mourn. That doesn't break. That doesn't lose sleep over names and graves."
He stood.
Crispin mirrored him instinctively.
"You're powerful," Crowned Crispin said. "But weak. Because you still think power can be earned."
Crispin drew a phantom blade from instinct. "And you think it can just be taken?"
"No," the other said. "I think it's owed."
The room shifted.
Walls cracked.
The Gate's heartbeat returned.
And a door appeared between them.
Crowned Crispin pointed.
"You'll have to choose. Take the Throne—become what the System fears."
"What happens if I don't?"
"You'll die."
"Maybe that's better."
"No," the crowned version replied, stepping close enough for their foreheads to almost touch. "Because Yara dies with you."
That word.
That name.
Crispin blinked.
And he was back.
In his apartment.
Alone.
Night.
Sweat soaked.
The city buzzed faintly outside, like nothing had changed.
Except
All of his Echoes stood silently around him.
But they weren't standing anymore.
They were kneeling.
One of them stepped forward.
And it spoke.
Not in his voice.
Not the System's.
But in Arlen's.
"Crispin," it said.
His blood ran cold.
He stood slowly.
The Echo—Arlen's face—looked up.
"The Gate has marked you."
"I didn't summon you," Crispin whispered.
"No," it said. "But I came anyway. Because something worse is waking. And it knows your name."
Outside, across the city, the Watchers opened three more Gates.
And from one of them, a voice whispered into the wind:
"All Kings must kneel or burn."