The smell of blood never really left Crispin's nose anymore. It clung to his clothes, stained the folds of his memory, and lived in his lungs like second air. This battlefield was no different. The earth here was torn apart—black stone cracked, the corpses of beasts twisted in death. But this wasn't a Gate. No System pinged him with notifications. There was no timer, no reward screen. This was the real world, or whatever was left of it.
He stood alone on the edge of the ruined district, buildings caved in, wind slicing through shattered windows. Behind him, silence. Ahead, something darker than silence.
A presence.
Crispin didn't move. His fingers flexed slowly. Shadow tendrils curled around his legs like loyal dogs waiting for a command.
Then the voice came. Low. Ancient.
"So you're the one."
Crispin didn't bother with a response. If something was talking, it could be killed. He stepped forward. "I don't have time for speeches."
The figure stepped from the wreckage. A man—or something that wore the skin of one. Pale. Eyes like cracked ice. And around his body swirled a strange aura, shifting like oil on water. Not mana. Not corruption. Something else.
Something divine.
"I am Aetherion," it said.
Crispin blinked once. "Cool name. Still gonna kill you."
"Will you?" Aetherion raised a hand and the shadows behind Crispin twisted violently. They screamed. His own Echoes—the risen dead, the loyal ones—howled like they were being unraveled.
Crispin turned slowly. Three of them had already crumbled into black dust. Arlen's Echo stood frozen, body shaking, mouth open but voiceless.
That stopped him.
"What the hell did you do?" Crispin growled.
"I unmade them," Aetherion said simply. "You take the dead. I command the forgotten."
Crispin said nothing. He just whispered the word: "Arise."
The air cracked.
From the broken street, the dead surged up—dozens of them, all twisted by Crispin's touch. But they barely had time to take form before they began to collapse again.
Aetherion smiled.
"You don't understand yet. Death is not your power. Echoes obey you because the world hasn't corrected itself. But I am correction. You are not a king. You are a mistake."
Crispin launched at him without another word.
The ground exploded beneath his feet, shadows fanning out like wings. His fist struck air—Aetherion had moved faster than Crispin expected. The man was behind him now, touching the back of his neck like it was a game.
Crispin spun and drove a knee into Aetherion's ribs. It connected. The crunch felt good.
Until Aetherion didn't even flinch.
"You're strong," Aetherion said. "But strength without foundation is…"
Crispin cut him off by ramming his elbow into the bastard's face. Then he summoned a blade from his shadow and slashed upward.
Aetherion caught it.
No hesitation. No wound.
Crispin let go instantly, rolled back, and called the blade back to his hand mid-air. He was already sweating. Not from fear. From instinct.
This thing wasn't a monster. It wasn't even just a god.
It was a system reboot.
"Why now?" Crispin said, voice low. "Why show up after all this time?"
"Because you broke the rules."
That pissed him off more than it should have. "What rules? The ones that made me watch my friends die while I cleaned up the blood? The rules that let Virelia rot while monsters played kingmaker?"
"No," Aetherion replied. "The older ones. The laws that bound death. You opened Gate Zero."
Crispin stopped moving.
"I didn't," he said carefully. "It opened itself."
"And yet it answers to you. Doesn't it?"
For a moment, Crispin didn't have an answer. His heart thudded in a strange way. Not panic. Not even anger.
Recognition.
Aetherion didn't attack again. Instead, he gestured.
The world changed.
Suddenly, they weren't standing in the ruins of the city anymore. They were in a white space. Timeless. Empty. And in the center—
A door.
Massive. Sealed by chains. And on the door was a symbol: a ring of black fire, eating itself.
Crispin knew it. He'd seen it once before.
In his dreams.
"That's—"
"Yes," Aetherion said. "That is Gate Zero."
"You said I opened it," Crispin said. "But it's still closed."
"For now," Aetherion answered. "But it is waking."
Crispin circled the door, eyes narrowed. "So what's behind it?"
"Not a what," Aetherion said. "A who."
Crispin froze again.
"Don't start being mysterious now. I've killed gods before."
"No, you haven't," Aetherion said softly. "You've killed monsters wearing godhood like a crown of rot. But you haven't met the real ones. Not yet. The being behind that Gate is not a monster."
"Then what is it?"
Aetherion's voice dropped. "It is the first memory."
Crispin stared at the Gate. "You're telling me there's something behind that door that remembers everything?"
Aetherion nodded. "Everything. Every life. Every death. Every version of you that ever existed. You are its echo."
Crispin felt something twitch in his gut.
He stepped closer to the Gate.
It throbbed.
For a second, just one second, he thought he saw something on the other side.
Eyes.
And they were crying.
The space collapsed.
Crispin was back in the real world again. The ruined district. The smoke. The blood.
Aetherion stood before him, arms folded. "You have two choices."
"Let me guess," Crispin said. "Join you, or die."
Aetherion smiled faintly. "You could say that. But I'll offer a third. Go to Gate Zero yourself."
"What happens if I do?"
"You'll remember."
Crispin narrowed his eyes. "Remember what?"
"Why you were chosen."
Crispin didn't answer. He just looked past Aetherion, at the field of corpses, the fallen Echoes, the broken homes.
And then he thought of Yara. His little sister.
Of Arlen. Of his mother.
Of the first time he ever picked up a broken weapon with shaking hands.
"I'll go," he said.
"But not yet."
Then he drove his fist into the ground.
The shadows answered.
Aetherion was caught off guard—not by the attack, but by the scale of it. The entire district shuddered. From every broken alley, from every corpse, from every ounce of blood in the dirt, Crispin called the dead.
Hundreds of them.
They didn't rise like soldiers.
They rose like an army.
Crispin didn't give Aetherion time to speak. The Echoes charged. Some screamed. Some were silent. All of them burned with dark fire.
Crispin was at the front.
And this time, Aetherion was pushed back.
Crispin fought like a storm. His blade sang. His shadows coiled around enemy limbs and shattered them. Aetherion countered with waves of unmaking magic—every hit erased an Echo from existence—but Crispin was faster now. Sharper. Angry in a new way.
Aetherion dodged left, and Crispin anticipated it. He slammed a hand on the ground and a wall of risen bones shot up like a spear trap. Aetherion twisted in air—but took the edge of it across his cheek.
The first time he bled.
Crispin grinned.
"You're not untouchable."
"No," Aetherion said, voice colder now. "But neither are you."
He moved.
One second he was in front of Crispin, the next he was behind him.
Aetherion whispered something in a language that burned Crispin's ears.
And suddenly Crispin's heart stopped beating.
The world froze.
Crispin collapsed to his knees. He couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. His vision blurred. The shadow Echoes screamed, then exploded in mid-air, dissolving into nothing.
Aetherion stood over him, looking strangely calm.
"This isn't personal," he said. "You are the anomaly. The Gate is the wound. You are the infection."
Crispin's mind reeled. He tried to call his mana, his power, anything—but it was like his soul had been muted.
Then he heard a voice.
Not Aetherion's.
Not his own.
It was soft. Young.
Yara's.
"Don't die, Crispin. Please."
And with that, something snapped.
Crispin's body surged with new power—not shadow, not mana, not system-bound force.
Divine.
Golden light cracked his skin.
Aetherion stepped back. "No. That's not possible—"
Crispin stood, trembling, golden sparks floating from his fingertips.
"You said I was a mistake," he said. "But you forgot something."
He raised his hand.
"I'm also a miracle."
With that, he released it.
A beam of golden darkness—something ancient and pure—ripped through the air and slammed into Aetherion. The entire city cracked. The sky split for just a second. Aetherion screamed.
And when the light cleared, he was gone.
Silence returned.
Crispin stood alone again. Exhausted. Bleeding. But alive.
His Echoes were gone. His shadow power had dimmed. But inside him, something else now flickered.
He looked to the sky. The clouds were swirling. The Gate was waking.
And deep inside, he could feel it.
Something was calling him.
Not with anger.
But with memory.
He walked into the ruins. Alone. Quiet.
And behind him, the world held its breath.
Gate Zero was opening.