Chapter 7: Throug
I didn't sleep.
I don't think the place would've let me.
After the shard fused with my LAW, the air in the ruin—the Echo Temple, as the glyphs later whispered to me—became sharper. Every breath, every step, felt heavier. Like the whole place had been waiting for someone like me to arrive.
The pulsing in my LAW mark had quieted, but I still felt the shard inside it. It wasn't just a piece of stone. It was alive in some way. It had memories. Emotions. A longing that wasn't mine, but now echoed inside me.
That was the first hint of what my new trait, Resonant Recall, meant.
I touched the altar again. A flicker of memory not my own flashed behind my eyes.
---
A woman—tall, dark-haired, wearing robes lined with sigils—stood in this same temple. Her hand hovered over the same shard. She whispered something:
"We aren't gods. We are echoes that forgot the silence."
Behind her, shadows moved. Not monsters. Not people. Shapes made of LAW. Shifting and watching.
Then everything cracked.
---
I pulled back, gasping. My head throbbed. My LAW pulsed.
"Gerson," I whispered to remind myself who I was.
That helped.
For now.
---
I left the inner chamber of the temple, stepping out into a corridor lined with half-collapsed arches. Creeping vines glowed faintly, like veins under translucent skin. At the far end, a stair spiraled downward.
I hesitated.
I had no map. No guide. Just a LAW evolving faster than I could understand.
But something pulled me downward. Not curiosity.
Something like... expectation.
As I descended, I passed murals carved into the stone. Each panel showed people—humans, I think—interacting with glowing marks on their bodies. Some were being elevated. Others were crumbling to ash.
At the final step, the corridor opened into a large chamber flooded with a soft teal light. Floating above a central pedestal was another object. Not a shard this time.
A mirror.
I stepped closer, heart pounding.
It wasn't reflecting the room.
It was reflecting me. But not as I was now.
I saw myself in battle, swinging a blade wreathed in blue fire. I saw a city behind me, burning. I saw others—Called—at my side, each with LAW marks igniting like stars. Then I saw something else.
A throne of bone. A creature seated upon it. Eyeless, but aware. It raised its hand—
—and the vision shattered.
I fell to my knees.
The mirror flickered. Then went dark.
---
Another message burned into my mind.
[Adaptive Soul — Trait Deepening in Progress]
Fragment integrated. Vision revealed.
The Echo Temple remembers you.
I gritted my teeth.
This wasn't power. Not in the way I'd imagined.
It was weight.
Every gain came with knowledge I hadn't asked for. Stories half-seen. Fates not yet lived.
The LAW wasn't just evolving me. It was choosing what I saw. What I could become.
---
I left the temple slowly, blinking under the shifting sky. It was dusk now—or some alien version of it. Colors swam across the clouds like fish. A trail led away from the ruins, etched by footsteps I didn't remember making.
Following it was instinctual.
Halfway down the trail, I heard a sound.
A voice.
Not speaking. Humming.
I dropped low and crept closer.
In a grove of trees shaped like spirals, I saw her.
A young woman, maybe my age—maybe younger—sat cross-legged on a stone. Her hair was braided with silver threads, and a mark glowed on her collarbone. Not like mine. Hers was shaped like a crescent moon pierced by arrows.
She was Called.
But not like me.
She looked up.
"You're late," she said. Her voice was light, but her eyes were sharp. "The temple usually sends people before the sky goes into second dusk."
I stood slowly, hand near my blade. "I didn't know I was expected."
She tilted her head.
"You're the Adaptive, right?" she asked.
"I... think so."
She nodded. "Then yeah. You're late."
She hopped off the rock and approached me with a kind of confidence I hadn't seen in anyone else since I'd arrived in this world.
"Name's Kaelen," she said, offering a hand. "LAW: Echo Hunter. Class-based evolution. Tracking, mimicry, silence manipulation. Pretty fun stuff."
I took her hand. "Gerson. Adaptive Soul."
Her eyebrows lifted. "Seriously? Those are rare. That explains the pulse I felt."
"You felt it?"
She shrugged. "Echo Temple doesn't just call anyone. It wants convergence."
I frowned. "Of what?"
She smiled faintly. "Of fates. You'll learn. Or you won't. Depends on how you handle the next few days."
She turned and started walking.
"Wait," I said. "Where are we going?"
"To meet the others," she said over her shoulder. "The Veil didn't just open for you, Gerson. There are more Called now. And not all of them are sane."
I followed.
Because what else could I do?
And because deep down, I knew the LAW wasn't just testing me anymore.
It was assembling something.
And I was already a part of it.
---