The chamber below Aerilon pulsed with forgotten sorrow.
Yun Xi stood at the edge of the vault, cube in hand, heart pounding like the echo of a long-lost war drum. The data Li Shen had given him wasn't just a fragment. It was a sealed memory—a living piece of the past locked behind trauma so raw it had fractured timelines.
"This place," Yue Lan whispered beside him. "Feels like it's… remembering you."
"It's not the place," Yun Xi murmured. "It's me."
The cube hummed once and dissolved in his palm. Light spread out like fingers, wrapping around his head, dragging him downward into a vision not of his choosing.
---
FLASHBACK SEQUENCE – MEMORY SYNCING…
Snow. Blood. Screaming.
Yun Xi stumbled through a city on fire, surrounded by collapsing buildings and twisted corpses. He looked down—his hands were smaller. He was younger. Just a student then. And beside him—
"Yun Xi, run!"
A girl.
Her name ripped through his soul: Aria.
She had a bright laugh, sharper fists, and a defiant spark that once rivaled his own. She had believed in him before anyone else. And she had died here.
Because of him.
The sky above cracked open like glass, and the first Harvester descended—not sleek and silent like before, but feral, raw, uncontrolled. Its blade-arm gleamed red from the blood of dozens it had already claimed.
"I can stop it!" Yun Xi's younger self shouted.
"You're not ready!" Aria pulled him back. "You don't have the Song!"
But he ran anyway.
He ran forward, raised his hands, and sang—off-key, off-balance, with no harmony.
And the Harvester didn't hesitate.
It struck.
But Aria shoved him aside at the last second.
He heard her scream. Watched her eyes widen. And felt her hand slip from his fingers as her body hit the ground.
Yun Xi collapsed. His Song flickered. The Harvester spared him, uninterested in a broken echo. It vanished into the burning skyline, leaving only ruin in its wake.
—
END MEMORY SYNC.
Yun Xi gasped and dropped to his knees, choking back bile.
Yue Lan knelt beside him, hand on his shoulder. "What did you see?"
"My biggest mistake," he said hoarsely. "I tried to sing the Song too early. I thought I could protect her. I failed."
Yue Lan was quiet for a moment. "That pain… it's why your Echo is different. Why your power feels unrefined but real."
He looked up. The chamber had changed.
Where ruin had echoed, now there was melody. Notes of sorrow and strength floated through the air. A soft glow formed in the center of the room, revealing the third fragment—this one shaped like a blade formed from crystallized memory.
Yun Xi stood and reached for it. The moment his fingers touched the hilt, the chamber flashed.
A voice spoke—not his own, not Aria's.
"You have remembered failure. Now you may wield it."
The blade melted into light, then settled into his back like a phantom limb.
[Fragment Three Acquired: Regret Blade]
Trait: Manifestation of Memory. May summon spectral constructs born from your deepest regrets.
Yun Xi exhaled sharply. "That was the cost of power."
"And its lesson," Yue Lan added. "Don't forget what gave it shape."
He turned toward her, the air around him charged with new strength. "I don't intend to forget again."
As they stepped out of the chamber, a signal pierced the sky—one only Yun Xi could hear.
A soft hum.
A fourth fragment was calling.
But so was something darker—something now awakened by his growing resonance.
And it was moving fast.