The vault beneath Altheris trembled.
Priests stood in reverent silence as Veylor stepped forward, robes parting like the sea before him. The sealed door had not opened in two hundred years—not since the Last Refrain War, when the gods had sung in unison to seal away the only being capable of mirroring their divinity.
Now, that being stood awake once more.
He emerged slowly—tall, armored in fractured symphonium plating etched with forgotten verses. His eyes glowed silver-blue, reflecting light and sound. His face bore no expression, only a mirrored mask split down the middle like a cracked record.
The Echo Knight had no name. He had given it up long ago to become something more.
"Target?" he asked, voice harmonized across three tones.
Veylor stepped forward, lowering his hood.
"An anomaly. The bearer of the Entropy Codex. He silences harmony and corrupts the weave."
The Knight tilted his head, as if analyzing the sound of the name.
"…Codex. Dissonance. I remember the war. I remember the burn of broken notes."
"Then you remember how dangerous it is," Veylor said coldly. "This boy is not yet a god, but he may become one."
The Echo Knight nodded.
"Then I will play his requiem."
---
Ashwood – Midnight
Aeren stood in a hollow, hands shaking as he tried to summon a note from the Shard Core Lyssa had shown him. The broken Fatesongs within him pulsed—unruly, resisting fusion.
"Again," Lyssa said, arms crossed.
"It's not working," Aeren growled. "They weren't meant to go together!"
"Exactly. Which is why you have to force them."
She stepped forward, pointing to the runes drawn in dirt.
"Your Codex consumes and deconstructs, but you haven't composed. You're just holding the fragments like broken glass."
"How do I compose something that never existed?"
Lyssa smiled.
"You don't compose it… you improvise it."
Aeren stared, breathing heavy. Then closed his eyes.
He felt the heat of Ignis Canticle, the light of Sanctus Aria, the void between them.
Then he reached deeper—into the Codex—and pulled.
The runes flared.
The blade in his hand twisted, reshaping itself into a jagged, living weapon.
> "New Harmonic Construct: Null Verse I – Black Flame Pulse."
He opened his eyes. The clearing shimmered with ghostly light. Trees bent away. Lyssa grinned.
"You did it."
But her smile faded as a sound echoed in the distance.
It wasn't song.
It was echo.
The trees stilled. The wind died.
Aeren turned sharply. "What is that?"
Lyssa paled.
"…That's not a Fatesinger. That's something worse."
From the treeline, the Echo Knight stepped forward.
Without warning, his mirrored blade sang—not in harmony, but in reflection. Aeren's newly composed verse was caught mid-cast and reversed, slamming back into him.
He flew back, coughing blood.
"You are not the only one who sings Dissonance," the Knight said.