The cloaked figure didn't move.
It stood at the edge of the village, as still as a statue, framed against the setting sun. Its silhouette rippled unnaturally, like a mirage caught in a storm. The moment Aiden laid eyes on it, every instinct screamed in warning.
Kaela took a hesitant step forward. "That presence… it's warping the flow of mana. Just like the Nexus did."
Brant narrowed his eyes. "You want me to run in and chop it down, or are we playing the 'let's talk first' game?"
Aiden raised a hand to stop him. "We don't know what we're dealing with yet. Stay sharp."
They approached slowly, weapons at the ready. The village itself seemed eerily calm—too calm. No movement in the windows. No villagers on the streets. No sound but the wind.
When they were twenty meters from the figure, it finally moved.
Its head turned.
The hood slid back.
And what lay beneath wasn't human.
Its face was featureless—smooth, like polished obsidian. Only two glowing cracks served as eyes, flickering with dull violet light. The very sight of it twisted Aiden's stomach.
Then it spoke.
"You have awakened the Eye. The Seal is broken."
Its voice wasn't spoken aloud—it echoed directly in their minds, raw and thunderous like a hundred voices at once.
Aiden drew his blade. "Who are you?"
"I am the Echo. The first signal. The warning."
Kaela stepped forward, her face pale but resolute. "The Nexus… was only the beginning, wasn't it?"
The Echo gave a slight tilt of its head. "The Nexus was a gate. A pinhole in a dam now cracked. And you—" it pointed directly at Aiden "—you carry the Key Shard."
The energy in Aiden's chest pulsed violently at the mention of it. He gritted his teeth. "You're talking about the core fragment I absorbed."
The Echo's voice reverberated again. "Incorrect. You did not absorb it. It chose you. The Core was only a fraction. A splinter of the true Eye, slumbering beneath the world."
A sudden system alert flashed across Aiden's vision:
[Critical Alert: Class Evolution Prerequisite Met]
[Path Divergence Detected]
[WARNING: Host proximity to 'Echo of the Eye' is destabilizing system integrity.]
The figure stepped forward, each movement sending shockwaves through the ground.
Kaela staggered. "We can't fight this. Not like this."
Aiden's grip tightened. "Then we stall it."
Before he could act, the Echo raised a hand—and the sky itself shimmered.
The clouds above twisted into a vortex. A rift began to tear open in the fabric of the air, exposing something vast, churning, and ancient behind it. For a moment, Aiden glimpsed another realm entirely—a place of cold stars and screaming voids.
The village's thatch roofs groaned under unseen pressure. Windows shattered. Air became dense like water.
Then the Echo spoke again.
"Your next trial begins in blood. The Eyes are waking. And when they all rise—your world will fold."
With that, the Echo turned to mist.
The vortex snapped shut.
The wind died.
Silence.
For a long moment, no one moved.
Then Kaela dropped to her knees, clutching her staff, her face pale. "It wasn't a warning. That was a declaration."
Brant cursed under his breath. "We're not just dealing with corrupted beasts or broken magic anymore. We're in the deep end."
Aiden stared at the spot where the Echo had stood. The ground was still scorched, a sigil burned into the earth—an eye with five cracks radiating outward.
[New Objective Unlocked: The Shattered Seal]
— Investigate the other Echoes.
— Locate the Prime Eye before convergence.
— Class Evolution Opportunity: [Warden of the Rift] or [Severed Flame]. Choose at a stabilized Zone.
Aiden exhaled slowly.
There was no time to rest.
The enemy wasn't a dungeon anymore—it was something vast, intelligent, and already watching.
And Aiden had just stepped into the middle of its awakening.