The wind howled through the high passes of the Grayreach Mountains, sharp as knives and thick with Ether frost. Aiden adjusted the thermal cloak around his shoulders, its insulating hex-runes barely keeping up with the temperature drops. Behind him, Kaela floated a heat orb above their small party, and Brant trudged forward, boots cracking through the snow with each heavy step.
"Tell me again why the hell a secret null-lab is buried in the worst terrain on the continent?" Brant grunted, brushing snow from his beard.
"Because if you wanted to run forbidden Echo experiments without drawing attention," Kaela said, "you'd pick a place where people die before asking questions."
Aiden consulted his HUD. The signal from the Origin Null node pulsed stronger now. The terrain was interfering, but the synchronization crystal embedded in his left gauntlet stabilized the reading every few minutes.
[Location Proximity: 3.2 km – Null-Lattice Convergence Zone Imminent]
"3 clicks," he called back. "Keep your resonance shields at full. We breach the convergence zone soon."
Elsira walked beside him, wrapped in a cloak of layered force-fields. Her eyes were glowing with runic focus, but she looked unsettled.
"Something's wrong," she said. "It's… too quiet."
Kaela muttered, "Grayreach is never quiet. Even the native predators are avoiding this area."
They came to a clearing.
Here, the snow stopped. A circular basin of melted ground stretched ahead—seared earth, blackened rock, and warped trees twisted into shapes no flora should take.
A ripple passed through the air—barely visible, like a shimmer in heated air.
"That's the convergence threshold," Aiden said. "We cross it, we're no longer in real-time. Expect delays, echoes, maybe even temporal bleed."
Brant drew his sword. "Sounds like a party."
Kaela activated her spell-anchors and dropped a phase marker just outside the threshold. "Fail-safe in case we need to retreat. This mark will pull us back—once."
Aiden nodded. "Let's go."
They stepped into the convergence zone.
—
The world shifted.
The colors bled—reality fragmented. One moment they were walking across cracked stone, the next they were walking through memories of themselves—delayed shadows flickering across every surface.
The Forge-Core pulsed.
[Null-Lattice Detected – Interference Active]
[Causality Drift: +7.2 seconds (increasing)]
Kaela swore. "My spells are stuttering. Temporal lock isn't holding."
"Focus!" Aiden snapped.
Ahead, the basin opened into a crater. At the center: a spire of polished black metal, shaped like a tuning fork fused with a monolith, covered in shifting glyphs. Circling it were containment pylons—three of them—pulsing with dark red light.
"Origin Null," Aiden said, his voice low.
They approached.
As they crossed the last ridge, a flicker pulsed ahead. A shimmer of energy coalesced into a humanoid form—not an Echo, but a projection. Cloaked in white and silver, its face masked with a mirrored plate.
[Designation: Warden-Class Construct – Echo Sovereign Liaison]
"Identify yourselves," it said. The voice echoed in multiple layers.
"We're here to disable the rift generator," Aiden said.
"That would be unwise," the projection replied. "This facility is in phase-sync with Prime Origin. Tampering will result in convergence destabilization across four realms."
"We don't care," Brant growled. "We've seen what came through last time."
"You misunderstand," it replied. "We are not the source. We are the defense."
Kaela stiffened. "Wait. You're not making Sovereign Echoes?"
"No. We're holding them back."
The ground rumbled.
Suddenly, one of the containment pylons flickered. A fracture spread along its side. Energy spilled out—screams, thousands of voices howling in unison.
The projection turned. "They've found us. The Prime breach is collapsing."
Aiden's System blared warnings.
[Emergency Priority Update: Prime Origin Containment Failure – 80 Seconds to Critical Echo Breach]
"Kaela, stabilize the pylon!" Aiden shouted.
"Already on it!" she yelled, diving into a sprint, spell-disks flying from her pack.
Elsira knelt, anchoring a defense matrix as a tear began to form in the air above the monolith.
From within it, they began to emerge—shadow-wrapped forms, shifting, warping, malformed reflections of the team themselves. A Brant with too many arms. An Elsira with hollow eyes. A Kaela composed of pure flame.
"Echo doubles," Brant hissed. "Of course we'd have to fight ourselves."
Aiden drew the Arcblade and surged forward.
He met his own Echo—a twisted version of himself with fragmented armor and a cracked Forge-Core spilling dark light.
Their blades met.
Energy screamed.
[You have entered Origin Null's Heart.]
[Combat Protocol: Sovereign Reflection Tier – Active]
[Victory Condition: Terminate Self-Echo Within 300 Seconds]