The ground trembled again — deeper this time, as if something vast shifted beneath the roots of the world. Arlen forced himself upright, legs shaking, vision still flickering with afterimages of the Echo Surge.
Mira steadied him. "If that was the first Hunter…" She didn't finish the thought.
Lysa hugged her arms around herself, mark still glowing faintly through her sleeve. "It wasn't another Hunter. Hunters don't roar like that. They… announce."
Arlen frowned. "Announce what?"
"That something bigger is coming."
The cracked sky pulsed overhead, each beat like a heartbeat out of sync with the world.
The Dying Hunter
The Echo Predator twitched.
Not dead.
Not alive.
Its form flickered between bone and shadow, like it was being rewritten by two different realities fighting over it. Arlen felt his mark throb in response — not in warning, but in recognition.
The system chimed faintly:
Echo Residue Detected.
Source: Incomplete Termination.
Risk Level: Unknown.
Mira raised her sword. "If it's getting back up, I'm finishing it."
Lysa grabbed her wrist. "No! If you strike it now, you'll trigger a collapse."
"A what?"
"A collapse of its Echo imprint. It'll drag everything nearby into the rift it came from."
Mira froze. "That… would've been nice to know earlier."
"I didn't think you'd try to stab it while it was dying!"
Arlen stepped between them. "Enough. We need to move before whatever made that second roar finds us."
But the Hunter wasn't done.
Its head snapped toward Arlen, eyes burning brighter — not hostile, but pleading.
Lysa inhaled sharply. "It's trying to anchor."
"Anchor to what?" Mira asked.
"To him," Lysa whispered. "To his mark."
Arlen felt the pull — a thread of cold light tugging at his chest.
The Echo Vision
The world tilted.
Not physically — but in the way a dream shifts when you realize you're dreaming.
Arlen blinked, and the clearing dissolved into a vast, blue-lit expanse. The Echo Realm. But not the fractured, chaotic version he'd glimpsed before. This one was structured — a lattice of light and shadow stretching into infinity.
The dying Hunter stood before him, no longer monstrous. Its form was humanoid now, tall and gaunt, with lines of Echo energy tracing its limbs like veins.
Its voice was a whisper of static.
"Chosen… bearer…"
Arlen swallowed. "What are you?"
"Not… what. Who."
The figure raised a trembling hand, touching the glowing mark on its chest — the same shape as Arlen's.
"We were… the first."
Arlen's breath caught. "The first what?"
"The first to break the sky."
The vision shattered.
Back in the Clearing
Arlen gasped as he snapped back into his body. Mira caught him before he hit the ground.
"Arlen! What happened?"
He shook his head, trying to steady his breathing. "The Hunter… it wasn't always a Hunter. It was someone like us. Marked."
Lysa's face went pale. "No. No, that's not possible. Hunters are Echo constructs. They're not—"
"They were," Arlen said. "At least one of them was."
Mira exhaled slowly. "So the thing we just fought used to be a person."
"Used to be," Arlen repeated. "And it said… it said they were the first to break the sky."
Lysa staggered back. "That means the fracture wasn't an accident. It was a resonance event. A catastrophic one."
"And now we're tied to the same Echo," Arlen said. "You and me."
Mira crossed her arms. "Great. So we're bonded to a cosmic mistake."
Lysa shook her head. "Not a mistake. A warning."
The ground rumbled again — louder, closer.
Arlen turned toward the treeline. "We need to move. Now."
But the forest didn't explode this time.
It parted.
Trees bent away as something massive pushed through — not a creature, but a shape of pure blue light, towering and indistinct, like a giant carved from the sky itself.
The system screamed:
Echo Titan Approaching.
Classification: Cataclysmic.
Recommendation: Immediate Evacuation.
Mira whispered, "Oh, that's worse. That's so much worse."
Lysa grabbed Arlen's hand. "Your mark reacted to the Hunter. It might react to this too."
Arlen stared at the Titan as it stepped into the clearing, its presence warping the air.
"I really hope not."
The Titan lowered its head — not in aggression, but in recognition.
And then it spoke.
Not in words.
In resonance.
Arlen's mark ignited.
Lysa's mark answered.
And Mira — unmarked, unprepared — stumbled back as the world around them began to fracture again.