Smoke spiraled into the sky in thick coils, as if the heavens themselves were trying to deny what had happened below. Kaien halted on the gravel path leading to the village of Myrren, chest heaving, eyes wide. The scent of ash wasn't from firewood cooking dinner—it was the dry, sickening stench of straw, forge oil… and flesh.
"No…" he whispered, taking a hesitant step forward.
His village—his home—was burning.
Simple stone houses with thatched roofs roared with orange flames, devouring everything like beasts. Bodies littered the entrance: some twisted mid-fall, others blackened with impact marks. He glimpsed old Harun, the baker, sprawled with arms outstretched toward the house that was now little more than cinders.
The echoing sword—now named Zar'khael—was sheathed on Kaien's back, pulsing faintly. Since the forest battle, it had fallen silent… but here, in this hell of shattered memories, it seemed restless.
Kaien ran.
"Mother!" he shouted. "Mother, answer me!"
He dodged an overturned cart, stumbling over splintered wood and debris. The flames roared, but not loudly enough to drown out the screams… or the lack of them. It was as if the entire village had been silenced before the fire even took hold.
He passed Elron's smithy, now collapsed, molten metal pooling at the road's edges like tears for a dead craft. There, Kaien froze.
Two bodies lay on the ground. One was unmistakable: Leina, his childhood friend, her eyes open and fixed on the sky. The other was too charred to recognize—but wore the golden brooch of the Void Hunters on its right shoulder.
Kaien clenched his fists. He knew what this meant. They hadn't come just for the sword.
They'd come for him.
Elron's warning echoed: "The gift you carry… isn't a blessing, boy. It's a burden that'll leave you alone."
He took a sharp breath and sprinted toward his house.
Or what remained of it.
The walls had been blown inward, as if an explosion had erupted from within. The ground still steamed. Kaien fell to his knees, scanning every pile of rubble.
"Mother… please…"
Then—a sound. A crunch. Not wood, but a boot crushing dry leaves.
Kaien shot upright. His hand flew to Zar'khael's hilt. The blade answered with a pulse of heat.
Two men emerged from the ruins, clad in blackened leather armor, long cloaks, and hoods. Their eyes gleamed with the dull sheen of those who'd undergone the Rite of the Void—Imperial Inquisitors.
"Thorne identified," said one, consulting a scroll strapped to his forearm. "Illegal activation of a resonant artifact. Elimination ordered."
"He's just a boy, Ferris," said the other. "The Empire might still take him as a bound Conduit."
Kaien narrowed his eyes.
"You… killed my village. Killed my mother!"
"Correction," said the first, smiling cruelly. "Your mother was an accomplice to crimes against reality. A capital offense. We merely… cleaned up the mistake."
That was enough.
Kaien drew Zar'khael. The blade shrieked—a metallic cry, as if it too hungered for justice. The sound echoed like the toll of an ancient bell.
"Incomplete Combat Mode—Unstable Echo Activated," spoke a voice in Kaien's mind. The sword. "Linked Memory: 'Tyran Ardyn's Last Stand.'"
The blade's energy shifted. Golden veins raced along its length. Its weight adjusted to Kaien's grip—as if he'd wielded it a thousand times before.
Ferris struck first.
His technique was precise: a dagger with runed hilt whirled in a horizontal slash. Kaien twisted aside, feeling the blade graze his shoulder.
"Phantom Hammer!"
Kaien brought Zar'khael down in a vertical arc. The sword emitted a dull thud—an impact that existed beyond matter—shattering the ground beneath Ferris's feet. The Inquisitor was hurled backward, skidding until he slammed into a log.
The second Inquisitor, the calmer one, summoned resonant sound: three vibrating circles orbited his head. A Vibrant.
"Voice Tremor!"
The sonic wave hit. Kaien raised his sword, but the energy pierced his eardrums like needles. He staggered. His vision blurred. His very blood seemed to vibrate outside his body.
But Zar'khael reacted.
"Counter-resonance activated."
The blade screeched. Opposing sound collided with the Vibrant's attack. The space between them rippled—then exploded.
When the smoke cleared, Kaien knelt, gasping… but alive. The Vibrant lay unconscious among the rubble.
Ferris rose slowly. Blood trickled from his lips.
"That's… no ordinary weapon."
Kaien looked at the sword. Zar'khael pulsed blue now, almost smug.
"No. And I'm no mere blacksmith."
Then he ran—before reinforcements arrived.
Kaien ran along a narrow trail leading to the ancient stone shrine atop Myrren's hill. Few visited this place—a crumbling temple to Ulan'Thar, the Spirit of Fire and Forgers, revered only by elders and madmen. But Kaien knew something older lurked beneath those moss-cracked stones. Something even Elron dared not name aloud.
His body ached. His right arm bled from a shallow cut, and his ears still rang from the Vibrant's attack. Zar'khael grew heavier with each step—not physically, but as if weighted by the echoes of memories it awoke.
At the summit, he faced the fractured altar. The wind here was colder. The silence… almost reverent.
He pressed a hand to the stone. The surface burned—alive. Faded runes flared amber.
"You feel it too, don't you?" Kaien whispered to the sword. "This is where it began. Where my father vanished."
The blade trembled. Then—
A figure materialized above the altar: not flesh, but light and sound. A tall man, face half-hidden by a smith's helm, ceremonial robes stained with soot. His voice was gravel and grief, reciting words long forgotten.
"Kaien Thorne. Bearer of the Fragmented Echo. Heir to the Blade of Ages. You've come too late."
Kaien stumbled back, heart hammering.
"Who—who are you?"
"A remnant. A shadow left by Tyran Ardyn… your father. This altar is a seal. An echo of a memory that should not have survived."
The name struck Kaien like thunder. Tyran Ardyn—the hero who fell at the Battle of Twelve Gates. The name Elron muttered when he thought Kaien wasn't listening.
"Then it's true… He was my father?" Voice cracking.
The figure nodded.
"And you carry the seed of the same power that doomed us all."
Kaien collapsed to his knees.
"Why? Why hide this from me? Why did my mother die? Why burn the village?"
The specter hesitated—as if even echoes could feel pain.
"Because Echoforge's power no longer belongs to this world. The Empire fears what you represent… and they are right to fear."
Kaien looked up, teeth bared.
"I never asked for this! I just wanted to be a smith—to make blades that protect, not bury!"
The vision shifted: Tyran fighting at Lirith's Gate, alone against ten Ordo Fragmentum summoners, his older version of Zar'khael carving light and metal with every strike.
"The world's forge is cracked, Kaien. But it can still be reworked. Remade. Reborn."
The words seared into Kaien's mind. Then—silence. The altar's light died.
For minutes, Kaien stared into the emptiness. He felt hollow. Yet something new stirred—not vengeance, but purpose.
Zar'khael hummed low on his back, like embers breathing on cold iron.
He stood.
"Zar'khael… you hold memories not mine. But I'll forge my own. And if this world fears what I can shape?" A pause. "Let it fear what I'll save."
He descended the hill.
No home. No mother. Only a path west—past the Aureon Mountains, to Cindros, the Guild City, where iron and gold shaped men's fates. If answers existed, they'd be there.
But the Empire's hunt had begun.
And Kaien Thorne was no longer just a boy with a living sword.
He was the last echo of the forbidden forge.
And his resonance had only just begun.
[End of Chapter 2]