The ruin pulsed again.
Not with urgency—with patience.
It was waiting.
Kael stood at the ruin's edge before dawn, the wind cutting cold against his face. A ridge of ancient stone curved before them like the spine of a buried giant. Behind him, the others stirred—armor clinked, boots shifted, blades checked. But none of them truly looked at the ruin the way he did.
Because only he knew it was looking back.
It's studying me, he thought. And I'm letting it.
Tessia appeared at his shoulder, silent as always. Her silver eyes didn't reflect the sky—they drank it in. She glanced at him, her nose twitching once.
"You're humming again," she said.
"I don't hum."
"You do when you think too loudly."
He didn't respond.
"Let me guess," she continued. "The ruin's telling you secrets again?"
Kael tilted his head. "Not secrets. Questions."
Tessia narrowed her gaze, but didn't ask more. That was why he tolerated her presence—she sensed more than she needed to understand.
Behind them, Dren kicked a rock down the path, his scowl already warming up.
"This is suicide," he muttered. "You all saw what happened last time. Ruin tried to eat Zarith alive."
"It only licked him," Tessia said dryly.
Zarith, a few paces away, was mumbling to a spider crawling across his palm. "It liked me. It said I taste like iron dreams."
"That's not reassuring," Dren growled.
Kael stepped forward. The stone gateway bloomed with light—runes awakening in slow, elegant arcs. Blue, then violet. Shapes shifted across the surface. A new language writing itself in real time.
Sera muttered, "It didn't do this before."
"No," Kael said. "It's responding now. Actively."
Dren stepped back. "It's changing things. We should fall back—regroup—"
"We go in," Sera snapped.
"You just trust him?" Dren gestured toward Kael. "He hasn't even told us what he is."
Kael turned. His voice was soft.
"You want answers, Dren?"
"Yes."
"Then follow me."
The ruin swallowed them.
The moment they crossed the threshold, sound dulled. Not vanished—muted, like they'd slipped beneath the surface of deep water.
Kael slowed, taking everything in. The corridors had warped again. Runic veins curled like tree roots across the walls, trailing faint glows. The air buzzed—not with heat, but thought.
It's learning from me. From us. Every word. Every step.
A faint pressure brushed his skull, like a hand tapping against the inside of his mind.
The ruin whispered.
"Back so soon, little fragment?"
"Last time you left something behind."
A column shifted near him—only slightly, but enough.
Kael ducked.
The stone arm that had extended from the wall missed him by inches.
Trap.
"Movement!" Tessia snapped, already crouched low. Her twin blades gleamed.
Zarith screamed—high, shrill. "They're coming—they see us—"
From the left corridor, shadowed shapes twisted into view.
Not constructs. Not golems.
They looked like reflections torn from broken mirrors—each one shaped vaguely humanoid, but shifting erratically. Runes flickered across their skin like corrupted light.
"Hostiles!" Sera barked. "Defensive wedge—Dren, flank—"
"I know!" Dren hissed, unsheathing his rune-blade.
Kael didn't move.
They're illusions… no, not illusions—simulacra. Memory-based projections.
The first one lunged.
Kael sidestepped. Its blade passed through empty air—slowed mid-swing, like it was processing too much information.
He thrust his palm forward, channeling a spark of Mind-Rune instinct. The memory-being staggered, glitching.
Kael spoke aloud, "Don't fight them like monsters. They aren't! They're problems! Solve them!"
Tessia blurred past him, carving one across the chest. It dissolved into dust.
Zarith shrieked again—but this time, a sudden glyph burned from his palm and dispersed three of the shapes at once.
"I told you they like me!" he shouted.
Dren cut down two, growling. "They bleed like bastards!"
"They're not bleeding," Kael corrected. "They're leaking stored data. This ruin is defending itself with memories."
Within moments, the last of the echo-creatures fell.
Silence returned.
Everyone breathed.
Kael didn't.
He was already reading the pattern the fight left behind—the way the walls folded in afterward. The whisper still lingering in his head.
"You adapt. But so do we."
They moved deeper.
Eventually, they reached a vast chamber. A cracked dais at its center. Above it, a floating mask—part obsidian, part bone-white.
It rotated slowly as they entered.
Dren halted. "Okay. No. That's cursed. That's cursed. I'm not touching that."
Kael walked forward.
"Of course you are," Dren muttered.
Sera reached out. "Kael—wait—"
He placed his hand on the mask.
Pain.
Fire.
A storm of memory.
A voice across stars:
"Let the ruins remember."
Kael collapsed to one knee, gasping. Blood streamed from his nose.
Sera was shouting. Zarith humming. Dren cursing.
But Kael's mind was on fire—with maps, symbols, timelines.
And names.
So many names.
One stood out.
Administrator Zero.
Me? Or the one I'm replacing?
The mask turned to dust.
The chamber shook.
And from the center, a staircase began to rise—impossible geometry folding upward into open sky.
Tessia muttered, "That… wasn't there before."
Kael stood, slow and sure.
"No. It was waiting."
Above, in the city of Aerathurn, an orb shattered.
Far below, the Nightglass Syndicate marked the ruin's activation.
In Veinhold, Princess Elira placed her hand on her sword and said, "It's him."
And back in the silence of the ruin, Kael stepped onto the first stair.
The real test had begun.
[ END OF CHAPTER 7 ]