Solan Maelvaran stood at the edge of the Garden of Forgotten Forms, where the roots of memory coiled like petrified serpents beneath glass-flesh soil. The stars here did not burn. They whispered.
Tier VIII did not welcome.
It tested.
And something had accepted that invitation before him.
A figure emerged from the black-bloomed hedges—a reflection sharpened into blade. It wore his face, but older. Crueler. The Mask of the Forsaken Tongue was cracked at the center, revealing not flesh beneath, but scripture. Its body pulsed with red-lit sigils—runes Solan had not learned, could not read.
The system flickered violently.
[Reckoning Duel Triggered]
Opponent Identified: Echo-Form | Vareth'alun Prime | [Ex-Rank: Forbidden]
Combat Mode: Irreversible
Damage Rules: Conceptual, Veilbound, Soulchain Amplified
Victory Condition: Complete Annihilation or Integration
Solan's breath froze. The Echo smiled with his mouth.
"You walked away from memory," it said. "I became it."
The grimoire on Solan's back hissed open, pages splitting into glowing fangs. His own Mask formed, slotting into place like a guillotine clicking shut.
His Soulchains flared.
Wyrm — the chain of hunger, legend-devouring.
Nameless Core Fragment — volatile, bound in silence.
Oracle Sigil — language become blade.
The mirror-Echo conjured three of its own: a twisted version of Wyrm, a chain of human faces stitched together, and something that bled light backwards.
The first strike didn't come with movement. It came with narrative overwrite.
Solan blinked—
And they were already mid-fight.
⚔️ Phase I: Words Become Weapons
Their thoughts collided before their bodies.
Solan lunged forward, but the Echo was already inside his swing, conjuring a symbolic fracture—a phrase that unmade force.
"Unstrike."
The attack never landed. His blade un-happened.
Solan retaliated by naming the air between them:
"Fracture."
Reality obeyed.
A rift opened through the battlefield, warping their positions and shattering the garden's trees into living spears. The Wyrm lunged from Solan's chest, coiling like a scream across time, devouring one of the Echo's Soulchains whole.
The Echo staggered.
But then—smiled.
"You haven't accepted what the Core made you."
Its hand lifted. The mirror behind it fractured into five timelines—each a variation where Solan failed. Each version burst from the glass like beasts unchained.
Solan exhaled slowly. Then—
"Unmake the False."
The Oracle Sigil burned. Each doppelgänger stuttered, froze, and imploded in sequence, reduced to runic ash.
The garden twisted. The Labyrinth responded.
Their battle had become a myth.
⚔️ Phase II: The Soulchain War
The duel reached its second movement—not of blades, but of anchors.
Solan released his fusion:
• Soulchain Fusion Initiated
Wyrm + Core Fragment → Vareth's Hunger
Result: [EX-Trait] Devourer of Forgotten Names
Passive: Damage scales with unspoken guilt
Active: Consume enemy memory to deny their technique
The Echo howled. A light burst from its spine—a false sun rising within it. It summoned a chained godling—a corpse star wrapped in rusted halos. A forbidden divine construct long buried by the war.
Solan fell to one knee. Tier VIII cracked.
Even the system wavered:
[Balance Threshold Exceeded]
[Initiating Labyrinth Intervention]
The Labyrinth itself began to unravel around them—turning every tree into a script-snake, every flower into a screaming choir.
But Solan had one truth left.
He whispered his own True Name.
Not aloud.
Within.
Vareth'alun.
The name rang.
The ground fell upward. His body lit with golden fissures. Not divine. Not abyssal. Something older.
He blinked into place behind the Echo.
No strike. Just a word:
"End."
The world answered.
The Echo burst—not in blood, but in shards of myth—stories it had tried to become, each rejected, each denied. The corpse-god above it roared once—then collapsed into language, absorbed by the Garden.
The system sang.
[Reckoning Duel: Victory Confirmed]
New Trait Acquired: Mirror-Breaker – Cannot be copied, reflected, or impersonated
System Evolution Triggered: Myth-Persistence State Initialized
Soulchain Limit Removed
Tier VIII Reaction Detected: Rewriting in Progress
Solan fell to one knee, gasping. Blood leaked from his nose, ears, mouth. But the Echo was gone. His own path—his identity—had crystallized, for now.
Behind him, the garden pulsed. The Nameless Core glowed.
He stood.
Then—above—he heard a sound.
A sky cracking.
Something else was descending into Tier VIII.
Something vast.
Not a god.
A Tower.