And then
It appeared.
A figure, clad in absolute nothingness, floating amidst the void.
It had no face, no features, nothing that could be defined.
Yet, when it turned its unseen gaze toward Echo, he felt it.
A cold, piercing stare.
One that carried no hostility.
But no warmth either.
The battlefield—still cracked and broken from Echo’s impossible feat—fell into a silence so deep that even the wind had stopped.
Then, the figure spoke.
And its voice...
Was calm.
"Elliot... It’s ti to wake up."
Echo’s breath hitched.
That na.
That na
He didn’t know it.
And yet...
It felt familiar.
It struck him like a forgotten mory clawing its way to the surface, demanding to be rembered.
He clenched his fists.
No.
This was a trick.
A manipulation.
He was Echo. He was here, in this mont, standing in the Higher Realm as the one who had just defied the Sages.
And yet
Sothing inside him hesitated.
A flicker of doubt.
A whisper in the back of his mind.
The gathered Elders who had once thought themselves untouchable stood frozen.
They didn’t dare speak.
Even Oros, still reeling from his defeat, didn’t move.
He didn’t understand what was happening.
No one did.
But they all felt it.
This was beyond their comprehension.
This wasn’t just an enemy.
This was sothing that wasn’t supposed to be here.
And it had co for Echo.
Echo finally spoke, his voice steady despite the storm raging in his mind.
"I don’t know who you are," he said coldly.
The figure remained silent.
Echo narrowed his eyes.
"But if you think I’m just going to follow you blindly..."
His body tensed.
"...then you’ve made a mistake."
He lunged.
His fist, the sa one that had torn reality apart, shot forward like a bullet, aid directly at the figure’s chest.
Space rippled from the force.
The very laws of existence bent under the sheer power he unleashed.
And then
The figure simply raised a finger.
And tapped Echo’s forehead.
BOOM.
Everything
Everything vanished.
The battlefield.
The sky.
The Sages.
The Higher Realm itself.
Gone.
Like an illusion breaking apart.
And Echo—
Was falling.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
There was no ground.
No sky.
Only a vast, infinite abyss.
But he wasn’t afraid.
He was angry.
His body tensed as he tried to fight back, to resist whatever was happening to him
But for the first ti since he had entered the Higher Realm, he couldn’t move.
Not even an inch.
His arms, his legs his entire existence felt weightless, as if he had been severed from reality itself.
And then
A voice.
The sa calm, emotionless voice from before.
"You are not supposed to be here."
Echo gritted his teeth.
"You’re lying."
"No," the voice replied simply. "I am not."
A pause.
Then
"You were never Echo."
Echo’s pulse quickened.
A dull ringing filled his ears.
The voice continued.
"You are Elliot."
mories fragnts of things he didn’t recognize began to surface in his mind.
A different place.
A different ti.
A different life.
But before he could grasp any of them
Like glass breaking apart before he could see his own reflection.
And then
Everything stopped.
The void disappeared.
And Echo no, Elliot opened his eyes.
For the first ti...
In a very, very long ti.
---
Pain.
A searing, unbearable pain.
Echo’s head felt like it was splitting apart. A thousand jagged needles stabbed through his skull, burrowing deep into his mind. His vision blurred. His breath hitched. His body trembled.
And then—
The mories ca.
Not in a slow, digestible way.
But like a flood.
Like a dam bursting open, drowning him in images, sounds, and emotions he had never experienced yet felt so real.
A castle stood atop a snowy mountain. Its towering walls glead under a blood-red sky.
A boy stood in the courtyard, a wooden sword in his hands. His hands.
But he wasn’t Echo.
He was... soone else.
Elliot.
The na whispered through his mind like a forgotten echo.
The vision shifted
A woman. Long silver hair. Cold but kind eyes. She knelt beside him, brushing dirt from his cheek.
His mother?
Then
Flas.
Screams.
A burning city.
A shadowed figure standing before him, holding a blade slick with blood.
Then nothing.
The mories cut off abruptly, leaving him gasping.
Echo staggered back, pressing his hands to his temples. His breath ca in short, ragged bursts.
What... what was that?
Those people he had never seen them before. That world it was nothing like the Higher Realm.
And yet
He felt it.
A connection.
Sothing deep within him stirred, recognizing those mories as his own.
"No..." he muttered, shaking his head violently. "This isn’t real."
It couldn’t be real.
He was Echo.
Not Elliot.
Not so person from a dieval world.
Not
But then why did his heart ache?
Why did those faces feel so familiar?
A low chuckle echoed through the void.
The entity still featureless, still unreadable floated before him. It didn’t move. It didn’t breathe.
But it smiled.
Not with a mouth because it had none.
But sohow, Echo felt the amusent radiating from it.
"You still don’t rember?" the figure asked, its voice smooth and patient, like a teacher speaking to a slow-learning student.
Echo clenched his fists. "I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but it won’t work."
"Oh?" The figure tilted its head. "You say that, yet your hands are shaking."
Echo’s eyes widened.
He looked down.
His hands were shaking.
Uncontrollably.
His fingers trembled like a man on the verge of collapse. His whole body felt... wrong.
Like it wasn’t his.
Like it belonged to soone else.
Panic crawled up his spine.
"I "
"It’s okay." The entity’s voice softened. "I’ll make you rember."
Then, before Echo could react
Darkness swallowed him whole.
His body was weightless, his thoughts spiraling into the abyss.
Then
A new mory surfaced.
It wasn’t forced.
It wasn’t painful.
It just... was.
Like a puzzle piece sliding into place.
Blackness.
Echo gasped.
His eyes snapped open.
He was back.
Back in the void. Back in the present.
A deep, knowing smile.
One that said
"Now you understand."
Elliot’s heart pounded.
His mind raced.
His entire existence had just been flipped upside down.
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