Chapter 13: Echoes from Three Angles
The morning lay still and muted, as if it sensed what was about to unfold—
as if the air itself waited, anxious for the next chapter of a story it already feared.
In the shadow of a narrow alley, Leila and Asia faced one another.
Their eyes locked—not a casual glance, but one heavy with something older,
a challenge left unresolved.
The tension between them was more than charged air;
it was a blade slicing the space between their hearts.
On the ground, Rashad lay sprawled with Leila in his arms.
It was not merely an awkward scene.
It was a living nightmare burning itself into Asia's sight,
each detail whispering betrayal of trust and memory.
Asia set a hand on her hip, her eyes narrowing with cunning,
as if she were measuring the limits of an old rival's patience.
> "Haven't you tired of these habits, little fox?"
Her voice sharpened with a smile that masked the heat beneath.
> "And you, my dear… I didn't know the earth pleased you so much—
especially with a beautiful woman in your arms.
When we return, I'll make sure we repeat this position often…"
Her words were a smile edged in flame, jealousy dressed as play.
Rashad sprang to his feet as though lightning had struck his chest.
> "My love!! You misunderstand! It was just… an accident. Yes—an accident.
Nothing more, I swear!"
Asia studied him for a long heartbeat, then closed her eyes.
> "Let's forget this for a moment."
She turned to Leila, her tone softening into a warmth steeped in memory.
> "It's been a long time, Leila."
> "Yes, my friend… far too long," Leila answered, her voice gentle with old affection.
Rashad exhaled a heavy breath of relief.
> "Phew… crisis avoided. Women are the most unpredictable creatures."
Both women laughed, the tension dissolving for an instant.
> "Since fate has reunited us," Rashad said with a grin,
"why don't we continue this in a café? I miss our three-way talks."
---
Moments later, in the Sages of the Tower Café,
they sat around a round wooden table, golden lamplight dancing across their faces,
playing with the shadows as if it too shared their story.
> "So, Leila," Rashad asked with an easy smile,
"how have you been? I imagine your daughter must be a beautiful young woman by now—how is she?"
Leila laughed, a sound at once light and tinged with nostalgia.
> "She's grown a lot… but she's stubbornly curious—and foolishly reckless."
Asia cut in with playful ferocity.
> "Just like you, then."
Leila smirked.
> "And you call me a fox? What irony."
The room fell briefly silent, as though even laughter had blushed and fled.
Rashad cleared his throat.
> "Enough teasing…"
Leila's gaze grew serious.
> "Since we're together again… what do you say we talk about him?"
Rashad froze. Their eyes met, heavy with a secret meant for no other ears.
> "You mean… Eyas, don't you?"
The three of them shared a silence thick as destiny,
each of them knowing the conversation that must come.
---
Elsewhere—
before the door of Eyas's house—Rojin stood staring at the wood and iron,
her heart thudding between curiosity and fear.
Her mother Leila's warnings echoed in her mind,
but curiosity outweighed caution.
She knocked.
No answer.
Knocked again.
Only silence.
Frustration flared.
> "Why won't you open the door, you idiot?!"
She drew back her fist and pounded hard.
Just as her knuckles were about to crash again,
the door swung open—and her punch shot forward into the face of the one who opened it.
The blow sent the figure sprawling,
her fist's imprint stamped across their cheek.
Rojin gasped, body trembling.
> "Oh God… did I kill him?!"
The stranger rose slowly, clutching his nose.
> "Are you insane? You try to break in and then kill the resident?!"
Then he lifted his head—
and froze.
Their eyes met.
Flaming crimson met hers,
beneath a tumble of hair as golden as molten sunlight,
a face too striking for the dim hall.
Recognition struck them both.
> "You…!"
The word left their mouths in unison.
And the scene shattered—
shifted—
---
Deep within the Eighth Floor,
where broken windows bled a metallic scent of dried blood,
Samān stood poised, his body angled forward,
his eyes unblinking.
Before him loomed the Goblin Chief—
a creature unlike any of its kind.
Massive.
Veined with cracks of black energy.
Eyes glowing a toxic green, as if someone had stolen its very soul.
It stood amid ruin, breathing in harsh, shuddering gusts,
never letting Samān out of its sight.
Then Samān moved.
Like a shadow torn from breath itself,
too slow for the eye yet swift as death,
he circled the monster like a venomous serpent,
every step calculated with icy genius.
Each feint chipped at the chieftain's will,
sowing doubt,
attacking not just flesh but memory—
the essence of what the creature once was.
The chief faltered, lost in the labyrinth of Samān's deception,
as if battling a shattered mirror of himself.
Suddenly—
a roar split the air.
The creature raised its left arm,
all black energy condensing into a single fist—
and slammed it into the ground.
The floor convulsed.
Stone cracked open.
A shockwave exploded outward,
hurling Samān like a severed marionette against the wall.
But Samān was no victim.
He was the architect.
In the seconds before impact,
his mind—razor-keen, telekinetic—
had drawn half the remaining goblins into the blast zone.
Every dodge, every taunt had lured the chieftain
into unleashing his ultimate strike exactly where Samān desired.
The detonation came like midnight thunder.
Walls splattered with dark blood—
rain of red and black.
Samān laughed, victorious,
yet his eyes fixed only on the droplets sliding down his arm.
They were not red.
> "Black… their blood is black.
No… this is more than blood.
These are forgotten memories, each drop a story of pain."
The chief advanced, muscles swelling,
skin laced with black veins like ropes of iron.
The very air vibrated as it roared,
a force of nature wrapped in flesh.
Samān planted his feet.
With a quiet gesture, shards of stone whirled about him like moons.
He whispered, "Wind."
A cyclone screamed to life, knives of icy air slicing dust to ribbons.
The monster barreled through, its reinforced body defying the storm,
fist smashing the ground until the stone itself cried out.
Samān unleashed a ribbon of living flame,
a serpent of fire that coiled around the chieftain,
turning rock to molten glass.
The beast leapt free,
its iron skin steaming,
steel that burned but did not break.
Eyes closed, Samān raised both arms.
The earth obeyed.
Spikes of rock erupted beneath the giant,
forcing it back half a step.
With a feral bellow the chief shattered the stone,
the sound shaking the chamber.
Samān's lips curved in a cold smile.
He flicked his right hand.
Shadows crawled from the walls,
weaving into black chains around the monster's legs.
It thundered with rage,
muscles exploding,
some of the bindings tearing—
but too late.
That single heartbeat was all Samān required.
His palm thrust forward.
Wind and fire twined into a single burning spear.
It shot through the air like a falling star,
bursting against the chieftain's chest
in a flash that married every color of the storm.
The cavern shook with the impact.
The giant staggered, chest ablaze with dark fire,
breath ragged.
It tried to roar again,
but only a broken sound escaped.
Samān clenched his fist.
From the ceiling, great stones crashed down,
caging the creature at last.
With a final shudder the black aura ebbed,
and the colossal body sank to its knees—
a mountain robbed of spirit.
Victory seemed his…
Until, without warning,
a smaller goblin—a mere boy of perhaps fifteen, thin and trembling—
burst from the rubble behind him.
Samān, senses honed to the fight, reacted on instinct alone.
Flame-wreathed hands sliced in a single lethal arc.
The child fell in two lifeless halves.
Samān stared at what remained,
a cold weight pressing his chest.
> "Forgive me, little one.
I didn't know it was you who struck."
But the chieftain's grief was greater.
For that boy had been his child.
Amid the wreckage the great goblin rose again,
not as the raging beast of moments before,
but cloaked in something deeper than fury.
Regret.
He whispered to himself,
a voice so low only the stones could hear:
> "Regret… Some visions are not seen by the eyes, but by the soul."
He stood tall in the ruined hall,
immovable as a mountain facing an earthquake.
Samān, unsure, tightened his grip on his blade.
Was this a final charge—or a farewell?
Then came the sound—
not words, but a cryptic chant,
a primal cry of grief.
> Лидшицогхз +#)8@°{€{£
Шрцлшцф(:#)=®€™£
{"Wounds may heal… but the emptiness left by the lost can never be filled."}
The chief's voice carved the air like molten iron,
as if etching the names of the dead upon the walls of his soul.
Samān could not understand the language,
but he felt its weight—
the sorrow and the ancient pain beneath every syllable.
> "Sometimes," Samān murmured,
"silence is the only language for unbearable grief."
The voice deepened, layered,
no longer bound to a mortal throat:
> Ввдрожу)#&+##фшхцш вас^=€™}
Зггзц(-#:#{€€°€°®
Нщзггхы702#-#)^{€{×÷`π
{"Even the air here tastes of betrayal."}
"The earth remembers our steps more faithfully than we ever could."
"The light here is not pure—it is tainted with secrets."
A chill raked Samān's spine.
These were not mere spells,
but confessions born of ruin.
Despite the danger he opened the vault of his prodigious mind,
storing every syllable,
every vibration of that haunted voice.
> "I will remember it all," he vowed.
"One day, it may matter."
When the last echo faded, the chieftain stood silent,
a monument of sorrow.
Samān understood.
This was the end.
He drew his sword, face calm—neither anger nor triumph.
A quiet breath.
Then golden light erupted from his body.
Not an explosion, but a birth.
Lightning that melted darkness,
forcing every shadow to kneel.
A perfect circle of radiance spread twenty meters wide.
Within it, only pure, unsullied light remained.
> "Wisdom," Samān whispered,
"is not in knowing the answers,
but in bearing the weight of the questions."
He invoked the Spirit Art—Absolute Light.
His blade moved in a motion so gentle it was nearly unseen,
yet it tore through the very laws of air.
His aura screamed like a thousand thunderclaps,
vibrations shredding fate itself.
A crescent of pure energy burst from the sword,
shaping itself into a lightning spear,
piercing the moment as though puncturing time,
trailing a vortex of emptiness and a sun-bright blaze.
Silence fell.
When the brilliance faded,
the chieftain's chest lay pierced clean through,
a vast hole through which one might glimpse the sunset of an entire world.
He fell—
but not as an enemy.
He crumbled like a statue of sand and regret,
each grain dissolving with dignity.
Samān stepped closer, standing over the fallen titan.
> "Even the most beautiful memories… hurt,
when they become all you have left."
He turned away.
The arena reeked of blood and ash,
the air heavy with stories destroyed.
Though victorious, Samān carried the weight of what had happened,
the lingering ache of shared regret.
And with that silence—
with that moment pulsing with power, remorse, and hard-won wisdom—
the chapter ends.
End of Chapter 13