Chapter 32 – The Edge of the Echo
The city was silent — too silent.
Even the hum of electricity that usually threaded through the skyline had gone still, replaced by a faint pulse, like a heartbeat beneath concrete.
Ren stood at the edge of the old district, eyes half-lidded, feeling the static in the air crawl against his skin. To anyone passing by, he looked calm — hands in his pockets, posture relaxed — but the glow flickering faintly in his pupils told another story.
> "So this is where it broke," he murmured.
Wind swept through the narrow street, stirring dust and fragments of paper. In the reflection of a cracked window beside him, faint shapes shimmered — outlines of people long gone, echoes of their last movements repeating like a broken reel.
Ren stepped closer, the reflections twitching as he passed.
Each one whispered the same name.
Rimuru.
He sighed softly. "You always leave a mess behind."
The air ahead rippled. It looked like a curtain made of glass, bending the world wrong — a distortion, faint but growing stronger with every heartbeat. Ren raised his hand, letting the energy flow through his fingertips. Blue light coiled around his wrist, reacting to the fracture.
"Two signatures," he said quietly. "Rimuru's… and Aira's."
His composure cracked for just a second — the muscles in his jaw tightening. "You shouldn't have dragged her in, Rimuru."
But he knew better. Rimuru never dragged anyone in. She went in after them.
He closed his eyes, steadying his breathing.
Beneath the static, he could faintly hear it — a laugh. Soft, familiar, fading in and out like radio interference.
> "You always try to fix what you don't understand, Ren."
Rimuru's voice. Teasing, but distant — like a recording played through a storm.
Ren's hand tightened into a fist. "Then maybe it's time I learned."
He stepped forward.
The distortion pushed back immediately — a wall of invisible force, thick and cold, like walking through deep water. Blue sparks raced across his skin as he pressed against it, trying to sync his resonance with the field.
"Frequency's unstable," he muttered through gritted teeth. "She's fighting something inside… no, she's fighting it directly."
The barrier cracked — faintly, like a spiderweb forming in glass.
Ren's breath grew shallow. He could feel the drain — his energy bleeding into the distortion faster than he could stabilize it. But he didn't stop.
A vision flickered before him — Rimuru standing amid a shattered dream, light flaring around her, her eyes glowing with that stubborn, chaotic brilliance that made her both impossible and irreplaceable.
Then Aira — frightened, lost in a storm of mirrors.
Ren gritted his teeth and pushed harder.
The distortion screamed.
For a heartbeat, everything went white.
When the light faded, Ren was gone.
Only the faint echo of his voice remained — low, calm, but trembling at the edges.
> "If I can't reach you from here… then I'll break the rules again."
The distortion pulsed once, twice — then swallowed the street whole.