The world was screaming.
Not in a way the human ear could understand, but in a thousand overlapping voices that tore through the sky and the soul alike.Paris — the city of light — was now the eye of a storm made of memory and madness.
From the shattered roof of the Heroic Academy, Adrian watched the violet clouds twist and churn like living shadows. Bolts of ethereal lightning lashed the skyline, striking towers, bridges, and people alike. Each strike didn't burn — it rewrote, distorting reality into something fluid, unstable.
He fell to his knees, gasping for air that shimmered like static.The Echoes — the countless heroic remnants trapped for centuries — were free, and they were hungry.
"Selene!" he shouted.
Through the smoke, she appeared, blood on her temple, eyes wide with horror."What the hell did you do?"
Adrian's voice shook. "I didn't… mean to—"
"You meant everything," whispered the Echo, its voice now everywhere, in the air, in the walls, in him. "You opened the cage. You set them free — just as you wished."
Selene backed away as the air around Adrian distorted. His silhouette flickered, half-human, half-light. The freed spirits swirled toward him — drawn like moths to the source of their release.
Lucienne's voice cut through the chaos. "Don't let them take him!"
She raised her sword, channeling blue energy into a radiant arc that split the nearest Echoes apart. But for every one that vanished, three more appeared. The spirits of long-dead heroes, twisted by centuries of confinement, now wore faces of rage, despair, and divine grief.
Adrian's vision blurred. His heartbeat slowed, replaced by the rhythm of a thousand others.
"Come, vessel.""Become our voice.""Let the world remember."
Then everything went black.
He woke to silence.
No storm. No pain. No sound.
Only a vast, endless plain of pale light stretching into infinity. The sky was a mirror, reflecting nothing but emptiness.
Adrian looked down — his body was whole, but translucent. Every movement left faint trails of light in the air.
"Where…" he whispered. "Where am I?"
"Inside the storm."
The voice came from nowhere — and everywhere.
Before him appeared a figure. It wasn't human, though it wore the shape of one — tall, genderless, eyes like galaxies collapsing into themselves. Its presence bent the air, the light, even time.
"I am the First Hero," it said. "The origin of all Emblems. The seed from which your world's hope and ruin were born."
Adrian instinctively reached for his weapon — but it wasn't there.
The being tilted its head. "You freed us, and yet you fear us."
"I freed them," Adrian said sharply. "Not you."
A faint smile. "There is no them. There is only us. We are echoes of the same song — and you have become its final verse."
Adrian stepped back. "I don't want your power."
"You already took it," the Hero said softly. "When you destroyed the Core, you merged with what lay beneath it — the Source Memory. Every heroic soul that ever existed now resides within you. Their desires. Their regrets. Their unfinished wars."
Adrian clenched his fists. "Then take it back."
The Hero's eyes dimmed. "It cannot be undone. The world outside is breaking because it cannot hold what you unleashed. You have two paths now, child of ruin."
The light around them shifted — one side darkened into crimson, the other brightened into gold.
"One: let the Echoes consume the living, and in their hunger, they will forge a new world of remembrance — a world without lies, without death, without peace."
Adrian's voice trembled. "And the other?"
"Contain them."
"How?"
"By becoming their anchor. You will hold their pain, their power, their endless memory — forever. The world will be free, but you will never be."
Adrian stared at the being. "You're asking me to die."
"No," said the Hero. "I'm asking you to exist beyond life."
The ground shifted beneath them, rippling like liquid glass. From the horizon, visions began to rise — the past rewritten in luminous fragments.
Adrian saw Lucienne training beside him years ago, laughing as they sparred.He saw the Council of Heroes condemning him for defying their laws.He saw Lyon, burning — his hands covered in blood, his heart heavy with guilt.
"Why me?" he whispered.
The First Hero stepped closer, their form flickering. "Because you are both savior and destroyer. Because you feel everything too deeply. The world's pain found you, Adrian Valen — and it never let go."
Adrian closed his eyes.He could feel them — thousands of souls whispering inside him, pleading, crying, remember me, remember me, remember me.
He couldn't tell where his thoughts ended and theirs began.
"Is this what it means to be a hero?" he asked quietly.
The Hero looked up at the mirrored sky. "Once, it did. Now, it means something else. It means to carry the weight no one else can."
Adrian fell silent.When he finally spoke, his voice was steady.
"Then I'll carry it."
The Hero's eyes widened slightly. "Even knowing what it will cost?"
He nodded. "The world already paid too much for my mistakes. Let me pay the rest."
The light began to fracture. The plain trembled.
"Then rise, Adrian Valen," said the Hero, their voice becoming both storm and whisper. "Become the Echo Bearer — the bridge between the living and the remembered."
They reached out, touching his chest. A surge of white fire erupted from their hand, searing through him, burning away everything that was once human and remaking it into something vast.
Adrian screamed — not from pain, but from the sheer enormity of it. Every memory, every life, every emotion flooded into him, a tide of infinite stories collapsing into one.
He saw the birth of empires. The fall of gods. The tears of nameless warriors.
And then — silence again.
When his eyes opened, he was back in the real world.
The Academy was gone — a crater of light and ruin.Selene stood a few meters away, shielding her face from the wind.Lucienne lay unconscious beside her, her armor cracked, her sword buried in the ground.
The sky was still violet — but now, the storm was calm.
Adrian stood in its center, his body glowing faintly, his eyes reflecting the same cosmic pattern as the First Hero's.
Selene stared at him, stunned. "Adrian…?"
He looked down at his hands.They were whole — yet translucent, like glass filled with stars.
"It's over," he said softly.
She shook her head. "What did you do?"
"I became the seal."
The ground trembled as the last of the Echoes faded into light, drawn back into him, their voices echoing faintly in the wind.
Lucienne stirred, opening her eyes weakly.Her gaze met his — and for the first time, there was no anger, only sorrow.
"You can't save them all," she whispered.
"I don't need to," he replied. "Just enough to give them peace."
She reached out a hand — but he was already fading, his body dissolving into motes of light.
"Adrian!" Selene cried, stepping forward.
He smiled faintly. "Take care of her. Tell them… the Rejected Hero finally found his purpose."
And with that, he vanished — consumed by the radiance, leaving behind only silence and the faint hum of power in the wind.
High above, the clouds broke.For the first time in years, sunlight fell over the ruins of the Heroic Academy.
The world exhaled — wounded, trembling, but alive.
And in the golden light, a whisper lingered, carried by the wind:
"Heroes never die. They just become the echoes that guide those who remain."