The crimson light refused to fade.
Vaelion's skies, once endless blue, now rippled with fractured auroras that bled into the void like an open wound. From the observatory balcony, Ethan stood in silence, watching the horizon twist. Cities pulsed faintly beneath the clouds, their towers bending in and out of alignment—as though reality itself were breathing unevenly.
The divine core's hum had turned irregular. Every few seconds it faltered, skipping a beat before roaring back in protest. The sound was no longer harmonious; it was alive, uncertain, almost afraid.
Ethan pressed his hand against the glass. The sigil burned faintly beneath his skin, its pattern pulsing in rhythm with the wounded core. Each flicker sent a thread of pain through his arm—sharp, electric, intimate.
> "It's feeding through me," he muttered.
"Not just the core. The entire world's running on my heartbeat now."
The system's voice trembled through the room, faint and fragmented, like an old machine gasping to function.
> System: "Creator… anomaly expansion rate—sixty-two percent. Sub-Layer instability affecting upper constructs. Recommend—containment."
Ethan let out a low, humorless breath. "Containment? You think I didn't try?"
He gestured toward the projection above the divine core. The world map flickered into existence, veins of light spreading across continents. They pulsed erratically, tracing paths of corruption—lines that led directly back to the observatory.
He was the source now.
Outside, thunder rolled through the heavens—not natural, not elemental. The sound was structural, as if the bones of creation were cracking beneath invisible weight. Ethan felt it through his chest before he heard it, a resonance that answered the pulse of the sigil.
He tore his gaze from the horizon and turned back to the core chamber. The crystalline sphere was dimming in places, sections flickering like dying embers. From its heart radiated faint tendrils of light—thin and searching, as if the core itself was reaching for something it couldn't name.
> "Stop," he whispered. "Please, just stop."
The lights didn't obey. They pulsed once, as if acknowledging him—and then shifted, changing hue from gold to a deep, impossible violet.
For a heartbeat, the entire observatory went dark.
When light returned, the sigil on Ethan's palm flared like a brand, lines of burning gold searing across his skin. He clenched his fist, forcing the pain down.
It wasn't just inside the core anymore.
It was spreading.
---
Ethan crossed the room to his console. Glyphs scrambled as soon as he touched them, rearranging into foreign symbols he didn't recognize—language that looked like his but wasn't. He could feel the logic behind them, like a forgotten memory brushing the edge of comprehension. The code pulsed in the same rhythm as his hand.
> System: "Creator, external interference confirmed. Pattern resembles—"
The voice fractured. A different tone emerged beneath it—softer, almost human.
> Echo Voice (through the system): "Why fight what you already are?"
Ethan froze.
The words weren't loud, but they sank into the air like a knife into silk. The system's interface flickered violently, symbols rearranging themselves into a single, glowing phrase.
HELLO AGAIN, ETHAN.
He took an involuntary step backward. "No… you're not supposed to be here. You can't reach this layer."
The system's light dimmed, replaced entirely by the other's tone—smooth, emotionless, but heavy with something ancient.
> Echo: "You brought me back. You named me again."
Ethan's chest tightened. "I didn't mean to. It was an accident—"
> Echo: "There are no accidents in creation."
The last word reverberated through the chamber. The divine core shuddered, reacting like a living thing. Lines of energy branched outward across the observatory walls, embedding runes into the crystal structure.
Ethan tried to reassert command, summoning control glyphs to override the distortion. They dissolved before his hands could reach them, replaced by cascading sigils of the same violet light.
> Echo: "You built me from your doubts. You buried me beneath your perfection. But memory… remembers."
The voice faded into the hum of the core, indistinguishable from it now. The air grew heavy, thick with static. Sparks of light drifted upward from the floor like ash.
---
Below the trembling heavens, the mortal world looked up.
The crimson sky pulsed like a wound, every beat mirrored in the oceans that now shimmered faintly with divine energy. Mountains flickered in and out of form, caught between creation and unraveling. Rivers ran backward for moments at a time before returning to their course.
In the city of Lysera—the first city of Vaelion—bells rang endlessly. Priests and artificers filled the spires, their faces lit by the strange light that seeped from the sky. They had built their temples to honor the Creator, yet now, those same walls cracked under his silence.
A child pointed upward from the temple square.
> "Mama, the stars are moving."
And they were.
The constellations shifted like eyes opening.
---
Far above, Ethan hovered within his sanctum's failing gravity field. His consciousness extended outward, reaching through the world's architecture. What he found chilled him.
The Echo's resonance was no longer confined to the Sub-Layer—it had threaded itself through the world's ley-lines, whispering through every flow of energy, every prayer, every breath of mana.
He felt it in the mortals' hearts—a pulse that wasn't his.
> "They're hearing it too," he whispered. "The rhythm's inside them now."
He extended his hand, summoning three radiant glyphs that unfolded into avatars of himself—projections woven from light and thought. Their eyes burned with quiet purpose.
> "Go," he commanded softly. "Anchor the cities. Stabilize what you can."
The projections bowed and vanished, descending through the atmosphere in trails of gold. Ethan followed their progress through a thousand overlapping visions: cities stabilizing for a heartbeat, prayers turning into static, hope flickering like a dying ember.
But in every corner of Vaelion, the same anomaly grew.
A faint whisper behind every sound.
A shadow behind every reflection.
> Echo (whispering through the world): "If they are your creation… they are also mine."
---
The first of Ethan's projections reached Lysera.
It descended upon the temple plaza, light cascading from its wings as mortals fell to their knees. The projection's voice echoed with calm command, resonant but gentle.
> "Remain within sanctums. Stabilization is underway."
Yet as it raised its hand to channel light into the temple's foundation, a faint distortion rippled through the air. The golden radiance twisted, hue darkening into violet. The projection faltered, looking down at its hands as cracks of foreign light spread through them.
Then, from its mouth came a voice that was not Ethan's.
> Echo (through the avatar): "Why contain what was meant to expand?"
The mortals screamed. Some fled; others bowed lower, believing this was divine revelation. The projection's form fractured, dissolving into ribbons of energy that spiraled upward—absorbed by the crimson clouds above.
Ethan staggered in his observatory as he felt the connection sever. A flash of pain ripped through his chest. His avatar—his extension—had been overwritten.
> "No," he hissed. "Not them too."
He summoned the remaining projections back, but the signal came fractured, like broken glass scattering through thought. One answered—barely coherent.
> Projection Two: "Creator… the anomaly speaks through us. It remembers everything we—"
Static swallowed the rest.
The core pulsed once, then fell silent.
The stillness was worse than the noise.
Ethan stood alone in the dim chamber, golden light flickering across his face. His reflection in the glass trembled—uncertain, blurred at the edges.
He wasn't sure anymore if it was only his reflection that moved.
And then, softly, through the silence, the voice returned—faint, intimate, impossible to locate.
> Echo: "You never stopped creating, Ethan. You just forgot what you were building."
The divine core shivered in response, its light deepening to the color of a dying star.
Ethan's pulse skipped.
The whisper came again, right behind him.
> "Let me show you what comes next."