The world reassembled around Clara in fragments—sound without shape, breath without body, sensation without certainty. It felt as if reality were pulling itself back together in uneven stitches, each tug accompanied by a faint ringing deep inside her skull. When her vision finally steadied, she found herself lying on the sanctuary floor, palms cold against the stone.For a moment, she could not breathe.The sanctuary was dim—yet not in the way darkness normally behaved. This was a hollow dimness, as though every surface had been drained of color, every corner scraped clean of light. The air didn’t feel empty; it felt thinned, as if existence itself had been weakened.Her voice emerged barely above a whisper.“Michael…?”No answer.She pushed herself upright, trembling. A pounding ache throbbed behind her eyes, but she forced her focus outward.Alistair was already on his feet, standing several meters away with his back to her. His posture was rigid—not in readiness, but in shock. His

For a moment, Clara forgot how to breathe.Michael stood only a few feet from her—solid, present, more than a shadow—but something about him was unmistakably different. His posture was rigid, his shoulders angled as if bracing against invisible pressure, and though his face carried the same familiar features she had known for years, his eyes—His eyes were wrong.Not fully dark, not fully hollow.Just… empty, like someone had replaced the spark inside him with a reflection that didn’t know how to blink.Clara pushed herself shakily to her feet. “Michael?”He didn’t answer.He merely tilted his head—slowly, unnaturally—like someone studying a shape they recognized but couldn’t quite name.Alistair’s hand shot out across Clara’s chest, barring her path.“Don’t,” he warned. “Not yet.”But Clara shook his arm off and stepped forward anyway. “He came back because I called him. He heard me.”Alistair’s jaw tightened. “Something else may have heard you too.”Michael’s gaze snapped toward Ali

Michael has finally been pulled back—but not without consequences. The name he uttered, Aurelis, marks the first time a deeper entity from the Echo Realm has revealed itself through him. So here’s the question for you, dear reader: Do you believe the Michael who returned is truly the same one who left… or did something

The world returned in fragments.Sound before light.Breath before shape.Fear before memory.Clara’s ears rang with a high, piercing hum, like she had been dropped underwater. She blinked hard, trying to force the world back into focus. Slowly, the whiteness faded into dim outlines—shattered stone, flickering embers of golden light, and the sharp scent of burned magic clinging to the air.Her heart thrashed.“Michael?” she rasped.No answer.She pushed herself up on trembling arms, ignoring the stabbing pain in her ribs. Dust drifted from her hair, settling around her like gray snow. Beside her, Alistair lay slumped against a fallen beam, breathing hard, one hand clutched over his chest. His aura flickered weakly—thin gold, frayed at the edges.“Alistair—wake up,” she urged, shaking him.His eyelids fluttered open. His voice came out strained. “Clara… is it over?”Clara scanned the sanctuary.The rift was gone.The shadow figure was gone.Michael—Her breath hitched.Where Michael ha

The corridor beyond the chamber felt narrower than before—though Elira suspected it wasn’t the walls that had changed, but the presence pushing against them. The air hummed with an electric tension she could feel on her skin, a constant low vibration that thrummed through her bones with every step.Kael moved first, steady and alert, his eyes scanning the dimly lit passageway ahead. The crystalline lights embedded in the walls flickered in sporadic pulses, like something was interfering with the power source… or feeding on it.Tarin kept close behind, hand resting near the hilt of his blade—the same blade that had once cut through shadow as though it were nothing but smoke. Now, even he seemed unsure whether it would be enough.Elira followed them, clutching the projected map she had extracted from the ancient console. Its drifting lines of light hovered above her palm, shifting like a living constellation. The path ahead spiraled downward—deep into the underlayers where no record exi