CHAPTER 3: IGNITION AND INTRUSION
Zai held both crystals in his hands, one burning faintly like an ember, the other pulsing with a slow, earthy thrum. They shouldn't be warm, but they were, seemed alive.
He swallowed, staring at them, unsure what to do. The air around him shimmered slightly, a tension rising like the sky before a storm. Then, the screen returned.
Floating midair again, faintly translucent, glowing with soft gold edges like sunlight behind parchment.
[Activity Detected... Echoverse System Temporarily Online]
Resonance Cores Detected:
{Core of the Emberclaw Ravager – Fire Type}
{Core of the Stoneback Mauler – Earth Type}
Select Core to absorb and activate Echoverse System.
Note: Only one core may be selected during Awakening.
...
Zai's eyes widened. "It's back. What… what do you mean select? Why do I have to pick?" He looked at the crystals, heart pounding. No response.
The message remained still, waiting and pulsing.
He clenched his fists, trembling slightly, hoping that he shouldn't put himself in some problems after he selects. "Fine. Fire. I choose the tiger... the one that cut me."
As soon as he said it, the ember-like crystal began to melt into light. It surged through his arm in streaks of orange and gold, winding into his veins like firewater. His breath caught.
Pain came fast, but it wasn't agony. It was... transformation. His vision blurred. His knees hit the ground. The world dimmed.
And he slumbered.
…
He awoke moments, or maybe minutes, later. His eyes opened to a whisper in his mind.
[Congratulations. You have awakened the Echoverse System.]
[Initializing primary status...]
The golden screen materialized again, clearer now, sharper, more alive.
...
[ECHOVERSE SYSTEM ACTIVE]
Host: Zai
EchoLevel: 1
Path: Echo of Elements
--- CORE STATS ---
Strength (STR): 20
Agility (AGI): 20
Endurance (END): 20
Echo Control (ECO): 20
Wrath (WRTH): ??? (Locked)
--- ABILITIES ---
[Flame Grasp – Rank F]
{Harness and emit low-level flames from your hands. Can ignite flammable objects.}
--- TRAITS ---
[Resistance – Minor Heat]
{Natural resistance to heat and fire-based damage.}
--- SYSTEM FUNCTIONS UNLOCKED ---
>Echo Browser [Online]
> Inventory [Pending Unlock]
> Echo Paths [elements. Fire]
…
Zai stared in stunned silence. His heart raced again, but not from fear.
"Echo of Elements...?" he muttered, his voice low.
He looked at his hands. They felt... warmer, weird. Not just in temperature, but potential, something inside had shifted.
Something had begun.
…
Zai exhaled and wiped his brow. The second core pulsed faintly in his hand, less wild than the first, but still heavy with dormant power.
"What am I supposed to do with this one?"
Just then, a soft chime echoed through his ears, and a translucent screen blinked back into view.
[Inventory Unlocked]
{Would you like to absorb and keep crystal in the inventory?}
"Yes?" Zai replied, although he didn't feel any danger emitting from the system. He did have doubts.
The core floated from his palm into the air, pixelating into amber fragments and vanishing into the system's space.
Zai blinked. "Okay… that's new."
He didn't know where it went exactly, but he felt it was safe.
…
The crystals had vanished, absorbed into Zai's body or so. The corpses of the Emberclaw Tiger and the Stonehide Bear remained, withered and blackened, like scorched husks drained of all essence. Zai stared at them, then at his own hands.
He took a shaky breath.
"This... isn't real," he muttered. "What the hell is going on?"
He clenched his fists, then opened them again. The system, whatever it was, had mentioned fire. An ability. Something he supposedly now had. Still sitting among broken roots and stone, Zai raised a hand.
"Alright… Echoverse System or whatever. Show me something," he said uncertainly. However, nothing happened.
He frowned. "Flame Grasp?"
Still nothing.
He looked around, feeling like an idiot. "Am I seriously talking to air now? Am I really going insane? Maybe I hit my head too hard. Or maybe I'm actually dead. That fight with Nox, did I die? Did we both die?"
But as the thoughts swirled, a flicker of warmth pulsed in his fingertips.
His eyes widened. A small flame burst to life at the tip of his index finger. It hovered there, faint but real, like a candlelight dancing in the wind.
A ding rang out in his head, and the system returned again with a glowing line of text suspended in the air:
[Echo — First Activation]
{Congratulations. Echo control established. Flame affinity stable.}
Then, as always, the message flickered and vanished.
Zai sat frozen. "What are you?" he whispered into the air. "Why do you keep popping in and out like that? Can I call on you? Or do you just show up whenever you feel like it?"
Still, no response.
He stared at his hand, the warmth lingering. It didn't hurt. In fact, it felt natural. Too natural.
"And what is this body?" he said aloud. "I don't feel tired. I don't feel pain. I'm faster, stronger, and my hair?" He grabbed a lock of silver strands. "What even is this? A side effect? A curse? Or…"
He trailed off, staring into the blackened horizon.
"Is this destiny?" Speaking audibly
Then, he felt it. That prickling feeling.
Someone was watching, again.
He turned quickly, instinctively preparing to fight... Or run. But it wasn't another beast.
A man stood nearby. Short and broad-shouldered, no taller than Zai's chest. His face was lined with rough stubble and age, not the crumbling kind of old, but the kind that spoke of long roads and longer stories. His skin was darkened by sun and life. His clothes were patched leather and thick cloth, travel-worn and dirt-smeared. He carried no weapon Zai could see, but the aura about him was... strange.
He looked to be in his late thirties, maybe early forties. But his eyes, sharp, deep-set things, held a depth that felt ancient.
And he was just standing there, arms crossed, expression unreadable, watching Zai like he'd been doing so for a while.
"...Who the hell are you?" Zai asked.
The man didn't answer immediately. He just smiled faintly, eyes narrowing like he'd found something interesting.
"Well," the stranger finally said in a rough, gravel-edged voice, "you don't see that every day."
…
Zai took a wary step back, narrowing his eyes at the stranger. There was something off, not dangerous, but different. The man was watching him with calm interest, yet something in his aura felt... misplaced. Foreign.
The stranger spoke, his voice low and coarse. "Es'al voran ti ilen vael..."
Zai blinked. "What?"
He didn't understand a single word. The language was completely foreign, like nothing he had ever heard from any scroll, book, or traveler.
Then suddenly, as if something had clicked, the man paused, furrowed his brow... and spoke again.
"Hi there. I'm by name Kamaris. And I said, 'That's not something you see every day.'" Zai's breath hitched.
"You speak my language?" he asked, astonished.
Kamaris raised an eyebrow. "No. I mean, yes? I am multilingual, yes, I've heard your tongue before, but haven't mastered it, let alone spoken it. I usually fumble through new dialects with some effort, but now..." He looked genuinely puzzled. "Now it feels like I've been speaking this all my life. Like it's... embedded in me. That doesn't make any sense."
Zai stared at him, his mind racing. Something about this felt familiar. The strange awakening. The silver hair. The fire in his palm. Was this man caught in it too?
"Sir Kamaris," Zai began slowly, "my name is Zai. May I ask... how did you get here?"
Kamaris folded his arms and tilted his head thoughtfully.
"I was traveling with a friend," he said. "Normal route, nothing strange. And then, boom. It felt like I was falling. Everything was dark. I couldn't feel my body. No ground, no sky. Just... drifting. And when I woke up, I was in this place. This forest. Everything here looks twisted and wrong. Animals that don't look like animals. Creatures that don't belong anywhere I know of. Then I heard sounds, fighting. Roars. Crashes. And I found you, standing over those corpses with fire dancing on your hand."
He pointed at Zai's fingertips.
"You were controlling flame."
Zai hesitated, unsure how to respond. His thoughts tangled with disbelief and suspicion. Should he reveal everything? Could he even explain it?
"I wonder what I should say," he muttered under his breath.
But before he could continue, Kamaris replied, confidently, as if he'd heard the thought aloud.
"There's nothing to say. Just tell me how you got here."
Zai's eyes snapped to his. "Wait... I didn't say that out loud."
A sudden sharp chime rang in his mind:
[Intruder Detected: Mind Echo Identified]
[Echo of Mind: Passive Influence Attempted]
[Defensive Echo Resistance Initiated]
[...Success. Mental Barrier Reinforced.]
Zai froze. Kamaris took a step back, blinking.
"What?" the older man asked, confused by Zai's reaction.
Zai shook his head. "I didn't speak. You just... answered what I was thinking."
Realization dawned in both their eyes.
"You're telling me," Kamaris said slowly, "that I read your mind?"
Zai nodded. "That's exactly what happened."
Kamaris looked around, as if expecting the trees to give him an explanation. "Okay. Okay, this is weird. First, we get dropped into some warped land without warning. Then I speak languages I've never heard. Then I read thoughts? This is insane."
He began pacing, rubbing his forehead.
Zai pulled at his hair in frustration. "This is ridiculous. We both got here without our will. I have fire in my hands. You hear voices in my head. This is too much."
"Let's test it again," Kamaris said suddenly. "Let's prove we're not just losing our minds."
Zai hesitated... then focused. He extended his hand. Just like before, a faint flame flickered to life on his fingertip, tiny, like a candle's flame, but steady.
Kamaris leaned in, eyes wide. "Incredible... Can you feel heat? Is it draining your energy? Does it burn?"
He reached forward, prodding at Zai's hand, lifting it, circling him like some overexcited scholar.
"Stop that," Zai snapped, yanking his arm back. Extinguishing the flame.
Kamaris looked sheepish. "Sorry. Curiosity."
Then Zai felt it again, that strange pressure brushing at the edges of his thoughts. A probing, subtle tug.
Another chime echoed in his mind:
[Mental Barrier Activated – Foreign Echo Attempt Blocked]
Zai squinted. "Did it work?"
Kamaris frowned. "Did what work?"
"The mind reading," Zai said. "Did it work?"
Kamaris rubbed his temple. "No... I thought I heard something again, but no , it's like... Something's in the way. Like a door that shuts the moment I try to peek through."
Zai narrowed his eyes. A part of him wanted to tell Kamaris everything, about the messages, the system, the awakening, but something held him back. Explaining it would only confuse things further. Not to mention, Kamaris might not even believe it. So, he kept it to himself.
Zai nodded slightly. The system had blocked it. But even so, the fact that this man was speaking his language, perfectly and fluidly, was proof enough.
"Let's try again," Zai offered. "Just to be sure."
He focused. Thought a random sentence. "I don't trust you yet."
But Kamaris only stared blankly.
"Anything?" Zai asked.
"Nothing," Kamaris replied, shaking his head. "It's like your thoughts are behind glass now. I can sense something, but it's muffled. Shut out."
Another notification flashed faintly in Zai's vision:
[Mental Barrier: Passive defense active]
Zai lowered his hand, unsure of what to feel. Kamaris wasn't lying. Whatever power he had, it was trying to reach into Zai's mind, but the system kept it out.
Still, Zai couldn't ignore the language.
"That's two things now," he muttered. "You reading thoughts...and speaking like someone from my land. And you weren't born anywhere near me."
"Exactly," Kamaris said. "That's what scares me. Something switched. Something changed. It gave us…powers? Maybe? But for what purpose?"
Zai folded his arms and looked away. "There's more going on than either of us understands. But whatever this place is... it's changing us."
Kamaris looked at him and nodded slowly. "Yeah. And something tells me we're just scratching the surface."