The Realm of Heroic Echoes was not what Reed had expected. Instead of the glorious battlefield he'd imagined, where fallen warriors continued their eternal struggles in honor and glory, he found himself standing at the edge of a vast crystalline wasteland where broken weapons jutted from the ground like metallic flowers, and the air itself hummed with the residual echoes of battles that could never truly end.
Kessa's form had solidified into something resembling a silver-haired ranger, her consciousness compressed into a configuration that could navigate this realm's specific physics. "Welcome to the Heroic Paradox," she said, her voice carrying undertones of ancient sadness. "Where warriors who died in impossible battles are trapped forever, fighting shadows of the enemies they could never truly defeat."
