The portal opened with a groan like the cracking of ancient bones, revealing a stairway carved into an obsidian cliff face. It spiraled downward, each step inscribed with sigils that glowed faintly under Kael's presence. They pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat — no, with something deeper. With his memory.
"This is the next trial?" Kael muttered, peering into the abyss below.
Erisen Hollow stood still at the portal's edge, arms folded behind his back. His cloak fluttered as if touched by a breeze no one else felt.
"The Echoing Bastion," he said. "Where even silence remembers."
Juno narrowed her eyes, adjusting the grip on her blade. "Sounds like another place crawling with forgotten nightmares."
Erisen's smile was subdued. "Worse. It's filled with memories that never wanted to be remembered."
Kael's gaze lingered on the stairway. With every pulse of the sigils, images flickered along the walls — children laughing, armies marching, flames consuming cities, hands reaching toward the sky before being swallowed by shadow.
"This place…" Kael whispered. "It's not just memories. It's the moments before people were broken."
He took the first step.
The stair groaned but held. Juno followed closely, her steps silent. Erisen was last, his expression unreadable, though a tightness coiled around his jaw.
As they descended, the air grew heavier. Not just with dust or age — but with emotion. It was like walking through grief, a pressure that wrapped around Kael's chest.
The passage opened into a grand hall, long abandoned. Cracked pillars reached up like skeletal fingers. Broken murals lined the walls — scenes of ancient warriors knelt before a throneless dais, their weapons shattered, their eyes hollow.
A throne room with no throne.
"This was a sanctum once," Erisen said. "Not for rulers… but for those who had none."
Kael stepped into the center, drawn by a soft glow emanating from the broken altar at the end. As he approached, the temperature dropped. Breath became mist. Footsteps echoed louder than they should have.
And then came the voices.
"You left us…"
"Unworthy…"
"You bear the mark, but do you carry the weight?"
Kael froze as ghostly figures materialized from the stone itself — translucent warriors, mages, children, beasts, all bearing fragments of the Ashen Mark in varying forms.
"They're… Crownless," Kael said slowly.
"Echoes of them," Erisen corrected. "What remains when the world forgets, but their sorrow doesn't."
One figure stepped forward. A boy — no older than ten — his eyes empty, holding a broken wooden sword.
"You're him," the boy said. "The one who walks with the code inside him. We all waited. For so long."
Kael crouched down, but the boy flinched.
"I'm not here to hurt you," Kael said.
The boy looked up, a tear sliding down his cheek that vanished before reaching the ground. "We were supposed to ascend too. But they didn't let us. They took our choices. They said the broken don't deserve to rise."
Kael's fists tightened. "Who said that?"
The boy turned, and the hall transformed.
The walls flickered, and suddenly they were no longer alone. Massive armored figures stood where shadows had been — Warden-like entities, but their armor bore no sigil. Their faces were veiled in voidlight. Their hands held brands, not weapons.
"They called themselves the Hierarchs of Continuance," Erisen said grimly. "They believed only those 'intact' could ascend. They culled everyone else."
Kael's gaze burned. "They erased the broken?"
"Silenced them. Cursed their fragments. Hid the truth," Erisen said.
A deep thrumming filled the air as one of the echoing Hierarchs raised its brand. The flame on its end burned blue-white, and the specters around Kael flinched.
"Another trial begins," Juno muttered, sword already drawn.
Kael rose to his feet as the brand swept toward them, leaving a trail of scorched reality in its wake. He reached inward — not for rage, not even for power. But for the pain that had shaped him.
For every moment he'd been broken — and refused to stay that way.
The Ashen Mark ignited along his arms, spreading like living fire. Not chaotic, not blinding. Controlled. Cold. Focused.
The Hierarch lunged. Kael met it head-on.
Their clash rattled the Bastion. The echoing stone screamed under the pressure. Kael's blows rang like bells in a cathedral of memory. He moved like a phantom, weaving through strikes, each of his counters laced with conviction. The Nullthread coursed through him — not to destroy, but to reveal.
Each strike peeled away a layer of illusion. Behind the armor of the Hierarchs were hollow visages, crumbling with every blow. They weren't gods.
They were cowards. Enforcers of a lie.
"They said I was unfit," Kael growled, slamming his palm into the heart of the first Hierarch, releasing a pulse of gray flame. "But you buried your sins in silence."
Another brand came down. Juno intercepted it, her sword cleaving through the echo with raw force. "They keep coming!"
"Good," Kael said. "Let them remember what they tried to forget."
More Hierarchs stepped from the stone, but the echoes of the Crownless began to rise as well. The boy with the wooden sword now held it like a real blade, a flickering fire dancing along its edge.
The Crownless weren't just watching now. They were fighting.
Kael felt the realm shift — not in his favor, but in recognition. The Bastion itself seemed to pulse, alive with memory, no longer content with silence.
The final Hierarch came forward — taller, cloaked in veils, its brand larger than the others. When it spoke, it was not with a voice, but with judgment.
"You were meant to fall."
"I did," Kael replied. "And I got back up."
They met in a final clash that shook the hall. Reality bent. Voices screamed. Time warped.
But Kael didn't waver.
With one last strike — a surge of everything he had endured — he broke the brand, shattered the echo, and the final Hierarch collapsed into glass.
Silence followed.
Not emptiness — but peace.
The Crownless stood tall, their eyes clear, their pain acknowledged. They bowed, not in worship, but in recognition.
"You are not whole," said the boy. "But you are real. And that's what we always needed."
Kael nodded, exhausted, but resolute. "No one else will be forgotten. Not again."
The hall began to fade, the Bastion dissolving into golden motes.
As they stepped through the exit that materialized, Erisen lingered behind.
"Did you know them?" Kael asked.
Erisen's smile was distant. "I still do."
End of Chapter 36