They walked deeper into the Veil, each step a choice, each breath a weight. The air grew still, not in peace, but in reverence—like a tomb that remembered too much. Silence was not emptiness here. It was testimony.
Rei's eyes adjusted to the fading light, which now bent around them in soft currents of memory. The stars above had vanished, replaced by echoes of those who had once looked up and hoped. They were in a space where sound bowed to history.
Ahead lay a valley of petrified spires, each one bearing the shape of screaming mouths turned to stone. The wind here did not whistle. It wept. Mireille stepped carefully, her boots crunching over shards of memory.
"What is this place?" Noira asked, voice quiet out of instinct.
Eirenne answered. "It's the Chorus That Chose Silence. A battlefield where the Sovereigns once argued with reality—and lost."
Karasu circled above them in slow, deliberate arcs. "The second witness will not speak. You must make her remember why she ever did."
The center of the valley opened into a shallow basin where a throne of soundless steel sat. Upon it rested a woman with a veil made of quiet flame, her hands clasped, eyes closed—not in sleep, but in withdrawal. Her presence was overwhelming, yet restrained. This was not power unleashed.
This was power imprisoned by choice.
Rei approached, and the stillness thickened. The woman opened her eyes slowly. Where irises should have been, there were lines—silent scripts written in the language of origin.
"You carry the weight of Echo," she said without voice, her thoughts pressed directly into their minds.
Rei did not flinch. "I carry the burden of remembrance."
"I am Silence," she said. "Once I was the Voice of the Flame. But my words started wars. So I chose to forget how to speak."
The still air trembled.
"You seek the Hollow Oath. You must prove your right not by words, but by restraint."
She raised her hand. The valley twisted, becoming a mirror of Rei's present—a battlefield. From the edges came phantoms. Enemies from the past. Fallen Nullborn. Echoes of old foes. Even a shadow that bore his own face, smirking with arrogance Rei had long buried.
Eirenne summoned her blade, Noira followed with swift stance, and Mireille began tracing command runes.
But Rei raised his hand. "No. Not yet."
He stepped forward alone. The phantoms circled him, taunting, threatening, invoking fury. Yet he did not draw his weapon. His eyes remained steady. Unblinking.
Silence, absolute and profound, deepened. The mirages snarled, clawed—but Rei stood still.
In the distance, a ripple passed through the Veiled Woman. The flames of her veil shifted.
She stood slowly.
"You remember what it is to be tempted. But you did not answer it with violence."
Rei exhaled, and the phantoms dissolved.
"You reminded me why I once spoke," she said. "Because silence without witness is erasure."
She approached, and from her chest, a silver shard floated into Rei's flame, fusing seamlessly.
New Integration: Flame of Tempered Voice — Grants immunity to manipulation through spiritual resonance and grants aura-level suppression.
She looked to the rest of the group.
"Only one remains. The one that never chose a side."
She turned into wind and ash, leaving the throne vacant.
Mireille whispered, "The Neutral Witness?"
Karasu landed beside Rei, feathers heavy with stardust.
"She is the most dangerous of them all. Because even the Sovereigns feared what she might reveal."
Rei nodded. "Then we head for the Gray Expanse."
With silence at their backs and choice before them, they moved again.