Chapter 11 — The Violet Echo
Aiden barely slept.
Even after returning to his quarters, the whisper from the mysterious woman replayed in a loop inside his skull. Her voice wasn't haunting, yet it carried a certainty that dug under his skin. A certainty that something—some intelligence hidden behind the Seekers and Rift surge—had set its eyes on him.
He stared at the ceiling for hours, listening to the distant hum of generators beneath the facility, the rare echo of boots in the halls, the low rumble of passing patrol drones. But none of it soothed the pounding rhythm of his thoughts.
Eventually he gave up on rest.
When dawn crept in as a pale smear of grey light beyond the reinforced windows, Aiden pushed himself up and headed down to the training complex.
The facility was mostly empty at that hour. Soldiers preferred to rest before Rift missions, and trainees usually avoided early mornings unless punished by instructors. The silence here felt heavier than usual, though—less like solitude, more like a held breath.
Aiden stepped into the Void Chamber—a circular room reinforced with layered alloy and arcane stabilizers embedded in the walls. It was originally designed for high-output skill testing, but lately it had become the only place where Aiden felt safe enough to experiment with his power.
He stood in the center of the room, inhaled slowly, and summoned the Void.
It answered instantly.
Darkness rippled around his feet, rising like black mist. Tiny sparks of violet light pulsed within it, each beat timed with the strange vibration he had felt in his chest since the Ashfall incident.
His skill notification flickered to life.
[ Void Sovereign — Stability Fluctuating ][ Void Core Resonance: 32% ][ External Interference Detected ]
Aiden clenched his jaw. Every reading had been abnormal since the Seeker attack. It felt like using his own power came with the risk of inviting something else—something outside.
But he needed control. Without it, he'd be nothing but a liability when the next Rift spike hit.
He inhaled and forced the Void to compress.
The black mist surged inward, swirling tighter and tighter until it wrapped around his hands like living shadows. They obeyed, but not smoothly. The energy trembled, fighting him, as if reacting to some echo beyond his senses.
Aiden pushed harder.
"Come on… work with me."
The Void resisted, then suddenly burst outward with a violent snap.
A shockwave blasted across the chamber, rippling through the walls with a low, metallic groan. The lights flickered. Aiden staggered back, panting.
"What the hell was that…?"
The Void trembled at his feet, pulsing with a faint violet glow. He could feel it—an emotion that wasn't quite his. Something like agitation. Or warning.
He tried again.
This time he gently coaxed the energy, guiding its movement rather than forcing it. The shadows responded, flowing upward in thin, controlled streams. He let the motion build, shaping it into a small orb of condensed Void.
The orb pulsed weakly.
Aiden frowned. It was unstable—barely held together, trembling with residual interference. But it didn't explode. That was at least some progress.
He raised his hand and let the orb dissipate into harmless motes.
His breath trembled.
He wasn't winning this battle. He was barely keeping up.
Before he could try again, the chamber door slid open.
Commander Hale stepped inside, flanked by two guards. But one look told Aiden they weren't here for discipline. Hale's expression was grim.
"Aiden," Hale said. "We have a situation."
Aiden straightened, the Void fading from around him. "What happened?"
"One of our advance teams in the Northern Rift Zone encountered something new," Hale said. "Something that didn't match any known creature readings. We lost contact with them ten minutes ago."
Aiden felt a cold knot form in his stomach. "Another Seeker?"
"We don't know," Hale replied. "But the energy signatures recorded before the feed cut out match the anomaly from Ashfall."
Aiden's heartbeat quickened. "I'm going."
Hale nodded, almost as if he'd expected the answer. "Grab your gear. We deploy in twenty minutes."
Aiden rushed out of the training complex, but even as he ran, a strange sensation prickled at the back of his mind. It wasn't fear. It wasn't adrenaline.
It was the same faint whisper he had heard on the rooftop—only now, it was more distinct.
You cannot outrun what's seeking you.
Aiden clenched his teeth. Whether it was a warning or a threat, he didn't know. But he refused to let others die because of his connection to whatever this was.
He'd face it. Whatever waited in the Northern Rift Zone—he would face it.
Twenty minutes later, Aiden boarded the transport craft with Maya, Jiro, Hale, and a squad of elite Vanguard operatives. The atmosphere inside the craft was tense, filled with the heavy silence of people preparing for the worst. Maya checked her rifle repeatedly; Jiro stared at the floor, jaw tight.
Aiden sat opposite them, gripping the straps of his seat. He tried to steady his breathing.
The engines roared, and the craft lifted off, cutting through the cold air toward the mountains.
No one spoke for a long while.
Finally, Maya leaned toward Aiden. "Whatever's in there… don't overdo it again."
He gave a small, tired smile. "I'll be careful."
Jiro's voice was barely above a whisper. "Careful won't be enough if it's like the thing we saw."
Aiden didn't respond. He couldn't promise something he wasn't sure he could deliver.
The craft dipped as it neared the Rift Zone, and the windows filled with a deep grey fog rolling over the mountain range. The fog wasn't natural—its texture shimmered like distorted static, bending the light around it.
Hale stood and braced himself. "We're landing. Stay sharp."
The doors opened, releasing a blast of cold wind. The squad disembarked onto a jagged plateau littered with broken stone and the smoke of recent battle. The snow was stained with ash. Deep gouges carved the ground where something massive had dragged itself across.
Aiden scanned the terrain, his skin prickling.
The world felt wrong here.
The air carried a faint vibration that almost mirrored the pulse inside his chest. He glanced at Maya and Jiro—they felt it too. Their expressions tightened, eyes scanning the shadows.
One of the soldiers shouted, "Over here!"
The squad gathered around him.
He was kneeling beside a series of footprints—or what might once have been footprints. They were twisted impressions, like something with too many limbs had pressed into the earth and burned a pattern of spiraling frost into the stone.
Jiro swallowed. "No normal monster leaves marks like that."
Maya's voice was tight. "Neither did the one we fought."
Hale stepped forward and touched his comms. "Send a detailed scan to base. We're proceeding deeper."
The squad moved cautiously across the plateau. Every few meters, they found traces of the missing advance team—shredded armor, broken weapons, faint scorch marks. But there were no bodies.
Aiden slowed as they reached a narrow canyon splitting the mountainside. A faint violet glow emanated from somewhere inside.
He knew that color.
"I'm getting Void resonance," he whispered.
Hale nodded grimly. "Then that's where we're going."
The squad advanced, weapons raised.
As they entered the canyon, the glow intensified, pulsing rhythmically in time with the pressure building in Aiden's chest. His breathing quickened.
Something was waiting ahead.
They turned a corner—and froze.
At the far end of the canyon stood a creature.
It wasn't like the Seeker. This one was smaller, humanoid in shape but stretched, as if its body were composed of threads woven from living shadow. Its limbs were elongated, its head featureless except for a single vertical slit glowing with pale violet light.
The creature stood unnaturally still, almost statuesque—until its slit-eye widened, focusing on Aiden.
Maya whispered, "What is that thing…?"
The creature tilted its head.
And then it spoke.
But it didn't speak with a voice. The words crawled directly into Aiden's mind.
You carry the fractured core.
Aiden took a step back, heart pounding. "What do you want?"
The creature raised one spindly arm, pointing directly at him.
Return what was taken.
Aiden's breath hitched. A sense of pressure—like a psychic hand—pressed at the back of his skull.
He staggered.
Maya grabbed his arm. "Aiden? Aiden, focus!"
The creature stepped forward.
The soldiers aimed their rifles.
"Hold fire!" Hale commanded.
The creature's gaze narrowed. The psychic pressure intensified, drilling deeper.
Aiden clenched his fists.
"Get out of my head."
The Void inside him surged—reacting instinctively to the intrusion.
A pulse of black energy erupted around his body, blasting dust and snow outward. The soldiers staggered; Maya shielded her face; Jiro nearly fell to his knees.
The creature reeled back, its form flickering violently.
Aiden lifted his hand.
"Don't touch my mind."
The creature screeched—a distorted, static-laced sound—and lunged.
The squad fired. Bullets tore through its shadowy form, but they passed as if through liquid darkness. The creature twisted unnaturally, its body bending in ways no living thing should.
Aiden thrust his hand forward. The Void erupted in a sweeping wave.
The creature was caught mid-lunge and slammed into the canyon wall. Its form quivered, fracturing into strands of darkness.
It shrieked again—this time not in attack, but in pain.
Then it spoke once more.
The Echo is coming.
The creature's body collapsed inward, folding into itself until it vanished in a burst of violet static.
Silence fell.
Maya exhaled shakily. "What… was that?"
Aiden's pulse hammered. He stared at the empty space where the creature had been.
He didn't have an answer.
The only thing he knew for certain was that the whispering woman's warning had not been a metaphor.
Something far worse than Seekers was on its way.
And whatever "the Echo" was—it was coming for him.