The valley was silent.
Not the silence of fog,
not the silence of fear—
but the silence of something listening.
Something vast.
Something ancient.
Aren wiped blood from the corner of his lip, struggling to steady his breathing.
His chest still burned from unleashing the impossible arrow.
His limbs trembled.
His Voidscar flickered like a heartbeat out of rhythm.
The Remnant stood beside him, towering and unmoving.
Even it seemed tense.
Aren whispered:
"…So that vibration earlier… that was the Void King?"
The Remnant's runes pulsed dimly.
"No."
Aren frowned.
"Then what was—"
"An echo."
Aren's breath caught.
"Just an echo made the sky dim?"
"Yes."
"The king does not strike lightly."
Aren felt a cold shiver run down his spine.
If an echo could shake a valley, what would the real thing do?
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The older operative climbed down the shattered ridge, limping but alive.
He stared at Aren as if seeing a stranger.
"You… survived the Prime."
Aren forced a tired smile.
"Barely."
The female operative followed, eyes wide and anxious.
"When you fired that last shot, the scanners went blank. Completely blank. That's not supposed to happen."
Aren nodded.
"That's because the arrow didn't exist until the moment it hit."
They stared at him.
Silence.
The older operative muttered:
"Kid… that's not something a human should be able to do."
Aren looked away.
A part of him agreed.
But another part—
the part that had survived the Frontier, tamed the Voidborn, and cornered a Voideater Prime—
knew he couldn't deny what he was becoming.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The Remnant turned toward the horizon again.
Fog thickened unnaturally.
The sky dimmed.
Aren felt something like a weight sink into his bones.
Not pressure.
Authority.
Something was watching through the sky.
A voice echoed faintly across the valley—
not spoken aloud,
but inside Aren's skull.
"̴M̴y̷…̶ h̴e̶i̷r̵…̸"
Aren flinched, clutching his head.
"No—"
The voice repeated, clearer this time.
"̷Y̴o̵u̷…̵s̵t̶i̷l̴l̸…̵l̷i̷v̶e̸."
Aren staggered back, shaking.
He had heard this voice once before—
on the day he severed the evolution chain.
The day he refused to become a vessel.
He hissed through clenched teeth:
"No.
I'm not yours."
The Remnant placed a limb protectively in front of him.
The sky flickered.
The fog recoiled.
The voice laughed—
a sound like stone cracking under pressure.
"̶W̷e̶…̶s̴h̸a̵l̴l̸…̴s̸e̶e̴."
And then—
Silence.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Aren collapsed to one knee, panting.
The female operative rushed toward him.
"Aren! Talk to me. What happened?"
He didn't answer right away.
He stared at the ground—
at the rippling violet glow pulsing beneath his skin.
His Voidscar reacted to the king's echo.
Not in fear.
In recognition.
The older operative knelt beside him.
"Kid.
You with us?"
Aren finally forced himself upright.
"I'm fine."
He wasn't.
But he would be.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The Remnant spoke gently, which was unusual.
"Voidscar bearer."
Aren looked up.
"Yeah?"
The Remnant's eyes dimmed with something almost like concern.
"The king's attention is dangerous.
It grows with your power."
Aren clenched his fist.
"So what do I do?"
"Grow faster."
Aren blinked.
"That's your advice?"
"Yes."
The Remnant pointed deeper into the Frontier—
toward the ancient fog-filled ruins,
where even Remnants never stepped lightly.
Aren felt the weight of that direction.
"…You want me to go there?"
"It is where the next trial lies."
Aren took a long breath.
"And what is the next trial?"
The Remnant paused before answering, runes flickering.
"To learn who you were supposed to become."
Aren stiffened.
"What does that mean?"
The Remnant began walking toward the ruins.
"Follow, and you will learn."
The operatives exchanged looks—
fearful, uncertain, but trusting Aren more than any map or scanner.
The older operative sighed.
"Kid… if you walk into that ruin, you're crossing a line you can't come back from."
Aren nodded.
"I know."
The female operative grabbed his arm.
"You sure you're ready?"
Aren looked at his hand—
at the faint violet glow pulsing beneath his skin.
At the bow that responded more like a living thing than a weapon.
At the valley he'd survived.
"I wasn't ready for any of this," he said softly.
"But I still did it."
He stepped forward.
Toward the ruin.
Toward the unknown.
Toward the thing the world tried to bury.
The Remnant's voice echoed with finality:
"Chapter of origins begins now."
Aren followed.
Not because he wanted to know who he was meant to be—
but because he intended to become someone different.