The Echo lurched forward, chains scraping across stone.
Cael felt the wrongness leaking from it—rot and memory, stitched into a body that shouldn't move. His knife trembled in his grip. Beside him, Nyra muttered something in a language he didn't know, her dagger pulsing weakly with enchantment.
"How do we kill it?" Cael asked.
"We don't." Nyra flicked her eyes at him. "We run."
Before they could, a figure dropped from the broken rafters above—silent as a shadow.
He landed between them and the Echo, rising in one smooth motion.
The man was tall, whipcord lean under a long black coat patched with faded sigils. His hair was dark and dust-streaked, pulled back into a loose knot. He wore a battered mask pushed up on his forehead, revealing sharp, angular features and cold, wolfish eyes.
Eyes that locked onto the Echo with casual, professional hatred.
He moved like a knife drawn from flesh—swift, brutal, sure.
In a heartbeat, the stranger drove two curved blades into the Echo's side, twisted, and tore them free. Black mist poured from the wound—but the Echo didn't fall. It turned, roaring soundlessly, chains snapping toward him.
The man dodged effortlessly, dancing around the strikes like he'd done this a thousand times.
> [SYSTEM NOTICE]
Name: Eren Solvane
Class: Hunter of the Broken
Threat Level: Moderate
Alignment: Neutral
Cael's System shivered at the sight of him. Not because he was strong—though he was—but because, for the first time, it didn't know what side he was on.
"You're in my hunting grounds, kids," Eren said without looking at them. His voice was rough, edged with dark humor. "And you're making noise. Bad form."
Nyra snarled under her breath. Cael didn't move.
Instead, something cold stirred inside him.
The whispers.
"Bind it… break it… speak the forgotten name…"
His vision blurred. The runes on the ruined walls lit up, faint and flickering. The Echo stumbled, chains drooping for a second as if… listening.
Cael took a step forward without thinking.
Nyra grabbed his arm. "What are you doing?"
But Eren had noticed too. His sharp eyes pinned Cael like a blade.
"You," he said slowly. "You're not normal, are you?"
The Echo screeched—shrill and broken—and lunged again.
This time, Cael didn't back away.
The air around him seemed to grow heavier, colder. Ash swirled at his feet, pulled toward him like a tide turning. His shadow stretched, twisting wrong across the broken stones.
Even Eren hesitated for half a heartbeat.
For the first time, Cael saw it—the flicker of caution. Fear.
Not toward the monster.
Toward him.