CHAPTER 349: THE PATH OF THE VOID ECHO

As soon as Kaelen, Kelvin, and Ethan stepped fully into the Circle of Resonance, the world around them ceased to be.

Light dimmed into ink.

Sound swallowed itself into vacuum.

Time seemed to hesitate—then rupture.

A bone-deep chill crawled through their spines, and the Circle cracked with invisible force as the statue representing the Path of Void Echo pulsed once, then exploded into a spiraling void that pulled the trio inward, twisting their consciousness in a cyclone of nothingness.

Then came the drop.

---

In Kaelen’s point of view...

He opened his eyes.

He was... on a throne.

Atop a high balcony, looking down at a broken world of ash and ruin. Rivers of fire flowed through canyons of bones. Black lightning raged across the skies like dying stars. The wind screamed—not in sound, but in memory. The Blade of Eternity lay across his lap, crusted with the blood of gods and mortals alike.

He was alone.

Utterly.

Not a single soul remained.

Guinevere? Kelvin? Ethan? Morris? Lila?

All gone.

He rose slowly from the throne and began to walk.

Each step echoed across a wasteland, and as he moved, monuments of memory rose from the ground like gravestones. A statue of Lila smiling at him. A projection of Ethan joking. Guinevere yelling in her usual confident tone. All the people he held close—turned into phantoms of regret, then disintegrated to dust as soon as he reached out.

"You couldn’t protect them," a voice said behind him.

He turned.

Endless stood there, a twisted mirror of himself.

"You chased power. Responsibility. Vengeance. But in the end... what did it cost?"

Kaelen’s chest heaved. "I won’t believe this. This is a lie—!"

"Is it?" Endless whispered, as the Blade of Eternity began to corrode in his hands.

Kaelen collapsed to his knees.

The loneliness, the weight, the despair—it became too real.

But then...

A faint sound.

Laughter. Familiar. Soft.

Lila.

He gritted his teeth, fingers clawing into the charred soil. "They’re not gone. They’re still out there. I’m not alone."

The world shattered.

---

In Kelvin’s point of view...

Darkness.

Then fire.

Then screams.

Kelvin gasped, his body chained to a stone slab inside a red-lit chamber of walls breathing like lungs.

All around him were reflections—himself at different ages.

A child crying while holding a picture of his mother.

A boy watching his sister being dragged away by cloaked figures.

A teen being told by his father that he was a mistake.

"They left you," a voice whispered. "You were never loved."

A mirror of Kelvin—void of any warmth in his eyes—stepped forward from the wall.

"Why fight for people who treat you like a weapon? Why not embrace what you truly are? Become the storm. End them all."

Chains rattled tighter.

The red walls became dripping flesh, and the air filled with the screams of those he loved, blaming him.

Kelvin closed his eyes.

"Am I nothing more than a curse...?"

The moment he accepted that thought, the illusions smiled—and drew swords.

But then...

He remembered Kaelen—shouldering everything without complaint.

He remembered Morris calling him "a brother."

He remembered Lila... smiling when he made his sarcastic jokes.

"No... I still have people."

BOOM.

The chains shattered. His illusion screamed as Kelvin’s silver Qi burst out of his soul, slashing the nightmare apart.

---

In Ethan’s point of view....

Ethan stood in a hallway.

Endless.

Every door he passed opened to a different version of reality.

In one, he was still a simple guard in the Grey family, following his father’s exact footsteps.

In another, he was a general of an empire, older, colder.

One showed him killing Kaelen.

One showed him marrying Lila.

Every path. Every version of him.

"Choose," whispered the walls. "Pick the life you want. Stay in the comfort. Give up the pain of knowing that you will forever be mediocre."

The floor beneath him turned to water—no, to liquid mana, his own affinity—and pulled at him like a seductive hand.

He looked into one door.

It showed his mother and sister... alive.

Waiting for him.

His heart nearly broke.

Tears welled.

"I want this..."

But then he saw something else.

A memory. Not an illusion.

Of Kaelen giving him half his food when they first met back at the lounge in Pacesetters Academy.

Of Morris dragging him out of a burning forest while they were small kids.

Of Guinevere patching his wounds with grumbling affection.

Of Lila calling him "brother."

"I already have my life," he said.

And with that, he closed his eyes and leapt into the water.

The hallway screamed—and collapsed.

---

The Circle of Resonance began to glow violently as the black mist swirling around it snapped back like rubber bands being broken.

Naena stepped back, surprised.

Guinevere stood up in alarm.

Morris’ eyes widened.

The Circle erupted.

And from it, emerged three figures—Kaelen, Kelvin, and Ethan—their breathing heavy, their expressions grim, yet... victorious.

Their aura had changed yet again.

Sharper.

Lighter.

Heavier.

All at once.

Kaelen’s eyes shimmered faintly with silver and light blue.

Kelvin’s pulse radiated a quiet storm.

Ethan’s mana mist curled with new unpredictability—his domain deepened.

Naena gave a subtle nod.

"You passed."

But none of them smiled.

They knew what they had seen.

And what they had survived.

––––––

The winds of Deadroot Forest blew with unnatural urgency. Even the now present mana that normally hung in the air like a second skin began to shiver as though sensing what was to come.

In the Hollow, tension rippled like a second heartbeat.

Naena had just returned from overseeing the completion of the previous trial. Her robes were still fluttering, her qi slightly exhausted, when a Nullcarver scout came sprinting down the mossy incline, panic written all over his face.

"Elder Naena!" he cried out. "An army—! A large force of Elves approaches the Hollow! They’re just a few valleys away!"

The entire Hollow went still.

Every Nullcarver halted.

Kaelen, Kelvin, Ethan, Guinevere, Morris, and the others turned with wide eyes.

"Elves?" Guinevere asked, rising to her feet with an instinctive flare of Inferno.

"Did they find out about Lila?" Ethan murmured sharply.

Naena’s face darkened. "No. It’s too soon. It shouldn’t be possible."

"Unless they sensed her awakening," Morris added, standing beside Guinevere. "Her Seer bloodline might have triggered something across the ancient networks."

Kaelen’s jaw clenched. His mind instantly jumped to one place:

Lila.

Wherever she had gone, whatever she was doing—it had to be connected. And if the Elves were marching, they weren’t here to negotiate.

Naena closed her eyes, thinking rapidly. "We may have to abandon this place. Or prepare for bloodshed."

"No." A firm voice cut through the planning.

It was Kaelen, stepping forward, fists clenched, eyes burning with absolute resolve.

"Let me and Kelvin take on the final path. Right now."

Everyone turned to him, stunned.

"Kaelen," Naena snapped. "This is not the time for bravado. The Path of Heaven’s Pulse is not just a trial—it’s a transcendental storm. You could lose your body, your identity, or worse—"

"—I know," Kaelen interrupted gently. "But if I don’t complete it now, I won’t be ready for what’s to come. For what’s coming for Lila. And if the Elves are this close... then time has already run out."

Kelvin moved up beside him without a word.

"We’re in this together," he said. "And I won’t sit back while Kaelen shoulders the storm alone."

Naena stared at them both.

Silence stretched.

Then she sighed deeply. "Very well... But understand—this trial is not like the others. The Path of Heaven’s Pulse does not test your past or your pain. It tests your balance with all things. Spirit, mind, body... and fate. If you stumble... there will be no echo to pull you back."

Kaelen nodded once.

Kelvin simply cracked his knuckles and took a deep breath.

Naena lifted her hand. A deep resonance stone, long dormant at the base of the central Circle of Resonance, began to glow.

The statue representing Heaven’s Pulse—shaped like a figure holding both sun and moon in each hand, with galaxies twirling at its feet—began to hum.

The entire Hollow rumbled.

Even the sky shifted.

And then the two young warriors stepped into the circle.

---

Silence.

Kaelen and Kelvin were no longer side by side.

They were nowhere.

They were everywhere.

Kaelen found himself in an ocean of stars, his body floating between shimmering celestial bodies. Yet, he felt solid. Anchored. The waves of space pulsed with his heartbeat. He was both part of them—and separate.

From below, reflections of his life flickered in stardust:

A five-year-old Kaelen laughing with his parents.

Kaelen screaming as they died.

Kaelen bleeding in the academy arena.

Kaelen choosing to protect, to fight, to survive.

All these versions whispered to him.

"Who are you now?"

He turned.

The reflection had become another Kaelen—this one dressed in armor of voidsteel, his eyes void of warmth.

"You carry vengeance. Love. Responsibility. Chaos. Hope. But you deny your own balance," the reflection said, raising its blade. "You were never meant to carry the world."

Kaelen’s eyes narrowed.

"I carry it... because no one else will."

Their swords clashed—steel meeting starlight.

---

Kelvin, meanwhile, was suspended in a massive eye of a cosmic storm. Winds of gold and black clashed violently, lightning of red Qi crackling between the maelstrom.

In the center floated three versions of himself:

The monster his father accused him of being.

The broken child who wanted nothing but a sister.

The warrior who was seeking revenge.

"Who are you?" they asked in unison.

Kelvin’s body flickered—shifting forms—bleeding in and out of each version. The storm pressed inward.

"Balance is not choosing one," a whisper came. "Balance is knowing you are all of them, and none."

Kelvin roared—and unleashed his storm.

He embraced all versions.

---

Kaelen stood face to face with the final echo.

A version of himself glowing with both golden Qi and liquid mana—eyes burning with the same blue fire as the Blade of Eternity.

"Accept me," the echo whispered. "Or remain half of what you could become."

Kaelen gritted his teeth, heart pounding.

Then he reached out—fingers trembling—and touched the hand of his celestial mirror.

The heavens exploded.

---

The Hollow quaked.

The Circle of Resonance lit up like a second sun.

Every Nullcarver turned toward it in awe and disbelief.

Guinevere took an instinctive step back.

"What in the world...?"

Then came the sound.

The Pulse.

Not of one man. Not of two.

But of unity. Of complete equilibrium.

And then—they emerged.

Kaelen and Kelvin, side by side, their eyes glowing with divine calm and celestial power. Not prideful. Not broken.

Balanced.

Naena’s hand trembled as she whispered, "They’ve... harmonized with the Pulse of Aetheris itself... They..... are now.... Juggernauts after a century of going extinct"

Then—

A second scout came running into the Hollow.

"The Elves... are here."

The next breath everyone took felt like the last one before battle.

Kaelen looked to the horizon.

His voice was steady.

"Now... I go to her."