The grinding.

  Once heard, it couldn't be ignored. It hovered beneath the hum of Aion's cave, beneath the hiss of wind over the glassy sand, beneath the sound of the group's own frightened breathing. It was the fundamental sound of the System moving in its deepest core, the slow, inexorable awakening of something made to impose the end. The Supreme Executor. No longer a future threat, a countdown. But a presence. A deep, rising note in the world's song.

  They emerged from Aion's cave into the blinding light of the Blind Desert, but the elder's revelation cast a shadow deeper than any rock formation. They stopped there, a few meters from the resonant entrance, the weight of the news settling upon them like the omnipresent sand itself.

  "Awakened," Kael repeated, his voice low, disbelieving. Years serving the System as a priest, hearing whispers of the Executor as an apocalyptic legend, a last resort tool never to be used. And now... "Did the Throne lose control? Or... did they release it intentionally because of us?"

  "Does it matter?" Nox retorted, pragmatic as ever, checking the condition of his longsword. His gray eyes scanned the desolate horizon, searching for immediate threats. "Dormant or awake, it was a death sentence waiting to be signed. They just sped up the process."

  "The Sentinel in Aemorr spoke of disconnection," Andrel reminded them, rubbing his temples as if trying to organize his own fragmented thoughts. "Breaking faith, name, mirror. And mentioned the Three Echoes. They must be the key. The Living Map... we need to find it. Aion, does he know where...?"

  Before they could turn to the elder, who remained quiet at the cave entrance like a statue covered in the dust of time, his blind head slightly tilted, he spoke, his fragile voice cutting through the tension.

  "The map is not a scroll, fragmented child. It is a song. Echoes of places where the System never fully managed to impose its rhythm. Scars on the forced harmony." He seemed to 'look' towards Lysa. "And the Echoes... ah, the Echoes are not what. They are who. Or were. Or may be again. Reflections of the First Music, before the Staff was written."

  Lysa felt a shiver. Reflections of the Root that was never planted, the Sentinel had said. Beings not written, but emerged between codes.

  "Where do we find them? How do we hear this map-song?" she asked, taking a step towards Aion.

  The elder opened his mouth to answer, but his face suddenly contorted. His head turned sharply eastward, skin pulled taut over thin bones, the expression of serenity replaced by... alert. The chimes and crystals around the cave entrance vibrated with a new dissonant note, sharp, aggressive.

  "Another sound," Aion whispered, his voice tense. "Loud. Structured. A song of steel and blind order. Fast. Very fast."

  Nox was already moving, climbing a nearby rock, trained eyes scanning the glassy plain. "Dust. A rider. Coming like a storm. System sigil visible even from here. Heavy armor... black. He's not riding a common beast. It's... adapted. Too fast for this terrain."

  Kael paled. "Thorne Varkas."

  The name hung in the air, heavy as an anvil. The System Executor. The relentless hunter who had nearly destroyed them before. Value 92. Authorized for Total Suppression.

  "He tracked us," Andrel said, trying to activate defensive seals, but his hands trembled. "The battle against the Circle... must have left too strong a signature."

  "It doesn't matter how," Aion interrupted, his voice calm again, but with frightening finality. He stepped out of the cave, placing himself between the group and the approaching threat. "What matters is he cannot reach you. Not now. Not with the Executor awakening."

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  "We'll fight with you!" Kael declared, drawing Trafal. Rukk stepped forward, protectively beside Selene, a low growl vibrating in its chest.

  "No," Aion said firmly. "This song is mine. A listener's time is measured by the echoes he perceives. I heard the beginning, I heard the middle... and now I hear the final note approaching. It is my measure. You... you are the dissonance that must continue. The unexpected pause in the melody of the end."

  He turned to Lysa, his blind face seeming to stare deep into her. "Child of Root and Rupture... you carry two songs. Don't let one silence the other. Balance lies in the tension between them." He held out a bony, fragile hand. In the palm lay a small dark crystal, polished by the sands of time, emitting the same low hum that had guided them there. "Take this. It is a tuning fork. When the Executor's song grows too loud, perhaps it will help you find your own note. Or that of the Echoes."

  Lysa hesitated, but took the crystal. It was cold to the touch, yet vibrated with ancient energy.

  "Flee," Aion ordered. "South. Follow the flaws in the Code only the deep desert knows. He cannot follow me there. His song is too loud for the silent paths. Go! Now!"

  Nox grabbed Lysa's arm. "He's right. We can't fight Varkas now. Not here. Not after everything. Let's go!"

  With visible reluctance, Kael sheathed his sword. Selene pulled Rukk back. Andrel cast a final look at Aion, a mixture of respect and despair.

  As they began running south, plunging back into the blinding vastness of the Blind Desert, Lysa looked back one last time.

  She saw Thorne Varkas arrive. The figure was even more imposing than she remembered. The black armor seemed to absorb light itself, and the Value 92 pulsed above him like a cold sun. He dismounted from his adapted mechanical steed, a construct of metal and code that snorted vapor, and faced Aion. Thorne's longsword, with its pure crystal core, was already in his hand, vibrating with contained power.

  "Elder of the Sands," Thorne's voice echoed across the desert, amplified by the System. "Stand aside. My hunt is not for you. Surrender the Anomaly Lysa, and perhaps the System will forget your marginal existence."

  Aion remained motionless, a fragile twig against a wall of steel. He smiled, a smile that was pure sand and time.

  "Existence, Executor, is not something the System grants or forgets," Aion replied, his voice surprisingly clear, resonating with the cave crystals behind him. "It simply is. And her song..." he tilted his head towards where Lysa fled, "...is only beginning. Yours, however, seems to have few notes. Repetitive. Loud. But without depth."

  Thorne didn't answer with words. He raised his sword. The tip glowed with concentrated energy.

  Aion raised his thin hands.

  The objects around the cave — the bone chimes, tuned crystals, twisted metals — began vibrating intensely. The glassy sand on the ground rose in complex, sonorous patterns. Aion was using the desert itself, the very flaws in the Code, as his instrument.

  He didn't create physical barriers, but waves of pure sound, vibrations that distorted perception, attacking the structure of Thorne's Code in a way brute force couldn't reach. They were songs of forgetting, echoes of silence, notes that undid logic.

  Thorne advanced, cutting through the sound waves with his sword, System energy repelling part of the unconventional attack. But he was being hampered. Annoyed. This blind old man didn't fight like anything he'd ever faced. No Value to measure, no code to hack. Just... sound. And silence.

  The group ran. The sound of the fight faded behind them, but the tension was almost unbearable. Lysa clutched Aion's tuning fork, feeling the vibrations of that impossible confrontation. Andrel tried to catch echoes of the fight through the Code, his face contorted with effort.

  Then, it came.

  A peak of sonic energy that made even the sand beneath their feet vibrate violently. A musical scream, ancient and defiant, that seemed to pierce the sky. Followed by a shockwave of pure Systemic force, an explosion of bluish light visible even at a distance against the blinding horizon.

  And then...

  Silence.

  The Executor's grinding was still there, in the background of perception. But Aion's song had stopped. The hum that had guided them, filled the cave, defined the Whispering Renegade... had vanished.

  They stopped, panting, instinctively turning towards where they came from. There was nothing left to see but the glassy plain and dancing mirages.

  "He... he's gone," Kael whispered.

  Nox just cursed quietly, clenching his fists. "That crazy old man... He really did it. Bought our time with his own final note."

  The tuning fork in Lysa's hand seemed to weigh a ton. Aion was gone. Thorne Varkas was out there, hunting them. The Supreme Executor was awakening. And they were lost in the heart of a desert they didn't understand, mapless, guideless, with only a silent crystal and the growing shadow of the end.

  "Keep moving," she said, her voice firmer than she felt. "Aion gave us a chance. We won't waste it. South. We'll find the flaws. We'll find the Echoes. Or die trying to make the System pay for the silence it imposes."