Khal’s fingers trembled as the last glow from the relic faded into his chest.

  It didn’t hurt. But it didn’t feel like anything natural either.

  More like being noticed.

  Not by a person.

  By something older.

  Ash paced in a slow circle, growling low—his instincts a step ahead as always. Lira watched Khal from a short distance, arms crossed but tense.

  "You're not going to explode, are you?" she asked. Only half-joking.

  "I don't think so," Khal muttered. “At least not immediately.”

  System Notification:

  Trait Branch Initialized: “Pulse Echo” [Status: Unstable Integration]

  Core Attributes:

  – Sensory Thread: Temporarily perceive weak vibrations within a 20-meter radius

  – Echo Reflex: Briefly anticipate movements 5 seconds before they occur (Cooldown: 3 minutes)

  – Strain Meter: Using Echo abilities will generate instability. Current: 12%

  Note: Instability above 70% may result in forced system intervention.

  Caution: This branch is not native to the current system architecture. External origin confirmed.

  That line stopped him cold.

  Not native?

  External origin?

  “What the hell was that relic?” Khal whispered.

  Lira didn’t reply. She was reading the same system prompt through her linked interface.

  “…Your system is starting to speak like it’s nervous,” she finally said.

  Khal sat down on a flat stone, rubbing his temples. “Yeah. That’s not comforting.”

  He tried testing it—just a little.

  Closing his eyes, Khal focused on the Sensory Thread. The world didn’t become louder, exactly—it became deeper.

  Faint vibrations in the air. Shifting tremors in the earth. Lira’s heartbeat. Ash’s soft padding.

  And something… out there.

  Too far to see. Close enough to listen.

  He pulled back with a sharp breath, head swimming.

  System Alert:

  Pulse Echo Activity Detected

  Monitoring Entities: [3 Unknown - Passive State]

  Elevation of Risk: LOW → MODERATE

  Suggest: Avoid Prolonged Use Until System Sync Improves

  He stood up, swallowing the unease.

  “They’re watching now,” Khal said quietly.

  Lira's brows pinched. “They?”

  “I don’t know. But the system does. And it doesn’t like it.”

  Far above, cloaked in the canopy where fog met leaf, something moved—unseen, unspeaking.

  Not alive. Not dead.

  It listened.

  And it wasn’t the only one.

  Meanwhile, deep in the Hidden Spire where system fragments were kept under lock and rite, a bell rang.

  A silent, shimmering ripple of gold light passed across an old mirror.

  A woman stirred from her chair, golden chains wrapped around her limbs like jewelry and prison both.

  She opened one eye.

  “…The Pulse Engine sings again.”

  Back at the chamber's edge, Khal hesitated.

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  "How am I supposed to use something that draws attention like this?" he asked, eyes narrowing.

  Lira tilted her head. “Maybe you're not supposed to. Maybe that’s the point. It’s a door.”

  “A door to what?”

  She shrugged. “Ask your heart.”

  “…That’s not helpful.”

  “You’re the one with the dramatic trait name.”

  They camped just outside the chamber, where roots broke through stone and stars peeked between gaps in the overhanging cliffs.

  Khal didn’t sleep much.

  When he did, the system whispered.

  System Subprocess Engaged: Dreamwalk Mode

  Stability Threshold: Holding at 42%

  Projected Path: Adaptive Mutation Detected in Trait Branch ‘Pulse Echo’

  Hypothetical Evolution Paths Available:

  – [Pulse Echo → Resonant Vision]

  – [Pulse Echo → Tactical Dissonance]

  – [Pulse Echo → Echo Flare: Sacrifice Variant]

  Warning: External Observers Detected – Scrambling Signal Integrity

  Khal woke in a sweat.

  Lira looked over from her side of the fire. “Another system dream?”

  He nodded.

  Then paused.

  “Do you think… the system isn’t just reacting to me, but learning from me?”

  She blinked. Then smiled faintly. “That’s how evolution works, right?”

  “…That’s terrifying.”

  Above them, far beyond the trees, three cloaked figures paused near a shrine long lost to maps.

  One carried a scroll made of bone.

  One bore no shadow.

  And one had Khal’s name carved into a dagger made of crystalized time.

  The night was quiet—too quiet. Even Ash, who usually snored after ten minutes of curling beside Khal, was awake and still. His dark eyes stared into the darkness of the trees, hackles occasionally rising as if catching a scent no one else could.

  Khal chewed on a dry root crisp, the only rations they had left from the traveling merchant. “I don’t think it’s the monsters I’m scared of anymore.”

  Lira glanced at him from where she was carving a charm into a bone pendant. “You’ve met monsters, Khal. You just didn’t know it yet.”

  He blinked. “That’s not vague and ominous at all.”

  She smiled. “It’s supposed to be.”

  Khal stood and stretched, trying to ignore the dull throb behind his eyes. The Pulse Echo trait was still settling, but it felt alive—not just functional. He couldn’t shake the feeling it was whispering, humming to something. Somewhere.

  Maybe not to me.

  Maybe through me.

  He opened the system interface again.

  System Notice: Pulse Echo Interface Stabilizing…

  Active Trait: Sensory Thread

  Calibration: 38% → 45%

  Subfunction "Resonant Trail" [LOCKED]

  Projected Unlock Condition: “Witness the shatter of false silence.”

  “What does that even mean…?” he muttered.

  Suddenly, the wind shifted. A gust carried with it not just leaves and chill—but sound.

  Low. Subtle.

  A heartbeat.

  But not his.

  He knelt, instinctively activating Sensory Thread again.

  The world lit up in pulses.

  Boom.

  A rockslide, slow-moving far to the east.

  Boom.

  Animal footsteps—deer maybe, to the north.

  Boom.

  …three human strides… circling.

  His pulse spiked.

  “Lira,” he hissed.

  She didn’t need a second word. Her knife was in hand, her stance changing instantly.

  “I feel it too,” she said. “Not hostile yet. But…”

  “But watching.”

  They moved quickly, packing their few supplies and heading deeper into the ridge forest. The shadows there were thicker—but so was the cover.

  As they passed beneath an ancient arch of twisted branches, Khal’s system chimed again.

  System Alert:

  Adverse Presence Proximity: 22 Meters – Obfuscation Field Detected

  Countermeasure Suggestion: Trait “Pulse Echo” unstable—using now may trigger detection.

  Override Option: [Y/N]?

  He hesitated.

  Then… Y.

  The world shifted.

  Everything turned clearer and worse all at once.

  From the trees, a shape peeled away—not stepping forward, just suddenly there.

  Tall. Cloaked. Featureless.

  Its form shimmered like heat on stone.

  But Khal could hear it.

  No, not just hear it—

  He could feel what it was hiding.

  System Alert:

  Pulse Echo Extension: Personality Veil Detected

  Parsing External Data Signature…

  Match: Unknown [Designated Placeholder: “Specter-Class Observer”]

  Status: Passive. Surveillance Role Confirmed. Recording Behavioral Trends.

  Additional Notes: Connected to Entity: MIREK.

  Khal’s stomach dropped.

  So it begins.

  It hadn’t attacked. It hadn’t spoken. It simply existed there—like a question.

  And worse, it turned slowly, as if seeing into him… then vanished.

  No puff of smoke. No light.

  Just—gone.

  Lira exhaled shakily. “That… was real?”

  “I think so.”

  “…That wasn’t a monster,” she said.

  “No. That was a message.”

  They walked for hours after, the forest eventually opening into an elevated clearing where mist curled like smoke over still ponds. There, they rested.

  But Khal couldn’t sleep.

  Instead, he meditated on the system. On the trait. On what it meant that something connected to Mirek had just tagged him.

  System Sub-Process Activated: Adaptive Node Growth

  New Insight Available: Pulse Echo – Mutation Potential Increased

  Warning: External Compression Detected – Evolution Timeline Unstable

  Tip: Users exposed to “Observer-Class” entities may experience forced growth scenarios.

  Forced growth.

  That was a nice way of saying fight or die.

  He didn’t tell Lira that last part.

  But he noticed that she hadn’t fallen asleep either.

  Ash finally let out a soft grunt and sprawled across Khal’s lap, grounding him in a moment of rare stillness.

  “You know,” Khal muttered to the dog, “I miss when the weirdest thing about my day was nearly dying to angry raccoons.”

  Ash blinked slowly. Then let out a wheezing snore.

  Khal chuckled softly. It was a thin thread of humor in a tightening noose, but he clung to it all the same.

  Because tomorrow… he would need to be better.

  Stronger.

  Or at least less breakable.

  And for now, he had just enough peace to start preparing.