CHAPTER 492: MEMORIES (4)

Lindarion straightened slowly, the realization sinking in like frost. "The seal wasn’t just external. They used their own blood... their own lineage... to anchor it."

Nysha turned to him sharply. "Then you—"

"—are one of the anchors," he finished. "That’s why he knows me. Why he feels me."

The air around them dimmed again. The vision faded, leaving only the faint afterimage of the chained god in the distance.

Ashwing exhaled shakily. "So that’s the truth of your blood, huh? A king’s curse dressed as divinity."

Lindarion’s gaze remained fixed on the horizon. "Not a curse. A responsibility."

He turned, and as he did, the Depth itself began to tremble again, not in violence, but in recognition. The seals that once bound the memory shimmered faintly, acknowledging his presence.

For the first time, he understood the weight of his lineage, not as a gift, but as a promise made at the dawn of all things.

A promise that was running out of time.

The Depth screamed.

Not with sound, but with memory, every wall, every vein of mana pulsing as if the very fabric of the realm rebelled against its own remembrance.

Lindarion staggered forward, clutching his chest as the echoes of the First Sealing tore through him. His veins glowed gold and black, every pulse burning with ancient power.

Ashwing darted around him in panic. "Lindarion! The realm’s destabilizing, we need to move!"

But Lindarion didn’t answer. His eyes were wide, fixed on the fading shape at the far end of the vault, where the vision of Dythrael’s imprisonment had burned itself into stone.

The space shimmered. The light bent.

And then, a voice cut through the silence.

Low. Measured. Terrifyingly calm.

"You carry her seal."

Lindarion froze. The voice wasn’t coming from any direction—it was inside him, threaded through every fiber of his mana.

Ashwing hissed, spinning. "No. No no no, he’s supposed to be sealed. This can’t be—"

"Sealed, yes. Forgotten, never."

The air before them darkened. The shadows thickened into liquid night, swirling upward into the outline of a figure. Not the god himself, not fully, but a fragment, an echo carved from memory and fury.

The air chilled.

Stone cracked.

And where the reflection solidified, the echo of Dythrael stood.

He was smaller now, less than a man, more than a spirit, woven from molten gold and bleeding light. The outline of his wings flickered, unstable, like a memory replaying too often. His eyes burned like dying suns.

"Aelirien’s bloodline endures. And with it, the chain that binds me."

Lindarion’s jaw clenched. "If you’re only an echo, then you can’t harm us."

The echo’s lips curved faintly. "Can’t? Oh, little prince... you misunderstand the nature of chains. They do not only bind the prisoner, they bind the warden as well."

A shockwave rippled through the chamber. The silver veins in the walls turned black, and the world tilted.

Lindarion’s feet slid across the floor as gravity itself twisted.

Nysha threw up a barrier, her crimson mana flaring like a shield of glass. "He’s altering the mana field, he’s using your connection to fuel it!"

Ashwing bared his teeth. "We’re not gonna win against a god’s memory, Lindarion, get us out!"

But Lindarion’s focus didn’t break. His mind burned, every fragment of training, every memory of control clashing against the divine storm trying to unravel him.

[System Integrity: 43%]

[Foreign Presence: Invasive.]

[Containment Protocol: Failure Imminent.]

Dythrael’s echo raised his hand. Golden veins of energy laced the air like cracks in glass. His tone, though gentle, struck like thunder.

"Tell me, heir of the Tree. Do you know what they truly chained me for?"

Lindarion’s blade gleamed with dark light. "For what you destroyed."

A pause. Then soft laughter.

"No. For what I refused to destroy."

The words hit him like a blow.

"They called me flame, ruin, end. Yet I was the first to deny the will of the Flame that made me. The others obeyed. I refused. So they sealed me. Not for wrath—but for choice."

The shadow stepped closer, each movement displacing the air with impossible weight.

"You, too, carry that defiance. The same fracture in your soul. You think your ’control’ shields you. It only feeds the hunger that sleeps beneath."

Lindarion’s hands trembled. Golden light cracked across his skin, his mana core roaring in protest.

[Warning: Synchronization Spike — Ancestral Resonance Detected.]

[Mana Overload: 87%.]

Ashwing’s voice echoed through the chaos, frantic. "Lindarion, listen to me! It’s trying to fuse with you, he’s trying to overwrite your core!"

The echo’s gaze softened.

"No. Not overwrite. Remember."

In an instant, the world inverted.

Lindarion’s vision split apart, one half still in the vault, the other drowning in light. He saw memories not his own: Aelirien weeping over the broken earth; the ancient himself standing defiant before gods of fire and wind; chains coiling around his wings as he whispered a single word, mercy.

Then came the pain.

The echo’s hand pressed against Lindarion’s chest.

"See, little heir," Dythrael murmured. "We are not opposites. We are continuation."

Lindarion’s core screamed. His golden aura flared into black flame, his hair whipping in a wind that didn’t exist. For a moment, his reflection, tall, radiant, crowned in dusk, appeared behind him, overlapping perfectly with the echo of the fallen god.

Nysha screamed his name. "LINDARION!"

Her mana struck like lightning, shattering the link. The echo staggered, light spilling from his body like molten glass.

"Ah. The crimson witch of Sylvarion. You bear her echo as well."

Nysha gritted her teeth. "You’ll find I’m not as easy to bind."

The god’s gaze lingered on her, then turned back to Lindarion.

"The seal weakens because you live. Every step you take toward the south brings me closer to waking. Do not seek the prison, prince. You will only find a mirror."

The echo’s form began to fragment, dissolving into streaks of light that wove themselves back into the walls. But as it vanished, its voice lingered, soft, intimate, terrible.

"When you meet me again, ask yourself one thing... Whose flame do you bear?"

Then the Depth shattered.

The chamber collapsed into gold dust, the walls folding in on themselves like paper. A surge of force hurled them upward, through stone, through light, through centuries, and the next moment, they burst out of the cavern, gasping beneath the twilight sky.

Ashwing spun midair, disoriented. "We—what—how are we—"

Lindarion fell to one knee, clutching his chest. His veins still glowed faintly, his blood humming with the resonance of something vast and ancient.

Nysha landed beside him, steadying his shoulder. Her voice was quieter now. "He touched you."

Lindarion nodded slowly, his expression unreadable. "Not my body. My memory."

Ashwing hovered uneasily. "What the hell does that even mean?"

Lindarion stared into the darkening sky. Somewhere far to the south, beyond mountains and rivers, beyond the reach of light, he could feel a heartbeat. Slow. Eternal. Answering his own.