The world returns to me in agonizing, fragmented pieces.
First comes the dull, throbbing ache buried deep in my bones. Then, a taste of dried blood coats my tongue. I blink, trying to clear the grit from my eyes.
The oppressive penumbra of the monumental hall is gone.
It has been replaced by long, dusty shafts of golden light pouring in through massive cathedral windows near the vaulted ceiling—seems like some kind of automated activation mechanism triggered when the boss died.
Two golden notifications pulse persistently in the corner of my vision.
[Two pending notifications. Read now?]
I ignore the prompt, letting the HUD fade.
I realize I am not lying on the cold concrete. My head is resting on something soft.
I slowly tilt my chin up and find myself looking directly at Rhayne.
She is looking down at me, and the absolute second I open my eyes, a relieved, genuine smile breaks across her pale face. The storm-cloud gray of her eyes has returned, the abyssal blackness of her Void state completely gone.
My mind is sluggish, struggling to stitch the missing pieces together, but the memory of her, like a dark angel wrapping me in a sphere of dark energy, flashes through my mind.
She saved me.
Rhayne reads the confusion written all over my battered face.
"I drained all your excess OXI," she whispers softly. "In that state... I can see the OXI lines of the entire world. You looked like a bomb about to explode."
Ah… So that's what happened. She mitigated the catastrophic overdrive damage.
"Thank you," I whisper, my voice sounding like grinding gravel.
I don't linger. I immediately push myself up, rolling off her lap and forcing my aching body into a rigid, tactical posture.
I wince, but suppress the groan.
"Is everyone okay?" I ask aloud, scanning the room.
Oliver lets out a loud, booming laugh from a few feet away. He is sitting on a piece of rubble, wrapping a bandage around his forearm.
"We should be asking you that question, kid," Oliver chuckles, shaking his head in disbelief. "You looked like a ghost sprinting away from the gates of hell out there."
I offer a dry, cynical smirk, rolling my stiff shoulders.
"They'd need to rip off both my arms and crush my heart to put me down."
Leaving the contextless joke hanging in the dusty air, I look around. "How long was I out?"
"No more than forty minutes," Oliver replies, his smile fading into a look of genuine concern. "But seeing you bleeding from every single hole in your head, I honestly thought you were going to be unconscious for days."
He gestures with his chin toward the center of the room. "By the way, it seems like you're the only one who can touch the loot first."
Only Forty minutes?
But the second part of his sentence catches my attention. A soulbound loot drop? From a zone boss? That is incredibly rare.
I survey the hall.
The massive iron exit door at the far end is completely open, revealing a bright, upward-sloping tunnel. The cadet with the shattered jaw and Oliver's other two cowardly companions are huddled near the threshold. They must have slipped through the turnstile and joined the group the second the Gatekeeper was destroyed and the lockdown lifted.
No casualties. Miraculous, considering the sheer chaos.
I turn my head, looking for the most volatile member of my squad.
I spot Lola crouched near the smoking, metallic wreckage of the Gatekeeper's throne.
She is safe.
With the perimeter secured and the squad breathing, I finally allow myself to check the Ocean's Law system messages waiting in my queue.
[You defeated the Abyssal Gatekeeper Firewall (A)]
[You received a sufficient amount of experience to rank up]
[Time for loot collection: 00:21:31]
I open the second notification.
[CONGRATULATIONS, YOU EVOLVED TO RANK-E]
[STATUS]Name: Dryden Sands
Rank: E (Shallow) — ★★☆☆☆
Class: Drifter - Order [SSS]
Class Type: Unique
OXI: 1,174 / 1,600
[ATTRIBUTES]
Strength: E (1★)
Agility: E (1★)
Vitality: E (1★)
Spirit: E (1★)
Wisdom: B (3★) [Retained from Memory]
Reward: 1 Shard.
Rank E. Every attribute reset to base. All those D-rank stats I nearly died for—gone, compressed into the foundation of a new Shallow rank.
The System gives with one hand and takes with the other.
I dismiss the glowing windows and walk over to Lola.
As I approach the wreckage, she looks up from the scrap metal.
"Thank you," she says softly.
I don't say anything. I just reach out, gently pat her on the head right between her bear ears, and pull my hand back—a silent 'you're welcome.'
Lola tilts her head, a cute bear band-aid on her cheek, her large blue eyes studying my face.
"They said you weren't leaking this time. They said you were pouring. I missed Uncle Dryden pouring..."
She sticks out her bottom lip in a dramatic pout.
I decide it's tactically safer to not unpack that sentence. Ever.
I point to the wreckage. "What are you looking at?"
Lola points a small finger toward the glowing pile of boss loot scattered among the twisted gears. She found something that immediately caught her eye.
"Look, Uncle," she murmurs, her tone shifting to genuine confusion. "This was a monster, right? Why is this here? I didn't tell anyone else, because it says it belongs to you."
This is rare... Lola usually doesn't speak that much.
I follow her finger.
Resting in the center of a small pile of blue Shards and high-tier mechanical crafting materials is something that shouldn't exist.
My breath catches in my throat. Every survival instinct I possess screams at me, forcing me to take a physical step backward.
An Echo Fragment.
But it isn't the translucent, shimmering blue of a fallen Diver. It is jagged, pitch-black, and visibly corrupted, leaking a faint, sickly magenta smoke.
A cold sweat breaks out on the back of my neck.
How is this possible?
Monsters don't drop Echoes.
Echoes are the residual souls of humans.