ECHOBURN

Aoto opened his eyes slowly, blinking through grit. He lay on hard ground — not stone, not dirt, but something in between. Cracked. Warm. The color of dried blood. Strange grasses grew nearby, purple and sharp, swaying against a wind he couldn't hear.

He sat up. The sky above was wrong.

It wasn't just that there were two suns — one white, one red — but that the sky itself flickered, like it was struggling to keep reality together. Thin fractures spiderwebbed across the clouds, and the moons were too low, too close, too still.

Aoto rubbed his eyes.

His body ached. The air was heavier than anything he'd breathed before. Each inhale tasted like ash and old metal.

[TRIAL ECHO – CYCLE 1 / 96 HOURS REMAINING]

Respawns: 0Pain Retention: 0%Sanity Index: 99%

Tip: Run from anything you can name. Bow to what you cannot.

He stood. His clothes had changed again — lightweight, survival-ready: black canvas pants, a thermal shirt, a blade strapped to his thigh. Not his. None of it was. Everything here had been chosen for him, probably by something that didn't expect him to live long.

Around him, the land stretched wide — endless cliffs, shattered valleys, rivers of mist. Trees the size of towers. Shadows that moved wrong.

And silence. So much silence.

Then it broke.

A low tremor rolled through the ground.

Aoto froze.

Distant — far, far off in the horizon — something moved.

No, not moved. Ran.

It was a shape, massive and luminous, striped like fire. It tore across the earth with impossible speed, each step melting the terrain beneath it. Its paws crushed mountains into dust. Forests caught flame in its wake.

Aoto fell to one knee. His eyes burned just trying to watch it.

The System chimed.

[ENTITY SIGHTED: CLASS = UNDEFINED]Error: Cannot categorize.Threat Level: ∞Resulting Class (if slain): [UNBOUND]

⚠️ Warning: Prolonged exposure may lead to neurological collapse.

He whispered, voice hoarse, "What is that…?"

As if in response, the entity turned its head for a moment. A striped, searing shape. No eyes. Just a suggestion of a face made of heat and mass and hunger.

It didn't roar. It didn't slow down.

It simply vanished — gone in a blink, leaving behind only glassed earth and a deep silence that throbbed like a wound.

Aoto collapsed backward, breathing hard.

He wasn't supposed to see things like that.

He wasn't supposed to even know something like that could exist.

And yet, the System couldn't name it.

The System feared it.

"Mogrel…" he whispered, though he didn't know where the name came from.

Treader of Suns.

[Personal Note Logged]"If even the System can't define it... maybe that's exactly what I should become."

The sun overhead flickered — shifting from gold to violet.

The wind returned.

And far off, in another part of the world, a second tremor began to rise.

Aoto stood. Weak. Tired. Alone.

But alive.

[TRIAL ECHO – CYCLE 1 / 84 HOURS REMAINING]

Closest Safe Point: 11 kmWeather Shift in: 3 hoursKnown Entities Nearby: 2Sanity Index: 98%

Objective: Survive. Observe. Choose your final enemy wisely.