Chapter 40 – Echoes of the Reaper
The moment the Reaper entered, the temperature dropped.
Time felt fractured. The air warped. Lights dimmed as if the creature fed on energy itself.
Rayven stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Cipher, his dagger pulsing with silver fire, her Echo veins glowing blue like lightning caught beneath her skin. Neither moved. Neither blinked.
The Reaper was humanoid in silhouette, but its presence distorted space—its edges flickered, unfixed, like it existed across dimensions at once. Its face was a blank porcelain mask with vertical black lines carved from forehead to chin, like a priest's death-mask.
Then it spoke. A voice that was not a voice.
"Flameborn. The cycle ends with you."
And it attacked.
It didn't move—it folded space.
One second it stood across the room, the next, it was in front of them.
Rayven barely blocked the first blow. His dagger clashed with a limb that wasn't quite an arm—more like a blade formed from memory and malice. Sparks flew. He was hurled across the cathedral, slamming into a column with bone-cracking force.
Cipher struck next.
She vanished mid-motion—flickering out of reality using Sigilwalking—and reappeared behind the Reaper, driving her energy blade toward its spine. It phased halfway through, and then—like a virus—it inverted the energy, sending her flying.
Rayven staggered to his feet.
"This isn't a normal Reaper," he muttered, wiping blood from his mouth. "It's adapted to Echo interference."
"It's not Echo-bound," Cipher growled. "It's Source-fed. A pureborn Relic Hunter. I thought they were extinct."
Rayven grinned, adrenaline burning away his fear. "Then we just made history."
The Reaper turned toward him, lifting one long hand. A rune lit up in its palm—a perfect circle with three slashes through it.
The Tri-Heir Sigil.
Rayven froze.
"How the hell does it know—"
FWASH!
A beam of inverted energy lanced from the Reaper's palm, warping the space between them. Rayven dove, but the beam grazed his shoulder. Pain unlike anything he'd known tore through his body. His Echo flared wildly, nearly shorting.
He screamed.
Cipher caught him before he hit the ground, her own circuits flickering under the backlash.
"We're not going to survive this head-on," she hissed.
Rayven coughed blood. "I'm open to suggestions."
"I trigger a channeling loop. You overload it with raw Echo. We short-circuit its Source processor. But you have one shot. Miss, and it consumes you."
Rayven nodded grimly. "Let's dance."
Cipher moved first.
She vanished into thin air again, blinking from shadow to shadow, drawing the Reaper's gaze. It turned with inhuman speed, lashing out in a blur—but Cipher anticipated every strike, dodging with fluid steps that bent light itself.
She was a ghost.
A song of precision.
Meanwhile, Rayven reached into himself—into the core that had awakened in the Archives. The Flameborn power stirred again, but he didn't unleash it wildly. This time, he focused it.
The flames responded.
Not with fury, but with purpose.
He channeled it into his dagger, embedding his will into every pulse of heat, his thoughts syncing with the blade. It burned brighter, hotter—its edge now white with light.
Cipher shouted. "Now!"
She opened a sigil loop in midair—three overlapping glyphs, spinning like a vortex.
The Reaper turned to her just as Rayven leapt through the loop.
Time warped.
In one instant, Rayven was mid-air.
In the next—
He struck.
Straight through the Reaper's mask.
The explosion was silent.
A wave of force blew outward in a perfect sphere. Rayven felt his Echo ripple, unravel, and re-weave itself as the Reaper's core destabilized.
The creature didn't scream.
It simply collapsed inward—folding like a dying star, the mask shattering into dust.
Then it was gone.
The cathedral was dead quiet.
Rayven dropped to one knee, panting, every nerve screaming. His dagger clattered beside him, its glow fading.
Cipher crouched next to him, her hand lightly on his shoulder.
"You did it," she said.
Rayven looked up at her, breathing hard. "We did it."
For a long moment, neither spoke.
Then Cipher stood and stared at the fragments of the Reaper's mask.
"It was using Tri-Heir resonance," she murmured. "That means it was built specifically to eliminate us."
Rayven frowned. "So the Council knows we're bonded again."
Cipher nodded. "And they won't send a second chance. Next time, they'll unleash something worse."
Rayven rose shakily to his feet. "Then we hit first."
She turned to him, eyes narrowing. "You're proposing war."
"No," Rayven said. "I'm proposing truth. We find the Source Codex. We unlock what they buried. We tell the people who I am—who we are. They deserve to know their city was built on lies."
Cipher considered that.
Then gave a rare smile. "You've changed, Rayven Cael."
He looked at her. "I remember pieces now. When we were bonded as children… you were always the brave one."
"Now it's your turn."
Far above, hidden in the Skywell Citadel, the Council watched the Reaper's final moments through a fractured Echo projection.
Static danced across the vision.
The Lady of Veins spoke without emotion.
"Reaper lost."
The Arbiter leaned forward. "He's no longer a sleeper. Rayven Cael has awakened fully."
The Blind Judge clicked her fingers once. "Then we must awaken the Forgotten."
"Too soon," Warden Irex growled. "The Forgotten isn't ready."
The Lady turned. "Neither are we."
And for the first time in decades, the Council was uncertain.
Because a new variable had entered the game.
A flame reborn.
And it would burn everything they had built to ash.