Eclipse Online: The Final Descent-Chapter 62: REAVER ASCENDANT

[System Alert]

[Abyssal Symbiosis Initiated...]

[Warning: Identity Core Stability – 67%]

[New Trait Acquired: Shadowheart Binding – Abyss corruption stabilized. Mental resistance compromised. Power output increased]

[Tracking anomaly detected: [Reaver Prime] proximity rising...]

Prepare for convergence.

The system messages flashed briefly in Kaito’s vision, the red symbols inscribed in a language he had never read before—half-code, half-spell.

The fact that he could decipher them was disturbing. Something inside him was changing, adapting to the logic of the Abyss. Not simply distorting the game mechanics—tuning in.

Nyra stood at his side, rigid as a statue. Her eyes roved over the revealed Memory Spire at the distant end of the shard-filled corridor—a monolithic column towering to the black ceiling and dissolving into the void overhead. Its pulsing surface showed like a heart, with flashing ghost data and fragments of forgotten memories.

"Kaito," she whispered, her voice low, uncertain, "if you’re telling me what that abomination told you is true—if you are the Reaver, just warped—how do we fight that?"

Kaito did not respond at once. He could still feel the tingle in his hand from the shard of soul he had handled a moment before.

Memories of the child’s laughter lingered in his mind, succeeded by the taste of ash and a name that no longer mattered. Oneness didn’t just take memories—it erased significance.

"I think that’s the idea," he said quietly. "We don’t simply combat it. We confront it."

He continued forward, and the shadows parted to show a series of obsidian platforms hanging above an endlessly open gulf. Each held up a rune—some glowing softly, others with a fading ember. A path made of shattered dreams.

[System Alert]

[Event Path Opened – Trial of Echoes]

[Objective: Ascend the Spire of Memory]

[Alternative Objective: Restore lost soul shards – 0/9 recovered]

[WARNING: Death in the Spire erases memory permanently. Resurrection at the King’s mercy]

Kaito gasped harshly. The system had never been merciless, but this time it was personal. He had no lives left to spend. Not in the technical sense.

Every resurrection now had a cost that couldn’t be measured in hit points or respawn cooldowns—it ate away at the very fabric of who he was.

Nyra didn’t waste any time as she dropped in alongside him. "If the system is going to test you," she said, her hand closing around her blade, "it’s going to have to get through me too."

They stepped onto the first platform, and the world shifted.

The trial began not with combat—but recall.

Kaito blinked, and it seemed he was already in the midst of the ruined chapel of his initial guild raid. The toppled pews. The shattered stained-glass windows with the mythical heroes of the world. And the blood.

There was a person inside the room. Familiar armor. Familiar visage.

Vane.

His very first party leader. The one who had sacrificed his life to save Kaito during the first server-clearing incident. The one Kaito had left behind when the floor collapsed.

But this wasn’t Vane.

This was what remained.

[Abyssal Echo: Vane, Forsaken Captain – Emanation of Guilt]

[Level: ???]

[Status: Bound to Player Memory]

[Behavior: Unrelenting]

"I held the line," Vane snarled. "I trusted you.".

Kaito’s sword appeared in his grasp—he had not summoned it. The Abyss wanted this.

"I didn’t know," Kaito stammered.

"You didn’t look back," the Echo of Vane thundered, and attacked.

The battle was brief, brutal, like something was totally out of place and really messed up.

Each of Vane’s blows echoed with church bells in Kaito’s head. He wasn’t just taking damage—he was losing fragments. Fragments of memories that broke like shattered glass around him.

His go-to raid music. The feeling of elation that flowed through him as he won his first super rare item. His mother’s last words to him as he logged into Eclipse Online for the last time.

Nyra, however, was there.

She yelled to him as she flung him a token. An old charm of theirs, one they had found as kids, a fragment of Voidglass that glowed soft blue.

Kaito caught it—and the shadows drew back.

[Soul Shard Restored: Memory of Hope – 1/9 Recovered]

He cut down the Echo with a scream—not one of victory, but fury.

Three more trials then. Growing progressively worse.

An underground chamber in which he saw his fellow guild members die over and over again, his hands stuck in the dark, motionless.

The walls screamed accusation. Their eyes begged for rescue. And he—helpless—remained in condemnation.

A mirror room in which he fought a dozen versions of himself, each wearing a different face—anger, complacency, fear, madness.

One wept as it attacked him. Another laughed as it branded his name onto his chest.

A corridor where he had seen Nyra disappear into the chasm once again—and this time, she had screamed out his name as she fell. That scream echoed long after the vision had passed.

All that was certain was the Spire was more than a test of strength. It was a purging of the soul.

When they reached the top platform, Kaito was bleeding blackness from every pore, his heart racing with a beat almost unfamiliar to him.

The ground below him distorted with tainted code, and the runes on his arms pulsed with each heartbeat. But seven of the nine shards that had been lost were now restored. Each one brought clarity, but pain.

[Core Stability: 49%]

[Warning: Reaver Prime detection radius breached]

[Boss Event Initiated]

The Spire’s peak was not empty.

He was there—towering, wrapped in sharp black stone, his twisted face elongated, a diadem of wailing code hanging above him. As if looking into a shattered mirror. His pace was liquid, measured—a mock of Kaito’s own stance.

[REAVER PRIME – The Forgotten Self]

[Type: Abyssal Sovereign]

[Level: 999 – Unbound]

[Soul Signature: Same]

[System Warning: Identity Conflict Detected. Risk of Data Overlap – HIGH]

"You actually made it," Reaver Prime said, his voice writhing with hundreds of tones—Kaito’s voice at different ages, different decisions. "You’re too late, though. You’ve already lost yourself."

Kaito clenched his teeth. "I’m not like you."

"No," the Reaver stepped closer. "You’re worse. You still pretend there’s something left to save."

Black wings erupted from the Reaver’s back—crafted of writhing void-code, entwined with familiar faces, all screaming. Vane his guild, his sister, himself.

Nyra stood between Kaito and the Reaver, hand raised, voice firm. "You don’t get him. Not while I live."

The Reaver did not laugh. He did not need to.

He merely lifted his hand—and the fight for his soul was on.

Kaito’s HUD came alight in warnings.

[DANGER: DATA COLLISION IMMINENT]

[Abyssal Form Triggered]

[Trait Activated: Shadowheart Binding – Overclocked]

[Nyra’s Blessing: Anchor of the Lost – Active]

[Final Goal: Reclaim Self. Defeat the Reaver]

The Reaver’s animations slowed as he struggled to maintain his physical form, while a whirlpool of shattered recollections and hemorrhaging code burst from the wreckage above the spire.

Flashes of the world beyond it appeared within it—his login screen, his old room, abandoned chat logs, his mother calling his name from the hall beyond the headset.

It was no longer a game any more. It had not been for ages.

Reaver Prime charged, sword in hand and wailing with the agony of the forgotten players, and Kaito met him head-on.

The impact shook the tower to its very foundations.

Steel against void. Memory against oblivion.

Each blow had a cost—strength, sanity, truth.

Kaito’s name blinked in the HUD, alternating between "Kaito," "Reaver," and strings of broken code. The Reaver was not just copying his moves—he remembered them. Improved upon them. Perverted them with hatred.

But Kaito had something the Reaver did not.

Nyra.

When Kaito fell, she created a shield of starlight. When his vision faded, she sang one of the old children’s songs that they used to exchange. It hurt to hear it—but it earthed him.

Kaito regained strength piece by piece.

And then—he remembered.

The eighth shard was within him. A memory of defeat became a mission: the day that he determined to stay logged in, full well knowing he would not necessarily wake up.

He grasped it, and light poured from his chest.

[Soul Shard Restored: Memory of Resolve – 8/9 Recovered]

The Reaver reeled, shrieking in glitching fury. "You’re not supposed to remember that!"

"I’m not supposed to be here," Kaito said, raising his blade.

He struck.

A final surge. A fracture across the battlefield.

And from the Reaver’s cracked mask—fell the last shard.

[Soul Shard Restored: Memory of Choice – 9/9 Recovered]

[Core Stability Recalibrated... Stabilized at 61%]

[Abyssal Interference Reduced. Trait Evolution: Shadowheart Ascendant Acquired]

The Reaver’s howl became a shriek as his wings dissolved into dust, and the howling code surrounding his crown turned to white noise. His form resolved, not into loot, not into data—but silence.

Kaito fell to his knees, exhausted. Nyra was beside him, arms wrapped around his shoulders.

The Spire shook once—then stopped.

[System Notification: Trial Complete]

[New Pathway Unlocked: Final Decision Node]

Kaito looked up. A light gate towered over him, emblazoned with runes that predate the game itself. Behind was no longer a matter of levels or stats.

It was a matter of who he had become.

And what would be left behind.

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