Awakening of the Mind Sovereign
Chapter 65: The Truth - (2)

Chapter 65: The Truth - (2)

A silence settled over the battlefield, thick and suffocating. The entity’s words hung in the air like an unbroken echo, reverberating inside Echo’s skull.

Elliot.

The name felt foreign like a distant whisper from a life that wasn’t his. Yet, the way it rolled off the entity’s tongue, so certain, so absolute, made his stomach churn.

Everyone was staring. The soldiers, the summoned undead, even the wraiths that hovered in the distance.

Who was this man?

And more importantly why did he know a name that Echo himself did not?

The entity stepped forward, its movements eerily graceful. With every step, the ground beneath it cracked, unable to withstand its mere presence.

Echo forced himself to stand his ground, but his body screamed at him to run. His instincts, honed through battle and hardship, told him this wasn’t a foe he could simply fight.

But that wasn’t what scared him.

What terrified him down to his very core was the way the entity looked at him.

Like he already knew everything about him.

Like he had been waiting for this moment.

"I am not an eternal being..." The entity’s voice was calm, almost gentle. "I’m just a human being."

A human?

Echo’s mind recoiled. No human could do this.

A simple human being couldn’t make the very earth crumble beneath his feet. Couldn’t make Echo’s chest feel like it was being crushed under an unseen weight.

Yet there was no mockery in his voice. No deception.

It was simply the truth.

Echo swallowed hard, his throat dry. His heart hammered against his ribs.

Who the hell was this man?

A flicker of movement in the corner of his vision caught his attention.

Reyna.

Her face was pale, her golden eyes wide with something he rarely saw in her fear.

She was gripping the hilt of her blade so tightly her knuckles had turned white. Her usual sharp, calculated demeanor had cracked, replaced by raw, unfiltered uncertainty.

"Echo..." she whispered, barely audible. "What is he talking about?"

He had no answer.

He clenched his fists, digging his nails into his palm to ground himself.

"I... don’t know."

It wasn’t a lie. He really didn’t.

But the pounding in his skull, the twisting in his gut—his very soul—told him that something wasn’t right.

Something was missing.

And this man this impossibly powerful manknew what it was.

The entity chuckled, the sound sending chills down Echo’s spine.

"Oh, but you do know," he said softly. "You just refuse to remember."

Echo’s breath hitched.

And then it happened again.

The flood of memories.

But this time, they weren’t visions.

They were sensations.

The rough texture of stone beneath his fingertips.

The scent of old parchment and burning wood.

The weight of a crown resting upon his head.

A sharp pain in his chest

No, a blade.

Plunged deep into his heart.

His body hitting cold marble.

A voice his voice screaming a name.

Not Echo.

Elliot.

The world snapped back into focus, and Echo staggered forward, gasping for air. His vision swam. His pulse thundered in his ears.

he felt utterly lost.

The entity watched him, his eyes unreadable.

"You remember now, don’t you?"

Echo Elliot? shook his head violently.

"No." His voice was hoarse, trembling. "That’s not real. That’s not "

He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to steady his breathing.

He wasn’t Elliot. He couldn’t be.

He was Echo.

The Necromancer. The man who had clawed his way to power. The man who commanded armies of the dead.

Not some fallen prince.

Not some ghost from the past.

"I don’t know who you think I am," Echo snarled, forcing himself to meet the entity’s gaze. "But I am not Elliot."

For the first time since he appeared, the entity’s expression changed.

He sighed.

Not in disappointment.

Not in frustration.

But in something that almost resembled sadness.

"Perhaps you’re not," he mused, tilting his head. "Or perhaps... you’re simply not ready to remember."

Echo opened his mouth to argue

But before he could

The entity vanished.

Not in a dramatic explosion. Not in a swirl of darkness.

One moment, he was there.

The next, he was gone.

As if he had never existed in the first place.

A heavy silence followed.

Then

"Echo..." Reyna’s voice was tight. "What the hell just happened?"

He couldn’t answer her.

Not because he didn’t want to.

But because he didn’t know.

He lifted a hand to his forehead, his skin clammy with sweat. His body still trembled.

The memories the sensations they were too vivid to be mere illusions.

And that man...

That impossibly powerful man...

Had called him Elliot.

Echo’s jaw clenched.

He couldn’t afford to dwell on this now. Not when there were battles to fight. Not when the war had only just begun.

He shoved the doubt down, burying it deep within his mind.

He would deal with it later.

For now

"I don’t know," he finally said, his voice steadier than he felt. "But I intend to find out."

---

The battlefield was frozen in an eerie stillness. The remnants of Echo’s undead army stood motionless, their hollow eyes reflecting the weight of the moment. The living soldiers—his allies—watched in stunned silence. None dared to breathe, none dared to interrupt.

But Echo Elliot? felt as though the world had caved in around him.

"I am from a distant future... from the planet Earth. The world I originally came from."

That name Earth sent a jolt through his mind, like a rusted lock being forced open. A fragment of something long-buried shifted inside him.

The others looked at one another, confusion flashing across their faces.

"Earth?" Reyna muttered, frowning. "That name sounds... unnatural."

But to Echo, it was anything but. It was familiar.

The syllables, the weight of the word in his mind it meant something.

Something old.

Something he shouldn’t remember.

His heartbeat quickened.

The entity watched him carefully, his piercing gaze unwavering. Then he continued, his voice calm yet carrying the weight of absolute certainty.

"In the future, we have reached a point where we are no longer merely human... we have broken the very laws of existence, creating systems that mimic the stories you once read."

A sharp pain lanced through Echo’s skull. He inhaled sharply, fingers instinctively pressing against his temple.

Systems.

Stories.

That word systems it meant something.

More than that it felt personal.

Flashes of information slammed into his mind like a tidal wave.

A glowing screen.

Words appearing out of thin air.

A voice mechanical, robotic calling out to him.

[Welcome, Host.]

He staggered back a step, his breath coming in ragged bursts.

His head was splitting open.

Memories, long sealed away, cracked like fractured glass, letting fragments of the past bleed through.

Earth.

A planet filled with towering buildings, glowing signs, endless noise.

His hands on a keyboard, a screen flashing before him.

He had been there.

He had lived there.

Hadn’t he?

Echo’s Fractured Reality

Reyna stepped closer, her golden eyes narrowing.

"Echo."

Her voice was steady, but there was a sharpness to it—concern buried beneath her usual control.

"What’s wrong?"

Echo forced himself to stand upright. His hands trembled at his sides, his breath unsteady.

What was he supposed to say?

That he was remembering another life?

That his very existence was being rewritten in real-time?

No he couldn’t. Not now.

Not here.

He clenched his fists, pushing the storm of memories to the back of his mind.

Focus.

Focus.

The entity smiled not cruelly, but knowingly.

"And you... you were the first host of the Intergalactic Transportation System we created."

Silence.

Then

Boom.

His mind exploded.