“You were friends with my grandfather?” Dallion found that hard to believe. After everything the village had been subjected to at the hands of the chief, it seemed ludicrous.

“I was,” Aspion spat out the words with disgust. “He craved attention and in the end he got it. The Order of the Seven Moons doesn’t like people meddling with the Crippled Star, but that’s nowhere near as bad as what your grandfather did afterwards! He—”

A bolt bounced off the floor inches from the chief’s leg.

“I think you should shut up now.” Whatever the past was, whatever reasons the old man had, he had done too much harm. There was no way he would get away scot free, although maybe he didn’t deserve to be condemned to the fate he had put upon others.

The surrender rectangle was still there, conveying the offer. All Dallion had to do was to accept and he would have won.

“If I accept the surrender, will the echoes disappear?” Dallion asked.

“Yes. It’s the same as if you’ve won the battle,” Aspion replied, still keeping an eye on the dartbow.

“I wasn’t asking you.” There was no way he’d trust anything that man said.

“No,” the armor echo replied. “You would gain control of the village area, but the echoes will remain. You can make your own and send them to fight them.”

I should have known, Dallion frowned. Even at the end, the old man tried to pull a fast one.

“What if I shoot him?”

“Aspion’s power would have been sealed. All echoes he’s created will disappear, and the village of Dherma will lose its area owner.”

Seemed straightforward enough.

“Wait!” Aspion reached out. “Don’t! I can still help you! There’s a lot you don’t know! Your grandfather can’t tell you, but I can! Become village chief, take my mansion if you wish, just don’t seal me.”

“Did you give my mother that option? Or me when you imprisoned me in the well?”

“Imprisoned?” Aspion’s eyes flashed with rage. “You call that imprisoned?! You have no idea what the word even means! I was imprisoned in a realm for twenty years for what your grandfather did! No food, no water, nothing but mist, fear, and hunger! I won’t allow anyone to go through that, even if I have to create a thousand limiting echoes!”

Dallion pulled the trigger. The surrender rectangle evaporated into the air, disappearing in a cloud of glowing blue smoke. Other parts of the room soon followed—small things at first: weapon frames, room corners, the occasional spot on the wall. As the seconds went on, more and more sections turned into smoke. So, this was how an awakening room was sealed? It was not at all what Dallion had imagined.

“Sorry, old man, I just can’t let you—” Dallion stopped.

The village chief had frozen motionless on the floor, not even blinking.

“Hey, you okay?” Despite himself, Dallion moved closer. Part of him was ready for another dirty trick, but none followed. The chief was completely out of it.

“That’s what happens when one loses the connection to their awakening room,” the suit of armor moved closer. “It’ll all seem like a dream before waking. The next time he tries to go here, it will be all gone. The only thing he’ll be able to see is a small empty room.”

“You are level one,” Dallion said. He would be lying if he didn’t admit feeling a grain of pity. If there was any truth in the memory, Aspion had been good once. Maybe in his own way he even did what was best to keep the people of Dherma safe? “Will he remember what happened?”

“He’ll always remember. That’s part of his punishment. I could make the memories less vivid. Or I can increase them. As the one who sealed his power, you’ve earned the right to choose.”

Dallion nodded. The village chief had been right about one thing—there were scarier people out there. Whoever had done this wasn’t joking around. For one thing, the echo had been in Aspion’s awakening room for decades.

“Numb them down.” Dallion walked away. As he did, parts of the village chief were turning to smoke as well. “He was terrible to everyone around him as an awakened, but maybe as an ordinary person he could find some peace.”

“I very much doubt it.” The armor shrugged. “But it’s your call. When he goes to sleep, he’ll no longer have night terrors.”

“Thanks. What happens to me now? Do I need to find a way out of here before everything collapses?”

“If you want. Makes no difference. Once the awakening realm crumbles, you’ll be back in the real world.”

“Sounds a bit anticlimactic.”

The suit of armor laughed.

“Any chance you’ll tell me who you are or what the old man’s crime was?”

“No.”

“Thought so.” Dallion looked at the room. Most of the walls and the entire ceiling had turned into smoke, making the floor feel like a piece of ice in a boiling pot of water. “Anyway, thanks for the help. See you around.”

“You better hope not,” the suit of armor whispered before the last solid fragment of the village chief’s realm was gone.

ASPION LUOR’s destiny has been sealed

Time stopped, then continued again. In a blink of the eye, Dallion was back in the outskirts of his village, flying through the air towards the village chief.

Crap! He had totally forgotten about that. All the fighting in the awakening realms had made him lose track of where the battle had started.

Putting in all the effort he had, Dallion twisted himself in the air, narrowly avoiding a direct collision with the village chief. That had to be the clumsiest approach ever. It was only thanks to Dallion’s guard skills that he managed to find his footing.

Immediately, he jumped back, expecting the village chief to take advantage of the situation and counterattack. Instead, the old man fell to his knees.

Utter silence filled the air. Not even the wind dared make a noise. The entire population of Dherma—hundreds of people, young and old—stared at the scene, unable to believe their eyes. It wasn’t only the common folk, it was the elders, the guards, even the members of the Luor family looked around, as if they were seeing the world for the first time.

Dallion smiled in relief. He knew exactly what they were going through—the sensation of life without a limiting echo.