Saph sat with me, in the frozen mountains, and there’s a strange half-calm that lingered between us.

  It was bizarre to think that we’d been trying to kill each other just a little while ago. I’d broken many zurulen, the giant, living piles of rock that apparently spawned from Saph. They were still a nest, after all.

  That was my first question, too. “You create the zurulen, right? They’re your offspring, in a way. Are you not angry that I broke them?”

  They shook their head at that. “No, they are not offspring,” they said. “Not really, not in the way you understand. They are me and yet not. More accurately, they are property. An extension of myself, perhaps, but not truly me, and not truly new. If I am a virus capable of reproducing, they are soldier cells, only made to spread more Echo.”

  “Are none of the usurpers truly alive, then?” I asked.

  “Oh, the zurulen are alive,” Saph answered calmly. “They react, they move, they consume and create. Despite their meagre nature, my spawn is dear to me, and yet… Perhaps, think of them as a garden. This world is a garden, and we are spreading weeds. Some weeds have gotten enough Echo to awaken a consciousness, the others are mere plants. With the potential to, one day, awaken, but not truly there yet.”

  I nodded, slowly, pressing my hands into the snow. Eden was a garden, and the usurpers were weeds. Invasive, yes, yet alive, if not all conscious or intelligent. And yet, in this world, there was absolutely potential for plants to awaken to sapience. It didn’t happen as often these days, with Echo filling Eden, but back when the world had been richer in Qi and Mana, it was more common for plants to create sanctuaries around natural treasures.

  Taking a deep breath, I nodded again. “Then how does life for usurpers look like?”

  The crystalloid golem took a long moment, tilting their head. Two of their arms were behind their back, supporting their weight against the rocks, two more were crossed in thought, and the last pair laid gently in their lap. “Well,” they started, “your term, ‘usurpers’, refers more to a kind of existence than a species in and of itself. It’s as if I asked you about ‘animals’. A distinction that is important, but not particularly detailed.

  “However, there are common threads. I believe what you mean is what we call resonators. Mages use Mana, cultivators use Qi, and resonators use Echo. The thing about Echo is that it demands spread, that it demands to travel outwards and echo back inwards. It thrives on being heard. And what better way to be heard than to take another world?”

  At that, they balled their fists, turning their crystal-faceplate to the sky. They paused for a long moment, then let go of the anger. “It also infects,” they continued. “Echo spreads and consumes. It spills forward and lingers. Whispers, resonating to all-consuming noise.”

  The words were cryptic, and not quite easy to grasp, but I got the essence of it. Echo was demanding, like all powers. Cultivation required a Path. It required understanding that Path, and moving further along it, to find something, choose something, and stride towards it.

  In essence, it didn’t allow for failure. Mistakes could upset the balance of one’s path, they could shake one’s foundation, and if it crumbled, it would be hard to rebuild. Mending a broken Path was almost unheard of.

  Compared to that, Mana demanded study of its users. A rigid understanding of its mechanics, to transform one force into another. It required motion and sacrifice, to turn one’s heart into one made for mana. To see the world as a series of equations, and seek to peer into its depths. Where cultivation was understanding of the self, mana was understanding of the world.

  Divinity… I was less sure on, but there was a lot more of a zero-sum game there, wasn’t it? The divines would spend it, and unless they earned more faith, more prayers, more belief, it would never be restored. In a way, Divinity was the most potent, since it came from people’s belief that it would work, and yet, the most fragile. It required trust and connection.

  And that left Echo. Echo, which demanded to be heard, demanded to be used. What was its core tenet? Dominance? Destruction? Spread?

  It didn’t quite sound like that, did it? All powers came at a price. The usurpers were paying their Echo, they were conquering new worlds to grow stronger, and that worked, but was that the only way?

  “Has anyone found a different way to resonate with Echo?” I asked.

  Saph shook their head. “No. Well, of course, lesser manifestations are possible with lower investments, but…” they gave another shake of their head, somehow communicating a morbid sort of dissatisfaction, “if there is a higher realm to attain, then there will always be those to push for it.”

  And wasn’t that the truth? Especially when that higher realm comes with power, striving for it is almost like breathing to some people. They get born into a stratum of life, and need to reach higher.

  Except, when born at the top, then what does “higher” mean?

  It created scions that exist only to surpass those that came before them, to drink a little deeper of the lifeblood of the places they inhabit, the people who build the bedrock of their money. The need for more than luxury, the need for supremacy.

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  I took a deep breath and nodded. “So, your leaders want to push higher, and this is the easiest way?”

  Saph hummed in agreement. “Yes. Echo spreads.”

  “There has to be a different way,” I said. “Building up, rather than out?”

  At that, the crystalloid tilted their head. “And what would up look like?”

  That was the question, wasn’t it? Echo relied on greatness, on “being heard”, as they put it. At the end of the day, Echo was just a source of power, an energy. There was nothing good or evil about it, as I was beginning to see. It was just as poisonous to people as, say Mana toxicity.

  Divinity, when applied in too great a dose, causes cancers. Qi can burn people without the willpower to control it. Echo, when mismanaged, creates addiction and dependency, spreading like a virus. But, framed in the context of the other energies… It didn’t look so different.

  So, what would a proper way of Echo resonance look like? Resonance sounded right. Someone cultivated Qi, and someone resonated Echo. I took another deep breath. Letting myself sink into those thoughts, as I felt it.

  What would up look like? Echo needed to build and be heard, but who needed to hear it? Someone powerful, right? So what if…

  A virtuous cycle. A person using Echo and hearing their own song, feeding their own power. Using that strength to uplift others, rather than undermine, creating a better world. That, too, would be Echo, wouldn’t it? A self-song. A concert for an audience, rather than an invasive force.

  It clicked.

  All at once, I felt a sensation that I’d been missing for a long time. The connections appeared. Echo hurt my father. My father’s hurt sent me into a rage. And that rage brought me back to Echo. A simple connection, a chain of events along my path.

  The sky opened up and swallowed me. A thousand alternate versions of myself, a million, an infinite amount, and here I was. Standing among them all, and more paths opened up. I felt it, felt the way that causality shifted with each choice. Likely, and unlikely things becoming more and less probable - and my revelation was opening up a new branch.

  Echo. It fit, didn’t it? Me, especially. I could hear it myself, with a million voices belonging to me. Was that it, then?

  Was Echo the voice of gateways?

  It clicked into place, too, and I sunk deeper into enlightenment. The keepers connected worlds to feed their gateways, siphoning rewards, and feeding them. They wanted to be known, to be feared, to possess more. In that way, they were the same as the usurpers, yet using them as puppets-

  And that meant that I could use Echo, too.

  A world of new colours lit my sight. Of course I could use Echo. Marie cultivated Qi and had a mana heart all at the same time. It was usually impractical, but Echo fed off of power. It wanted me to be strong, so the stronger I was, the more I could feed it, and the more versions of me there were, too.

  Each manifestation would be another song to my choir. I blinked, ideas pooling into my mind like from a fountain. My potential soared, skyrocketed. I felt the way the nebula in my soul burnt, whirling with stardust to sear these new truths into my potential, growing as new stars blossomed and connected.

  And then, after a time that felt like an eternity but was a moment, I opened my eyes again. [Flaring Nova] hummed and crackled within me, brighter than ever, and I felt the way I’d changed.

  Not yet. The change wasn’t completed quite yet. I was a caterpillar, wrapped in a cocoon. I had the tools, but what I needed to do was finish my morphosis. I took a breath, and stood up.

  Saph looked at me nervously. “Fio?” they asked. “Are you… alright?”

  “Better than ever,” I said, lightning arcing with exhaustion in my veins. Enlightenment took its toll, but I couldn’t stop. I felt tired, heavy, and yet, there was a restless energy within me, demanding that I move forward. “Saph. I’ll make two requests of you. Will you hear me out?”

  They gave me another glance, taking a moment to take me in up and down. The frantic expression on my face, the white-knuckled grip on my spear. “Something about you is different,” they noted. “Will you hurt me?”

  “No,” I said. “I think, I might never have a solution. Up is inwards. A self-sustained song.”

  “It’s been tried before,” Saph says. “Too slow. It stalls.”

  “So supplement it. Study Qi, cultivate, thrive,” I told them. “Build your legend and build each other up.”

  Saph sighed, softly. “We cannot remake society at once,” they said with a wistful note of defeat. Preparing to fight again.

  “Then don’t. Build a new society. Teach new resonators. Build a movement, and let that song of revolution, of kindness, ring all the way to the heart of the usurpers,” I demanded.

  “We cannot,” Saph said. “We are caged. Trapped. A virus set on this world, never to return.”

  “So let me do it,” I begged, taking a step forward. My feet felt like lead, but I had to. “Please. Let me soar. Let me fly. Help me be kind!”

  I extended a hand outwards to them, my empty one. I leaned on Astraeus as a crutch, helping my steps as my breath ran short. Enlightenment was demanding. I had to-

  Patiently, Saph sighed. “You truly are persistent, Fio. You ask me to bet my life on your, after one conversation.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Please.”

  Gently, their arms unfolded. Three pairs of crossed hands opening as they sighed again. “Fine, then, mirror-borne. Show us your song.”

  Despite everything, despite the distrust, despite the fighting that should have existed between our species, that was all it took. One conversation, one act of kindness, and Saph returned it. They took a chance, a gamble on me, and extended their hand.

  And then, I took a gamble on them in turn.

  [Sapphire Crystalweave has been added to your [Transference] network.]

  A rasping gasp left their lips and mine in turn. I clutched their hand as a lifeline, and they did mine. They knew what talent to lend us, what we needed to know.

  In a wave of building power, we shared an aspect. A talent whose seed was already budding in my nova. The Gift fanned the flames, it incorporated Echo resonance as an idea, and it granted me my boon. [Songforged]. That was what Saph shared with me.

  And instantly, all at once, it thundered out around the network. Echo resonance took a gentle bud within all those connected to me, as their potential fed their song, and their song fed their potential in turn. It lit up even more for me - within myself, within Ion, within Vivi, within Cass and within Astraeus.

  They were all part of me, they all heard me, and yet, they all fed that Symphony. And that was what it was. A new talent blossomed within me, as I left the cocoon of my metamorphosis behind and emerged, the same yet different.

  [Acquired the talent [Self-Contained Symphony] (Your song Echoes within yourself, across your network. Grow together, share this serenade, and thrive.)]

  My wings fed on themselves. I grew, I became more than before, and the effects thrummed out through my parallel selves. The future changed, yes, but I found myself hopeful, and I strode through the sky again.

  [Golden Glass Maelstrom advanced to 5th Step.]

  No one would cage me now.