It was said that no birds flew over the Hollow Vale. No animals strayed near its borders. Even the wind, which could not be stopped by mountain or storm, refused to pass through it.

Eren walked into the Vale just after nightfall.

The trees here were wrong. Their trunks curved unnaturally, like they had once been twisted by hands too large for this world. The ground was soft underfoot, not from moss or grass but from layers of ash and long-decayed roots. Fog clung low like it was afraid to rise, and the silence was complete.

Even the sword seemed quieter here.

Akreth had pulsed steadily for days, but now its rhythm slowed, as if cautious… or listening.

Eren gripped the pendant Lyselle had given him. It was warm against his chest, despite the cold that crept into his bones.

He didn’t know what he expected from this place. A monster? A trial? A secret door?

What he found instead was a voice.

“Eren...”

He stopped.

That voice he would know it anywhere.

“Lea?”

“Why did you leave me?”

His heart dropped.

The fog ahead thickened, and through it stepped a silhouette slender, familiar. Red hair glowing faintly in the dark, eyes soft with hurt. She was barefoot, wearing the same clothes she wore the day she vanished.

He took a step forward.

“No. You’re not her.”

“You said you’d protect me.”

The voice cracked not just with grief, but accusation.

Eren’s fingers curled into a fist.

“You’re not her,” he said again. “You’re just this place playing tricks.”

But a part of him deep and bruised ached at the sight.

The figure came closer.

“If I’m not Lea, then why do you remember how I smiled?”

He trembled.

Akreth stirred.

The fog around the fake-Lea rippled, and her form distorted. The voice deepened, twisted, then tore open in a shriek of many mouths.

Suddenly the figure wasn’t Lea at all. It was a creature made of shadow and smoke, dozens of eyes blinking across its shifting surface. It lunged.

Eren drew the sword.

Akreth burst free in a flash of cold light, slicing through the illusion mid-leap. The creature screamed as it dispersed into smoke.

The Vale responded.

The trees groaned. The air thickened. Whispers erupted from the ground.

"He remembers."
"He still sees her."
"Cut that away."
"Make him forget."

Eren gritted his teeth and spun around, the blade moving in arcs of frost-edged precision. Phantoms emerged from the trees shades wearing faces he knew: villagers, children, Lea again. But none of them were real.

He cut them all down.

One by one.

Until there was nothing left but fog and the sound of his own breathing.

He dropped to one knee, blade digging into the earth, chest heaving.

That was when the pendant warmed again.

From its core, a soft light shone and within it, a memory.

Lea, laughing at the well, flicking water at him.

It wasn’t fake.

It was real.

And it grounded him.

“Not today,” he whispered. “You don’t get to have that.”

Akreth pulsed once, approvingly.

The fog pulled back.

At the far end of the Vale, carved into the side of the hill, stood a door.

Ancient. Weathered. Covered in roots.

He approached, heart still racing.

He knocked three times.

The wood pulsed faintly with a silvery glow.

Then came the voice not Lea’s, not the blade’s, but something deeper. Something old.

“Speak the name.”

He froze.

His mouth opened but nothing came.

Not Lea. Not his own name.

He didn't know what name the door wanted.

But he was about to find out.