The fight with the herald was a dance of shadows and blades—razor-sharp, desperate, and soaked in the scent of blood and burning flesh. Nerin's breath came ragged, each inhale a jagged shard of pain, each exhale a whisper of defiance.
But as the herald's chains slashed, her laughter faltered, eyes flickering with something far darker than malice: fear.
"You don't understand, Hollowed," she hissed, her voice cracking like splintered bone. "The Hollow Master isn't a god... not in the way you think."
Nerin's blade froze midair. His black sun burned fiercely, the cold fire illuminating the twisted ruins around them.
"What then?" he demanded, voice low and trembling.
"The Master is a reflection," the herald whispered, stepping back, chains retracting like wounded serpents. "A fracture of your own soul, born from every scream, every tear, every broken promise."
The city seemed to pulse in response, the blood-red moss writhing like veins, the second moon's cracked surface bleeding shadows that coalesced into shapes both horrific and familiar.
Nerin's mind reeled. If the Hollow Master was a fragment of himself—then the war wasn't just external. It was a battle within his very essence.
The hunger inside him flared, voices clamoring in a fevered pitch. But beneath the chaos, a singular truth echoed: to survive, to reclaim himself, he had to face the darkest corners of his own soul.
The herald's eyes glimmered with cruel satisfaction. "Your trial is just beginning. To defeat the Hollow Master, you must first become whole—or lose yourself forever."
Nerin steadied his breath, the bone knife a cold anchor in his trembling hand.
The lines between enemy and self blurred until they vanished.
He was no longer just a man marked by darkness.
He was the Hollow—and the hollow was him.
The world around Nerin twisted, the air thickening into a viscous fog that seeped into his lungs, choking with the scent of decay and forgotten memories. The city had become a labyrinth not of stone and blood-red moss—but of his own fractured mind.
Each step he took echoed like a scream lost in the abyss, his shadow fracturing and multiplying, crawling along the cracked cobblestones like serpents with too many teeth. The black sun on his palm pulsed hotter, its cold fire burning a path beneath his skin that promised both salvation and damnation.
He stumbled into a vast hall, its ceiling bleeding shadows and whispers, walls dripping with the slime of ancient sorrow. The floor was a mosaic of broken mirrors, reflecting countless versions of himself—each hollowed, scarred, and screaming in silence.
A voice slithered from the darkness, not from another, but from within.
"You cannot run from me, Nerin. I am every lie you told yourself, every fear you buried beneath the bones of the past."
The fractured self stepped forward—his own eyes black voids, teeth jagged and sharp, smiling a smile too wide for sanity. Chains like the herald's circled his gaunt wrists, rattling a mournful hymn.
The battle would not be of steel, but of souls—a clash where the stakes were his very essence.
The hunger clawed, a parasite of agony feeding on doubt and pain. Nerin clenched the bone knife, feeling the tremor of the Echo of the Forgotten within him awaken—adaptive instinct sharpening his senses, hollow memory whispering secrets long lost.
"This ends now," he growled, voice low and deadly. "I will not be consumed."
The fractured self laughed, a sound like breaking glass and rusted chains. "Then fight, Hollowed. Fight to reclaim your soul—or be lost forever."
Around them, the hall shattered into a thousand shards, each reflecting screams and memories, each a battleground for the war within.
Nerin lunged—not just for survival, but for redemption in a world where even hope was a blade's edge.
The shards of the broken hall spun wildly, each fragment a window into Nerin's shattered soul. His fractured self grinned, eyes black as voids, teeth glinting like splintered glass. Every mirror screamed secrets he'd buried beneath years of pain and silence.
"Look closely," it hissed, voice a rasp of broken memories. "See the lies you told, the people you abandoned, the promises you shattered."
Nerin's breath hitched as the shards revealed flashes—faces twisted in agony, a child's cry swallowed by the dark, the echo of a blade he never dared to wield. His hollow memories surged, bleeding cold fire beneath his skin.
The fracture stepped closer, chains rattling like death's lullaby. "You think survival is enough? You're a hollow husk, Nerin. You've been dead inside long before this cursed mark."
Pain lanced through Nerin's chest—not physical, but the raw, gnawing agony of truth. The hunger inside him screamed, a beast clawing for release.
But beneath the pain, a spark flared—adaptive instinct sharpening his fractured mind, hollow memory whispering the path forward.
"No," Nerin growled, voice thick with blood and defiance. "I am not lost. I am becoming."
With a cry that shattered the silence, he lunged into the mirror's depths, the shards exploding in a storm of black fire and screams.
The battle for his soul was only beginning.