The echoes of broken glass sang a dirge as Nerin plunged into the fractured abyss—where memories twisted like serpents and shadows clawed at his sanity. Every step was a battle; every breath, a war waged in the marrow of his bones. The Hollow Mark seared, an icy flame licking beneath his skin, reminding him that this was no mere dream, but a crucible forged in pain.
Around him, the shattered reflections screamed—faces of friends turned foes, smiles twisted into snarls, whispers that tore at his soul like ravenous wolves. His fractured self prowled the darkness, a predator woven from all his regrets and failures, a mirror warped by cruelty and hunger.
"You cannot run from what you are," it snarled, teeth too many, eyes bleeding voids. "You are the Hollow. You are nothing but a shadow clutching at echoes."
But beneath the storm of doubt, a dark ember burned—a ruthless, unyielding will that refused to break. Nerin's fingers curled tighter around the bone knife, the blade humming with cold intent. Adaptive Instinct sharpened his senses; Hollow Memory fed him fragments of power stolen from oblivion.
With a guttural roar, Nerin tore through the shards—his own screams tearing the silence as he faced himself not as a victim, but as a conqueror of his hollow fate.
The battle was far from over, but for the first time, he tasted the bitter thrill of defiance.
The Hollow Master waited—patient, cruel, a god born from suffering and shadows—but Nerin was no longer prey. He was the storm.
And the storm was coming.
The air twisted, a living thing that crawled beneath Nerin's skin like a thousand frozen needles. The broken hall dissolved into a choking void, the only anchor a faint pulse in his palm—the Black Sun, burning cold as death's breath.
He fell—no, was dragged—through layers of nightmarish reality, a descent into the Hollow Master's maw. The world warped around him, flesh and stone bleeding into each other, walls pulsating with agonized screams that echoed from a thousand lost souls. The smell of burnt memories and rotting hope clung to the air, thick and suffocating.
Ahead, a vast mouth yawned—jagged teeth like shattered bones, dripping with a viscous black ichor that hissed and fumed. This was the Hollow Master's domain: a living tomb where time devoured itself, and the air was heavy with the weight of countless broken wills.
Nerin's heart hammered—a death drum in the endless dark—but the fire within the Mark flared, a cold, merciless blaze that burned away fear. This was the crucible. The end of the trial, or the final cage.
From the shadows emerged a figure: tall, gaunt, with eyes like smoldering coals and a grin that tore across its face like a wound. The Hollow Master. Not a god, but a reflection—a monstrous mirror of Nerin's own fractured soul made flesh.
"You came," it said, voice like grinding bone. "The Hollow is hungry, and you are its feast."
Nerin raised the bone knife, its edge gleaming with the cold fire of the Echo of the Forgotten. "I'm no one's meal," he spat. "I'm the hunger that devours the hollow."
The Master laughed, a sound that cracked reality. "Then let us feast."
The world shattered into chaos—shadows became claws, whispers turned to screams, and the battle for Nerin's soul ignited in a storm of fire and darkness.
This was no longer just survival.
It was war.
The Hollow Master's laughter twisted through the air like jagged knives, each note slicing deeper into the fragile veil between sanity and oblivion. Nerin stood firm, the bone knife in his hand humming with an icy flame that burned with all the memories he had swallowed and all the pain he refused to surrender.
Around them, the maw of the Hollow pulsed and breathed—a gaping abyss lined with teeth made from fractured nightmares and dripping with shadows darker than death. The air tasted of ash and salt, of blood long spilled and hope long shattered. Every breath felt like dragging shards of glass through his lungs.
The Hollow Master stepped forward, its eyes twin coals burning with cruel hunger, its gaunt form stretched unnaturally, sinews twisting like living ropes beneath skin pale as a corpse's whisper.
"You carry the Echo," it snarled, voice like the grinding of old bones. "But an echo is hollow by nature—empty, a shadow of sound. What will you do when your own soul cracks and splinters?"
Nerin's jaw clenched. His blood sang with the cold fire of adaptive instinct, and the trait Hollow Memory whispered secrets only he could hear—a litany of forgotten strength, of resilience forged in the crucible of pain.
With a sudden roar, he lunged. Shadows exploded into claws, slashing through the blackened air like poison-tipped spears, but the knife glowed—a beacon of cold defiance—and severed tendrils of darkness as if they were nothing but smoke.
The battlefield warped. Time fractured and folded in on itself. The Hollow Master's form shimmered and shifted, fracturing into grotesque replicas, each grinning with too many teeth, eyes leaking endless voids.
Nerin fought not just for survival, but for the last flicker of his humanity—the fragment of self that refused to be consumed.
Each strike sang a song of broken promises and shattered hopes, but also of unyielding will and ruthless clarity.
The Hollow Master snarled, a wound blossoming across its chest—a crack in the abyss.
"You are stronger than I thought," it spat, voice ragged. "But strength is meaningless here. This realm devours all."
"Then I will become the devourer," Nerin growled, eyes burning like black stars.
The war between shadow and flame escalated, a violent symphony of body and soul.
In this place where nightmares fed on despair, Nerin chose to fight with the only weapon left: the unbreakable hunger for his own salvation.