Five days through the 9th Domain had stripped them to the bone.
Rotting valleys. Dead sky. Trees that whispered. And creatures that stalked from just beyond sight. Every step was a gamble. Every fire they lit invited something worse.
They'd begun with sixty.
Now only seventeen remained.
They didn't speak about the rest.
---
They reached the Hollowing at dusk.
A crater of black stone cracked wide like a wound in the earth. At its center, a jagged spire rose crooked from the ground—its structure pulsing with faint, violet veins, like something alive.
It didn't move.
It didn't breathe.
But they all felt it watching.
Marcel stopped at the edge of the descent, shard burning cold under his ribs. The system's whisper brushed the inside of his skull:
> [System Alert: Trial Proximity Confirmed]
Hollow Signature – Class: Abyssal
Caution: Survivability Rating Critical (14%)
He swallowed hard and turned.
Captain Velka stood beside him, favoring one leg, a deep gash leaking through his armor. He didn't complain. Didn't grimace. Just stared ahead, jaw clenched.
"I've seen this kind of silence once before," Velka muttered. "Back when Blackmane led the charge into the lower ranges. Varek, Halrix… all of them chasing the Hollowrider and its kin. And then—nothing."
He shook his head.
"Whatever this place is, they didn't come back from it."
---
Lira sat slumped against a stone.
Her eyes were open, distant. One arm wrapped tightly to her side, blood-soaked cloth binding what little could still be held together. She'd pushed too hard shielding a group on the second night. It was a miracle she was breathing at all.
Tarin knelt beside her, silent. He hadn't left her side since.
Veyla stood not far off, pacing with tight steps, as if her grief had nowhere to go. Emberjaw lay near her, unusually still, smoke curling gently from its nostrils.
No one said it aloud.
But everyone knew.
She wouldn't survive the night.
And nothing—no potion, no spell, no desperate hope—could change that.
---
Marcel approached Tarin slowly.
"We have to hold the line," he said. "The echoes will come."
Tarin didn't answer.
Marcel placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Stay with her."
He turned toward the spire.
Velka's voice followed. "We'll keep it off you. Just come back."
---
The descent into the Hollowing felt like stepping into another world.
Marcel's breath grew shallow. The air tasted wrong—metallic and hollow, like blood that had dried too long ago.
The echoes came fast.
Veyla was the first to spot them.
Monsters they had already bled to kill—twisted into nightmare. The Hollowrider strode forth, its glaive carving sparks from stone. The Bleakflame Wyvern swept overhead, wings silent, eyes burning with false memory.
Marcel didn't look back.
Tarin rose. Blade in hand. Fire in his eyes.
He met the Hollowrider head-on.
Veyla snarled and surged into motion, Emberjaw beside her. The wyvern dove, but she was faster.
They fought with everything left in them—because grief made death feel smaller.
---
Inside the spire, Marcel felt the world narrow.
The shard burned against his chest.
And then she appeared.
A woman, cloaked in gray. Familiar. Heartbreaking. Her eyes soft. Her voice gentler than the wind.
"Marcel," she whispered. "Why do you keep fighting?"
He froze.
His mother.
Not a vision. Not a dream.
She looked just as he remembered. The lines near her eyes. The small scar under her chin. The way she stood—strong, but tired.
"You don't have to do this," she said, reaching out. "You've done enough."
> [Warning: Echo Identification – Core Instability Detected]
[Corruption Spike: 93%]
[Threat Level: Lethal]
Marcel trembled.
This wasn't her.
It couldn't be.
But part of him… wanted it to be. Wanted the illusion. The comfort.
Then he saw the faint mark glowing along her collarbone—a rune etched in spectral ink. A Sentinel's brand.
And rage took hold.
"You're not her."
The echo's face twisted. "But you want me to be."
She struck first.
The duel was savage—brutal. She knew his steps. Countered every move before he made it. She whispered his doubts with every blow.
"You'll lose them all."
"You're just another failure in a line of ghosts."
"She's already dying."
He dropped to his knees, blade slipping.
Then he saw Lira's face again. Not here. There—at the ridge. Pale. Still. Waiting for him to return.
He surged upward.
And roared.
One clean strike—driven by love, by fury, by grief.
The echo shattered.
---
Outside, the echoes vanished.
They didn't fall.
They simply ceased—like fog burned away by light.
Veyla collapsed to her knees.
Tarin stood over Lira, hands shaking.
Emberjaw let out a low whimper and curled tighter around the fading warmth of its rider.
Marcel staggered from the spire, blood trailing behind him, expression unreadable.
He dropped beside Lira.
She was barely breathing.
And growing colder by the minute.
Tarin looked up, eyes raw. "Can you—?"
Marcel just shook his head.
---
Captain Velka had slumped against the stone, eyes distant.
He looked toward the horizon, the spire behind him, the sky darkening above.
"They're all gone," he murmured. "Blackmane. Varek. Halrix. Probably taken by the same damn echoes. We keep sending good people into this hell and nothing ever comes back but stories."
He drew a slow breath.
"Let this one end differently."
Then his eyes closed.
---
Silence returned.
A silence that didn't feel peaceful—only hollow.
> [Trial Complete – Hollow Signature Accepted]
New Ability Gained: Echo Barrier
Mental Stability: Restored (Temporary)
Remaining Survivors: 14
Note: Severe Emotional Load Detected – Rest Recommended
Marcel sat beside Lira, his hand over hers.
Veyla stood behind them, one arm crossed tight across her chest, her other hand wiping something from her face.
No one spoke.
No one moved.
They just sat, in the middle of the Hollowing, in the shadow of grief.
And waited for dawn.
---
The fires had long gone out.
But the grief burned on.
They buried Lira beneath the roots of an ancient whitebark tree, its leaves pale and still even in the wind. No tombstone marked her grave—only the scarf she always wore, now tied around a broken branch above the soil. The others said nothing during the burial. There was no need. Silence, in moments like these, spoke the loudest.
Tarin didn't cry.
He stood beside the grave, hands clenched at his sides, knuckles pale. Not out of strength—but because if he let go, he feared he'd shatter. His younger sister, the sharpest among them, the glue that held them together, was gone. And there had been nothing he could do.
Veyla knelt beside Emberjaw, her hand resting on his fur. Her face remained calm, but her eyes were hollow.
Marcel watched the burial from the bluff above. The trial had taken more than strength. It had scraped through his soul. Seeing his mother's face again, even as an echo—a false, smiling illusion—had torn open old wounds. She hadn't aged. Hadn't changed. She had whispered promises that were never fulfilled.
But what rattled him more was that part of him wanted to believe her.
"Come home, my son," the echo had said, reaching for him with warmth that felt real. "It was never your burden."
He had hesitated.
Just for a moment.
And the shard had pulsed like a blade turning in his chest.
Even now, hours later, he could still feel the lingering tremor of her voice in his bones.
> [System Notice: Mental Fracture Repaired – Willpower Stabilized]
[Corruption Level: 29.1%]
He wiped his eyes. It wasn't rain. Just exhaustion. Just pain.
---
As the group gathered again at dusk, Velka's body lay beneath a warrior's pyre. Marcel had promised him it would burn high. And it did. The flames licked the clouds, sending the name Velka skyward to meet those who had once stood beside him—General Blackmane, General Varek, Commander Halrix.
"None of them returned," Marcel said quietly, staring into the blaze. "Maybe none of them will."
"They went after the Hollow Rider," Tarin said hoarsely. "And the Wyvern."
"And Breakmaw," Veyla added. "Those beasts weren't meant to roam free. But Seravos changed everything."
The Hollowing was quiet now. The echoes had vanished the moment Marcel stepped out of the trial ring, his skin steaming, breath ragged. Whatever ancient system governed that place, it had accepted his will. And ended its test.
But the cost…
It was never just about survival. It was about what they left behind to survive.
---
That night, Tarin sat alone beside the grave, whispering to the sky.
"I should've stopped her. I should've kept her behind."
No one disturbed him.
Marcel stood near the edge of the encampment, watching the moons rise. Two pale orbs, one above the other, like watching eyes.
He thought of the echo of his mother.
Her face. Her voice. The way it cracked when she said his name. Had that been an illusion—or a memory?
"Where are you?" he whispered.
A faint pulse stirred in the shard embedded in his Palm.
And far above, beyond the clouds and beyond the reach of the stars, something shifted.
Deep within the unknowable space where the Nine slumbered, one of them stirred—its outline vast and terrible beneath the fabric of reality. It did not wake. Not yet.
But it turned.
Ever so slightly.
And when it did… the sky above Mireholt flickered, like a breath being held too long.
> [System Notice: Elevated Presence Detected – Entity: Unknown (Classification: Unavailable)]
[Shard Resonance: Active. Observation Mode Engaged.]
Marcel pressed a hand to his chest.
He had chosen survival.
But now survival came with a cost.
__________________________________________
Author's Note
What do you think of Lira's death?
I'd love to know your thoughts in the comments.