The abyss convulsed.
Not like a sea, not like a storm, but like a corpse jolting back to life after centuries of stillness. The Hollow's collapse did not end in silence it ended in awakening. The darkness did not fold into itself, it ruptured outward like a vein bursting under unbearable pressure. Where Selena burned with argent fire and Dante bled silver ruin into the void, the fracture widened, a wound torn so violently through existence that even eternity recoiled. Time, if it had meaning here, seemed to bend back on itself. Every breath, every thought, every scream lingered too long, as though even the act of existing was caught in hesitation.
And from that wound, something stirred.
