The abyss smoldered.
Selena's blaze had not yet gone out. Her argent fire still licked hungrily across the void, leaving streaks of molten brilliance in the black expanse, carving scars into a world that was never meant to hold scars at all. Every spark branded the Hollow with light, forcing marks of life onto a canvas built of silence and hunger. The Dead those endless shrieking husks that had risen like a tide were gone now, reduced to silence. Their cries had not simply ended; they had been burned away, consumed utterly by Selena's fire until only drifting ash remained. The ash fell in delicate spirals, soft as snow, but dissolved before it could reach the unseen ground. Nothing in the Hollow allowed memory to linger. Even their remains vanished before they could exist.
And yet, for one fragile heartbeat, eternity seemed to hesitate.
The Hollow stilled.
