The bridge creaked as Mike made his way across, lumbering one step at a time. His eyes burning dark red in the darkness. As he stepped into the final chamber, lines of pale green began pulsing with ancient power. Green flames twisted around the edges of the bone chamber, casting jagged shadows that shifted with a will of their own.
Then everything stopped.
Not in silence. In compression.
The air folded. In the center of the room behind the shadowy figure stood a massive obelisk. The obelisk's runes flared bright and lashed out with tendrils of light. One struck Mike square in the chest.
He stumbled back, his mind flashing to a memory.
He blinked.
Kelsey sat before him in their living room, the real one. The one they built together. She was smiling, brushing her hair behind her ear, saying something softly. Mike opened his mouth to answer but no sound came out.
His throat didn't work.
Neither did his legs.
He looked down.
He wasn't himself. His limbs were shorter. Scaled. Bent.
He was a lizard.
Panic surged in his chest, but his body wouldn't respond. He scrambled toward her, clawing over the rug, trying to speak her name but the air felt like water, and she couldn't hear him.
She stood. "I'm going to lie down," she said, as if nothing was wrong. "Don't follow me, okay?"
Her tone was normal. Loving. Familiar.
And then she turned.
Her eyes were empty.
Rot-black voids stared out at him.
She walked toward the hallway, skin graying with each step. Her body crumbled as she moved, leaving ash on the carpet.
"No," Mike rasped, voice returning in fragments. "No, no, no—"
He leapt forward and landed in the temple from his trial.
Flames surrounded him. His wounds reopened. The memories of his failures played on the walls broken walls surrounded by faded statues of gods.
The death of his friend Hunter. The night Kelsey was taken over by Hecate. The gods who used chosen for political means while the world crumbled. The djinn who died for him while he chased after Hecate.
A thousand voices screamed:
"You were too late."
"You were never strong enough."
"Even Bahamut chose you out of desperation."
Mike roared and punched the floor, sending shards of marble flying.
But the scene didn't crack.
It laughed.
The floor became glass. Beneath it, Hecate stood, her three faces shimmering, Maiden, Mother, and Crone flickering in rhythm.
"Do you see now?" she whispered. "All your strength is borrowed. All your rage is inherited. You were never the hero."
The walls bent.
Mike stood in a desert now. Alone. Sun burning above, wind howling like wolves.
Then Bahamut's voice broke through, barely.
"She feeds on your pain. She binds your mind. You must remember. Embrace what you declared to the gods."
Mike grit his teeth. "I know who I am."
The wind screamed.
"You are Kur's vessel," Hecate said from the storm. "But not Kur. You are the mistake. The leftover. The scrap that should have burned with the rest."
"What will you do as the last dragon?," Bahamut said again, louder now. "Speak it. Command it."
Mike stood.
"I'm going to kill the gods. One by one. And I'll devour whatever they leave behind." he said low.
The storm laughed.
Then he raised his voice.
"I will not be the Absolute."
The wind twisted around him.
"I will be the only one left."
A ripple in the illusion.
"I am the last dragon!"
A burst of black-red fire shattered the world.
He was back in the Hollow.
On his knees.
Breathing smoke.
Above him, the obelisk shook. The iron gate around it peeled back like wilted leaves. And in its place, Hecate descended, not her fractured vessels, but her true form.
She was terrible to behold.
Her robes were made of pale green wisps of light and grey smoke. Her face changed every second, flickering between thousands of people Mike had seen die. Her eyes were voids with black blood bleeding out. Her hands trailed green light and ash.
"You should not have escaped," she hissed.
"I'm going to kill you bitch," Mike growled.
She raised her arms.
The entire Hollow shifted.
Undead erupted from the stone. Shades from his past. Every djinn who had fallen under his command. Their faces screamed in silent rage, accusing him.
"You killed us," one rasped. "You led us to die."
"You consumed us," said another.
"You were meant to protect," came a third. "But you destroyed."
Mike stood, wings flaring, fire curling around his arms. All the hate and rage he felt for Hecate erupting in a roar that shook the chamber.
He leapt forward and was slammed to the side by a phantom spear.
He turned and saw Kelsey, or some imitation of her, stepping from the wall. Her belly distended. Bleeding. Whispering his name.
Mike froze.
"You let me die," the illusion sobbed. "You weren't there."
He shook. Clawed at his skull.
Then Bahamut roared:
"That is not her. That is not your guilt. That is her spell."
Mike roared and charged again. He tore through the shade of Kelsey, through the horde, toward Hecate.
She rose into the air, weaving sigils with her hands, crafting binding spells laced with memory. They slammed into Mike's chest, memories he didn't even know he had.
Moments from childhood. From Earth. From the first time he saw Kelsey cry. From the time he buried his dog. From the nights in the trial when he thought all his family had all died or forgotten him. All the agony he felt while trapped as a lizard came rushing back in his mind.
All weaponized.
All sharpened.
He kept moving.
He screamed through them.
Hecate's eyes widened.
"You are not Kur," she snarled. "You're a puppet."
Mike lunged. His claws raked across her arm.
She screamed and twisted backward, firing a blast of necrotic fire into his chest. It tore through muscle, ripping him open.
He staggered. Blood hit the ground.
Then he smiled.
Because it healed.
Immediately.
The flame inside him flared, and Kur's bones answered.
His scales grew darker. His eyes flashed gold. The obelisk behind them cracked.
"Ahhhh! Fucking Hecate!," he roared.
He punched into her chest.
She vanished into smoke.
Then reformed behind him, slashing down his back with a blade of screaming shadows.
He didn't flinch.
He turned, grabbed her throat, and threw her into the obelisk, shattering the upper half of the crystal spire.
Her scream split the Hollow.
The runes collapsed.
The gate flared wide open.
And in the center of the collapsing altar, a floating shard of essence, Hecate's true core hovered, pulsing with vile green light.
She tried to reach it.
Mike moved faster.
He wrapped one clawed hand around her shoulder, the other around the fragment.
"You will regret this," she hissed.
Then Bahamut's voice thundered through the Hollow:
"What Kur devours shall never return again."
Mike bared his fangs and bit into her essence, jaws wide.
The green crystal shattered.
He devoured her essence and erased Hecate forever.
She screamed a final time as she faded from existence.
Far away in the palace Persephone felt Hecate's destruction. She dug her nails into the throne as the pressure around her intensified.
The walls cracked.
The torches blew out.
Mike's wings spread wide as the energy surged into him. His bones shifted again. Essence flared out from his chest in rings of red-black fire. The Hollow shook.
Then…
Silence.
He stood amid dust and glowing runes.
A crater where Hecate's altar had been.
Smoke rose from his body, but he was breathing evenly.
He turned toward the path out.
No illusions.
No shadows.
Only the Hollow itself, dim and quiet.
Then Bahamut spoke again.
"You have consumed a single god. There are thousands more."
Mike nodded once with a low growl.
Then walked forward, claws dragging against the broken ground.