Root stood alone in the Rift's hollow silence, the ritual still burned into the skin of his palm. The world around him was still—but not calm. It was waiting.
Then, without sound, the space in front of him peeled open.
There was no burst of light. No wind. Just a sudden presence, quiet as breath in a grave.
From the void stepped a figure no taller than a child, dressed in a sharp black suit. His body was neat, pressed, utterly pristine—except for the eerie glow of a circular sigil in the center of his chest, pulsing faintly with hollow-blue light.
His face was a smooth white mask—cracked once down the right side. Two void-black eyes stared out, round and depthless. No mouth. No expression. Yet Root felt watched.
The figure stopped a few feet away and tilted his head, ever so slightly, like a curious bird in a funeral home.
Root opened his mouth but hesitated.
The figure raised one hand—slow, mechanical—and tapped the glowing sigil in his chest.
[ Pact Complete: Veyr, the Hollow Herald ]
✦ Passive Ability Unlocked: Veil of Stillness — Root becomes difficult to perceive while idle. Threat detection against Root is reduced.
✦ Veyr's Core Attribute: Null-Type | Gravity Control — Recognized.
✦ Next Ability: Unlocks at 10 Hollow Points
Root blinked.
Then blinked again, harder—because the Rift looked… less real now. The walls weren't shimmering—they were folding, like space itself was bending around something it couldn't accept.
"You're… Veyr?"
The masked head nodded once.
Still no voice.
Still no footsteps.
Veyr lifted his right hand again and slowly opened his fingers, revealing a coin-sized distortion floating above his palm. Not light. Not energy.
Absence.
The little sphere dented the air, bending the dust around it in a lazy spiral. Root felt his balance shift. Not from fear.
From gravity.
His knees bent slightly as pressure wrapped around his spine like invisible chains. It was faint, but precise. Controlled. Like Veyr was demonstrating a point—and choosing not to crush him.
Then the weight vanished.
And so did the sphere.
Root's breath returned in a quiet gasp. "You're… you're not just a summon."
Veyr tilted his head again.
"I'm what comes after you stop believing in gods."
The voice didn't come from the figure's mouth. It came from everywhere. From inside Root's own skull. It was soft, calm, but edged with something ancient. Not anger. Not authority.
Judgment.
Root straightened, fists clenched. "What do you want?"
The figure didn't answer.
Instead, the Rift groaned, stone shifting overhead. A new passageway tore open through the far wall, hexagon-shaped and pulsing faintly with Hollow runes.
[ Simulation Rift: Phase Two – Active ]
[ Trial Objective: Suppress the Echoborn ]
[ Bonus Objective: Complete While Undetected ]
Veyr began walking forward—slow, deliberate, silent.
His head didn't turn, but his presence did. Root felt himself being pulled forward by a tide he couldn't see.
The Rift had changed.
And now, so had he.
The corridor ahead was narrow—too narrow. Just wide enough for a body to walk upright. The walls were etched with half-erased glyphs, each one softly pulsing as Root passed.
But none of them reacted. None of them even noticed him.
He moved like smoke. His footsteps didn't echo. His breath didn't stir the dust. The air pressed against him like a question it couldn't form—curious, uncertain, blind.
Veil of Stillness — Active.
Root hadn't activated anything. But the moment he stepped behind Veyr, it triggered. A subtle hum crawled up his spine, and his heartbeat slowed to a dull, manageable thud.
Even the noise in his head—the constant pull of panic, of system prompts, of fear—went silent.
Ahead, Veyr floated more than walked. His suit didn't crease. His arms remained perfectly still at his sides. Only the sigil in his chest moved—rotating slowly like a gyroscope of unspoken laws.
Root kept his eyes sharp.
Suppress the Echoborn.
The mission didn't explain what they were. Or how many. Only that he'd be rewarded for remaining unseen.
And that… he could do.
A pulse tickled his ribs.
Root turned sharply and spotted movement.
Down a side chamber—barely visible—something tall and hunched flickered past a column. Thin limbs. Pale skin. Dozens of twitching black eyes scattered across its upper body like shattered marbles shoved into wet clay.
It didn't see him.
It should've.
Root had been in full view. But the creature's gaze swept right past, as if his existence had been edited out of the world.
"Don't get cocky," Veyr whispered from within him.
"They don't see you now. But perception is like gravity—it bends. Enough pressure, and anything collapses."
Root swallowed hard. He could feel it now—Veyr's gravity field. Not crushing. Not forceful.
But realigning the Rift itself.
Every footstep he took fell quieter, not because he was lighter—but because Veyr was pushing down on the space around them, folding attention away like paper in the rain.
They moved deeper.
Another Echoborn slithered overhead—its mouth opening sideways in three flaps, sniffing the air. Root stood perfectly still.
Nothing.
The creature paused… then recoiled, twitching violently. Its body convulsed—then snapped into the ceiling, vanishing.
Root turned to Veyr. "What was that?"
"Null pressure. It destabilizes anything still bound to the simulation."
"You mean it killed itself?"
"No," Veyr said simply. "It left. Things like that know when they don't belong anymore."
Root didn't answer. But in the back of his mind, something shifted.
It wasn't just fear anymore.
It was authority.
He wasn't just sneaking through the Rift.
He was changing it.
The corridor emptied into a vast, circular chamber—too large for the space it occupied. Rift logic. The walls curved out into shadow, rising endlessly above Root's head.
At the center stood a spire of bone. Not carved. Grown. Pale tendrils pulsed beneath its surface like nerves, each one beating with a dim rhythm.
Surrounding it were five Echoborn.
They didn't move like animals. They jerked, twisted, twitched—each one bound by invisible tremors. Jaws clicked sideways. Ribs flexed open. Their bodies were warped reflections of something once human, now rebuilt wrong.
Root stayed perfectly still.
Veyr emerged from his shadow once more—small, poised, blank as ever. The rotating sigil in his chest began to glow faster now, emitting a soft, rhythmic hum.
"They're nested."
"Meaning?" Root whispered, barely audible.
"Kill one, and the others descend. This is their pulse. Their home.
But this—" he pointed a small gloved finger at the sigil-covered bone spire, "—is their leash."
Root's hand went to the handle of his stolen blade. But something in his instincts pulled back.
Don't strike.
Not yet.
[ Objective: Suppress the Echoborn Brood Nest. ]
[ Bonus: Use Null Disruption. ]
Root glanced at Veyr. "Can you… disrupt it?"
Veyr nodded.
Then, for the first time, he raised both hands.
The room twisted.
Not visibly—but Root felt it. The gravity shifted sideways. A pressure sucked inward—not wind, not air—but attention.
The Echoborn froze mid-motion.
One by one, they turned—slowly—toward the spire.
And then…
POP.
The first one collapsed into itself. Not a death. An unraveling.
No scream. No gore. Just a whisper of static and a soft rain of fine black dust.
Root's jaw tightened.
Two more twitched. Their joints failed. Bodies slumped. The gravity inside the room surged briefly—like a storm trying to form a thought—and then stilled.
Veyr floated an inch above the ground, arms still raised. The pulsing sigil on his chest now spun fast enough to blur.
"This is Null Disruption. I am not erasing them."
"I am uninviting them."
Root blinked. "You're what?"
"Everything in this place only exists because someone, somewhere, said yes."
"I say no."
And then the last Echoborn… vanished.
Not one left a body.
Only the bone spire remained—silent, abandoned.
Root approached slowly. The spire no longer pulsed. The runes were inert.
A soft chime echoed through his skull:
[ Rift Subdomain Cleared ]
[ Hollow Points Gained: +2 ]
[ New Resource Unlocked: Null Fragment x1 ]
[ Description: A shard of a world that refused itself. ]
Root stared at the glowing fragment now hovering above the shattered spire. It was barely the size of a fingernail. Dim. Cool.
But it made him feel like the ground might fall out beneath him.
He reached out—hesitant—and took it.
The instant he did, the air lightened.
And Veyr stepped beside him, mask facing forward, expressionless.
"Next time," Veyr whispered, "you'll use that on your own."
Root nodded, slow. "And after that?"
Veyr tilted his head just once.
"Then they'll start running from you."