"Most hunters crave sport.""But these ones?""They don't kill for thrill. They erase for balance."
Lucien's breath slowed as he merged with the dim corridors of the Vault. The Mask of the Last Scion melded to his face, dulling his presence, cloaking him from even magical perception. His footsteps made no sound. Even his heartbeat became a whisper.
But it wasn't enough.
[Alert: Null Hunter Proximity – Range: 32 meters and closing.][Suggestion: Evade or prepare to engage. Probability of survival: 38%.]
Lucien smirked behind the mask.
"Let them come."
He crouched beside a crumbling archway as shadows passed through the corridor above him—blurs of movement wrapped in anti-light. They weren't walking. They were gliding. Fast. Precise. Mechanical.
Then one dropped.
Right in front of him.
Lucien froze. The hunter didn't move.
It wore no armor—just a full-body suit of matte obsidian and a helm with a single horizontal slit where eyes should be. No aura. No heat. Not even breath.
Then it turned.
"Hollowblood confirmed." Its voice was artificial—like someone speaking through broken glass.
Lucien rose, drawing Veyrion.
"Let's skip the warnings."
"Your status: Threat. Protocol activated."
The air shattered as the hunter blurred forward.
Lucien barely managed to parry the first strike.
The blade the hunter used wasn't forged—it was synthesized in real time, coalescing from condensed spatial data. Each swing rewrote space around it.
Lucien was forced back, his boots sliding against stone. He activated Hollow Blink, sidestepping reality itself.
The hunter matched him.
One-to-one phase step.
That's when Lucien knew—
This wasn't just an assassin.This was an anti-mirrored combatant. Built to copy and cancel Hollow abilities.A perfect counter.
Lucien grit his teeth. "Fine. Let's play unfair, then."
He activated Echo Slash.
A delayed afterimage carved through the air behind his swing.
The hunter dodged the first blade—but didn't expect the second. The Echo caught it in the ribs, flinging it across the room.
[Target Integrity: 82% – Regenerating.]
It stood again immediately. No blood. No cry. Just recalculation.
Lucien didn't have time to breathe.
A second hunter dropped—then a third. One on the wall, the other upside-down from the ceiling, crawling like a spider.
They moved like shadows trying to unmake light.
"You are a temporal violation. You do not belong," they said in perfect chorus.
Lucien spun Veyrion, building charge through Null Domain. The light around him bent as he pushed past the 80% threshold.
He reached into the Vault with his mind.
"Give me something," he whispered. "A weapon. A spell. A memory. Anything."
[Accessing Vault Armory: Category – Forbidden][Unlocked: Relic Technique – Blood Sigil: Voidbrand Cross]
The markings along his forearm lit with molten violet. A sigil formed in the air—a blazing cross etched in broken runes. It burned his skin as he released it.
"VOIDBRAND CROSS!"
The symbol exploded outward, carving into space.
The first hunter was caught mid-dash. It didn't scream. It simply disassembled into static.
[Target Eliminated.]
The second one dove for Lucien, blade first—but he met it head-on with a charged upslash, and the impact cracked reality for a moment. Shards of light rained like glass from the air.
Still, the third one—silent and analytical—lunged from the ceiling, aiming for Lucien's mask.
It knew. It had learned.
Lucien dropped to his knees, slid beneath the slash, and spun—driving Veyrion through the hunter's knee, pinning it to the wall.
"I belong more than you ever did."
Then he activated Null Phasing and moved inside the hunter's guard—inside its phase.
He whispered directly into its mask.
"Tell your masters I'm not their problem.""I'm their reckoning."
He crushed the core embedded in its chest.
The hunter stuttered—and folded into nothing.
Lucien stood amidst the fading remains of the Null Hunters. The room was quiet again.
But not for long.
The walls of the Vault shifted, reacting to the violation.
And then—
A new path opened.
A corridor of shifting stairs, leading deeper into the Hollow.
[Vault Path Unlocked: Chamber of Echoing Names][Warning: Entities from Beyond detected at Level -3]
Lucien sheathed Veyrion, the sigil on his arm still glowing faintly.
He didn't hesitate.
He walked down.
"They send shadows to break me.""But I've walked with ghosts."
To be continued in Chapter 8: Chamber of Echoing Names