The faint tremor beneath Lycius's feet had grown. It was not random, but rhythmic-like the measured toll of a great bell buried far below. Each pulse reverberated through his bones, as if the city was trying to communicate with him.
The fog coiled tighter, whispering secrets he couldn't quite grasp. His left eye burned, the veins throbbing in sync with the rhythm, each pulse carving a deeper groove into his mind. Lycius stumbled, clutching a nearby lamppost for support. His breath came ragged, and for a moment, he thought he could hear voices within the rhythm.
No, not voices. A choir.
Low and resonant, it started as a hum, rising and falling like the tide. It wasn't coming from the world around him-it was within him. The veins in his body were singing, and the sound was both beautiful and horrifying.
"What is this?" Lycius whispered, his voice swallowed by the mist.
The ground beneath him shifted, the cobblestones cracking as though the city were exhaling. He looked down and saw the black substance from before-a viscous, writhing mass-spreading from the cracks, flowing like rivers of ink. He took a cautious step back, but the liquid didn't pursue him. Instead, it pooled at his feet, forming shapes, patterns, symbols he didn't recognize.
He crouched, his trembling fingers tracing the edges of the marks. They shimmered faintly, and as his hand brushed against the black ichor, a searing pain shot through him.
The world shattered.
---
For an instant, he was everywhere.
He saw the veins-their vast network sprawling beneath the Hollow City, threading through ruins and voids, spiraling deep into the core of Mundo. They weren't just physical; they were conduits of memory, carrying the echoes of a civilization that had bled into the earth. He saw moments of joy, of triumph, of love. He saw war, betrayal, and loss.
And then he saw the end.
A monstrous rift in the sky, black as the void, splitting the heavens. From it poured an endless cascade of darkness, a tide of unmaking that consumed everything in its path. The veins burned with light, trying to hold the world together, but it was too much.
The veins had ruptured. The city had died.
And yet... here he was.
---
Lycius's scream ripped through the mist as he was slammed back into his body. His hands burned where they had touched the black substance, the veins in his arms flaring with an unnatural glow. He collapsed to the ground, gasping for air, the weight of what he'd seen pressing down on him like a mountain.
"It's all gone," he muttered. "Everything..."
But even as despair threatened to drown him, a spark ignited in his mind. The veins weren't just memories-they were power. The city wasn't asking him to mourn; it was asking him to act.
Lycius stood, his legs trembling but resolute. He looked at his hands, now coursing with faint, glowing veins. The fog around him parted again, as if sensing his determination.
Ahead, the central spire loomed. Its jagged silhouette seemed less like a building and more like a bone thrust from the earth-a relic of a time before the end. He didn't know why, but he felt drawn to it.
The choir in his veins swelled as he walked, the rhythm quickening. The streets shifted around him, guiding his path. The fog grew thinner, revealing more of the city's bones-ancient bridges spanning bottomless chasms, towers leaning at impossible angles, statues of faceless figures crumbling into the dust.
And then, he saw the second figure.
It wasn't cloaked like the first. This one was smaller, almost childlike, with pale, translucent skin and veins that glowed faintly beneath. It stood in the center of a shattered square, staring at Lycius with unblinking eyes.
"Who are you?" Lycius asked, his voice echoing in the stillness.
The figure tilted its head, as if considering the question. "I am a fragment," it said, its voice soft but layered, as though countless others spoke through it. "Of what remains."
Lycius stepped closer. "You're part of the city, aren't you?"
The figure nodded. "The city. The world. We are the same."
"Then tell me," Lycius said, desperation creeping into his voice. "Why am I here? What am I supposed to do?"
The figure extended a hand, its fingers impossibly delicate. "You are the Veinbearer. The last tether to the lifeblood of this world. You carry its will, its memory, its pain."
Lycius hesitated before taking the hand. The instant their skin touched, his vision blurred.
---
He stood at the heart of a great council chamber, surrounded by towering figures draped in crimson robes. They spoke in hushed tones, their faces obscured, their hands resting on a massive crystal pulsating with light.
"The rift grows," one said.
"We cannot stop it," said another.
"But we can endure," a third replied.
The crystal flared, and Lycius felt the weight of their decision-the creation of the veins, a desperate attempt to preserve their world's essence. The veins had carried everything-knowledge, power, life-but the cost had been immense.
And then, Lycius saw himself.
Not as he was now, but as something greater, something inhuman. He stood at the center of the chamber, his body aglow with the veins' light. He was their final act of defiance, their last hope.
---
The vision faded, and Lycius found himself back in the square. The figure released his hand, its gaze heavy with sorrow.
"You were made to save us," it said. "But time has unraveled. The veins are failing. You must choose."
"Choose what?" Lycius demanded.
"To let the veins die... or to give yourself to them."
The words struck him like a hammer. "If I do... what happens to me?"
"You will become the city," the figure said. "Its heart, its lifeblood. You will endure, but you will not be yourself."
"And if I refuse?"
"The city will collapse. Mundo will die."
Lycius staggered back, the weight of the choice threatening to crush him. He looked at the glowing veins in his arms, then at the desolate city around him.
"I... I need time," he said, his voice barely audible.
The figure nodded. "Time is the one thing you do not have."
As it faded into the mist, the choir in his veins swelled to a crescendo, filling his mind with memories, with emotions, with the unbearable weight of a world on the edge of oblivion.
And Lycius, the Veinbearer, stood alone at the center of it all.