The warehouse reeked of rust and rot. Corrugated walls sweated moisture that dripped onto the cement floor, every drop echoing louder than it should have in the dead silence. The city outside still breathed under the surveillance of heroes, patrol drones humming through the skyline like flies, but here, at the city's neglected edge, darkness gathered like a congregation.
The villains had come crawling.
They weren't the grand masterminds the news painted in blood-red headlines. They weren't gods of destruction or warlords carving empires in the alleys. They were stragglers. Street-brawlers. Failed heist crews. Men and women who had once strutted with knives, pistols, and meager Idols, only to be beaten bloody, thrown in cells, or left scattered when Solarius descended from the sky like a golden storm.
And now, as the moon poured pale light through the broken skylights, they sat in the warehouse like children summoned to a parent's scolding.
"Bullshit," a scar-faced man spat, breaking the silence. His Idol had once allowed him to heat metal scraps to scalding temperatures. A trick that might have intimidated shopkeepers—until a mid-rank hero snapped both his arms in front of a crowd. "We sit here like rats, waitin' on whispers. You said there was work. I see nothin' but shadows and lies."
"Shut it," growled another—tall, gaunt, his jaw jittering from nervous teeth-grinding. "You saw the message. We wouldn't all be called here unless somethin' big was movin'."
Around them, twenty more figures stirred. They wore coats and rags, masks to hide their faces, though their eyes betrayed it all: bitterness, hunger, fear.
One slammed a bottle against the ground. "We've been choking for a month. Heroes flooding every block. Solarius himself teaching brats at the Academy. You know what that means? They're breeding more golden bastards just like him. We're fucked before we even get a chance to stand."
A murmur rippled—agreement, despair, venom.
Then came the footsteps.
Measured. Slow. Each step a reminder that power didn't need to run.
The crowd parted instinctively, like dogs making way for a wolf. From the shadows, cloaked figures emerged—black fabric stitched with the upside-down bleeding flower insignia. The Cloaks.
At their front walked him: the Executor. Not just a Cloak footsoldier but one of the surgeons of the Veil's madness. His mask was pale, angular, mouth stretched into an inhuman grin that never moved when he spoke.
"Good," the Executor said softly. His voice was smooth, polished, too calm for the filth around him. "You've tasted despair. That is the first ingredient."
The villains went silent. Even the scarred man, still bristling, swallowed his retort.
The Executor stepped into the center of the warehouse, black boots leaving faint streaks on the dusty floor. Behind him came another Cloak—a different Executor, smaller in stature but carrying a long case bound in chains.
"You speak of Solarius," the first Executor continued, tilting his head like a curious crow. "You tremble at his name. Good. Fear is proof you still remember how strong he is. Fear is proof you have something left to lose."
He stopped, letting his words linger like smoke. Then, suddenly, his voice sharpened.
"But what if I told you… that fear could be his instead?"
The warehouse rustled with disbelief. A few laughed bitterly, more out of nerves than humor.
"You don't fight suns with knives," muttered one villain. "Man's untouchable."
The Executor's mask turned slowly toward him. A single gloved finger rose, pressed against the grinning lips. Silence fell again.
"No one is untouchable," he whispered. "Not gods. Not heroes. Not suns."
The second Executor knelt, unlocking the chained case. Metal clicked. Hinges creaked. A faint hiss escaped—as if the very air recoiled.
From within the case came movement. Something shifting, scraping, clawing against steel. A low, inhuman growl rolled out, too deep to be human but too broken to be animal. The villains flinched, some reaching instinctively for their weapons.
The first Executor chuckled, though the sound never reached his mask. "Do not fear. Not yet. This one is… young."
The lid opened.
The Hollow stirred.
It was a grotesque shape, humanoid only in the vaguest sense. Its body was pallid, skin stretched tight over too-long limbs. Joints bent the wrong way. Its mouth—if it could be called that—split open in jagged cracks, no tongue, no teeth, only endless black inside. Its eyes were pits, empty sockets weeping faint threads of smoke.
The villains recoiled.
"What the fuck—"
"Kill it—kill that thing!"
The Hollow snapped its head toward the nearest voice, emitting a shriek that shredded the air like glass. The scarred man stumbled back, sweat pouring down his face.
The Executor lifted a hand, and the Hollow froze. Not by command—it wasn't tamed—but because the air itself seemed to shackle it. The Executor's will pressed like iron chains.
"This," he said, stroking the air above the creature's skull without touching it, "is despair, given form. An experiment. A prototype. A child of hollowing."
The warehouse stank of terror now.
He straightened, addressing them all. "The heroes believe peace is eternal because Solarius exists. But even a sun casts a shadow. And in that shadow, despair festers. We have been cultivating that despair. Feeding it. Sharpening it. What stands before you is the blade."
The scar-faced man found his voice again, trembling. "And what—you expect us to fight alongside that thing?"
"No," the Executor replied smoothly. "You will watch. And you will see how even suns can bleed."
The villains exchanged uneasy glances. Some licked dry lips. Others clenched their fists, half-ready to bolt, but the presence of the Cloaks pinned them in place.
"Tonight," the Executor said, his voice rising to a sermon's cadence, "you are given the chance denied to you by heroes, prisons, poverty. A chance to spit in Solarius' light. To taste revenge."
He extended his hand toward the Hollow, which twitched and trembled, a thing starving for violence.
"Will you take it?"
No one answered at first. Then, slowly, a gaunt woman in a ragged coat stepped forward. "I don't give a fuck what that thing is. If it kills just one of them… I'll take it."
Her words broke the dam. Murmurs of assent rippled, uneven but growing. The villains weren't convinced of survival, but they were convinced of hate.
The Executor bowed his head as if in blessing. "Good. Then prepare yourselves. For the true ritual begins soon."
And with that, the second Executor drew a small blade and sliced his own palm, letting blood drip onto the concrete. The Hollow shivered violently, its head snapping back as the black void of its mouth split wider.
The warehouse plunged into chaos—not of noise, but of silence. The silence of men realizing they had stepped into something greater than themselves.
And none of them would ever walk out the same.