The figure standing in front of her was completely devoid of a soul. The natural brilliance and vital energy that a soul would normally engulf a living human body with was entirely gone—replaced instead by a terrible, echoing hollowness that seemed to radiate from within.
Aiona fell backward onto the floor, her hand flying up to cover her mouth in horror. The soulless body of Yana didn't react to any of that movement or disturbance. It just kept mindlessly repeating the same words over and over again in that flat, mechanical voice. And it just swayed gently in place, suspended and trapped.
Tears started to fall down from Aiona's eyes in streams, running down her cheeks. She did her absolute best to suppress her sobs, biting her lip hard, but she couldn't manage it. The grief was too overwhelming.
Throughout all her long five-hundred-year life, she had said goodbye to countless humans that had mattered deeply to her. It was inevitable—death was always lurking in the corner, waiting patiently for everyone. Though Aiona herself still had time remaining—in about five hundred more years her own time to depart would eventually come as well.
It wasn't death itself that she hated. Death was natural, even necessary. But she hated the departure, the loss, the leaving behind. However, since she had been consistently blessing the humans of Heinnas and nourishing them with her own dragon blood for centuries, the unexpected deaths from terrible wounds and devastating sickness had largely stopped occurring. The people lived out the full years they were meant to have on this earth and then departed peacefully into whatever was waiting for them on the other side. It was the natural, proper course of life—as it should be.
But this! This abomination was just too cruel to comprehend. These people had their very souls violently sucked out of them against their will, rendering them unable to properly depart to the other side and find peace. And their bodies remained animate and preserved because they had been nourished by dragon blood over the years. What a horrifically cruel thing to do to innocent people. What a cruel thing to even conceive of in one's mind.
Yana had been just sixteen years old when she had started working directly for Aiona five years ago. That prestigious opportunity had only been bestowed upon her because she had won the highly competitive handmaiden competition held in the royal capital of Serpa. Aiona's previous personal maid had formally asked for retirement because of her advanced age, and they had needed a replacement. So the handmaiden competition—which was only ever held when Aiona specifically needed a new maid—had been conducted that year. There were numerous other servants working throughout her palace, but her personal maid was always only ever one at a time, a singular position of honor.
Aiona remembered clearly the day Yana had first greeted her, wearing the special uniform that was given exclusively to the winner of the competition. A beautiful green dress with a crisp white apron. And the young girl had been absolutely beaming with happiness and pride that day, her face glowing. The cheerful, energetic girl had become an integral part of Aiona's daily life before very long, and Aiona had naturally grown deep affection for her—just as she always did for those who served her faithfully.
"I'm really so thankful to Mistress," Yana had said once while carefully combing Aiona's long hair. "Because I became Mistress's personal maid, our family was given fertile farmland and substantial funds—enough for them to live comfortably for their whole lives. I have nothing else to worry about anymore! My parents and siblings are secure."
"I did nothing special to deserve your gratitude," Aiona had replied gently. "It's because you are genuinely great at what you do—you won the competition fairly after all, beating everyone else. I heard there were around two thousand candidates competing that time."
"But Mistress brought the enlightened policy of providing the winner's family with farmland and funds in the first place," the girl had answered earnestly. "If it wasn't for Mistress's generosity and that policy, our family would have gone through such a hard time. We were struggling before."
Now that same cheerful girl just swayed mindlessly in place, trapped in an empty shell. Her very soul had been violently robbed from her. She would remain like this—trapped, repeating, hollow—for the rest of the years until her body's time on earth would finally end naturally.
Aiona wiped her tears away roughly with the back of her hands, smearing them across her face.
She gave a wordless mental command to engulf the tragic figure in purifying dragon flames. As the fire consumed Yana's body, the girl didn't scream in pain or react at all. She just continued to sway gently, still repeating those same haunting words like before. Before long she was fully consumed by the cleansing flame and turned to ash, finally released. Aiona pulled the magic back, extinguishing it.
Her head felt strangely clear now, almost unnaturally so. Maybe the protective numbness that came from having witnessed death thousands of times over the centuries had finally kicked in, shielding her. She got up onto her feet, still physically weak from the shock but mentally focused. She walked out of the corridor toward the stairs leading down.
"I need to find Hunter," she told herself firmly, like someone just waking up from a terrible dream. "He might still be alive."
---
As she descended the stairs and moved through the palace, everyone she encountered had been turned to the same hollows—their souls cruelly sucked out and their bodies left as empty shells. They were all repeating some words just like Yana had been. After a few disturbing encounters, she realized with horror what those words actually were—they were each person's last words. Desperate pleas asking for help, prayers begging for her divine protection, curses of all kinds—all repeated again and again endlessly.
Aiona didn't stop to burn them and release them. For now, that mercy could wait. She needed to find her mate first. And she wished—desperately, fervently wished—that he would still be alive somehow.
If he was dead, she genuinely didn't know how she could possibly take it and survive. After clearing her head and focusing her chaotic magic, she was finally able to find a stable anchor point in the town below and successfully use her teleportation.
The first place she went was the townhouse she had gifted to Hunter, materializing in the bedroom. But she frantically looked all over the house, searching every room, only to find that he was not there anywhere. Where could he possibly be? The house looked completely abandoned, as if nobody had been there for days. Dust had already begun to settle.
Aiona's heart beat painfully in her chest. Had he left before the attack? Then it was good—he wouldn't be in danger. But did he really abandon me? The thought itself was deeply painful, cutting into her. Maybe he's somewhere in the town—I should go look for him there. As Aiona thought this to herself, she began walking out into the roads of Fulpa.
Then what she witnessed in the streets turned her core ice cold with horror. Everyone in the entire town had been turned to hollows. The cheerful people who had been making festival sweets, the artisans who had decorated the streets so beautifully, the children who had played joyfully on the streets—all of them had been turned to soulless hollows, mindlessly going through the motions.
Aiona tried desperately not to cry, but her tears fell anyway, streaming down her face. She hiccupped, trying to stop her sobs from escaping. As she took a stumbling step backward, she accidentally collided with a little girl who couldn't have been even five years old, saying "Mommy... mommy..." over and over again in that same flat voice.
Aiona dropped heavily to her knees right there in the street and started weeping uncontrollably. She had loved them so much. Her people. The people who had blindly worshipped her like a deity, who had trusted her completely. But she had been utterly useless when they had needed her protection the most. She had failed them all.
The guilt was so overwhelming and soul-wrenching that she let out a guttural scream as she cried, the sound echoing through the empty streets.
What was the use of a goddess who couldn't protect her own worshippers? These people had been nothing but good and faithful. They had deserved her protection, and she had failed them catastrophically.
After some time spent crying in the street, as she slowly lifted up her head in the middle of the crowd of hollows, she saw him. Grendran. The giant man was impossible to hide even in the middle of millions of people—his massive frame stood out. He had his back turned away from her. But she knew his back, recognized it in the very depths of her fondest memories. So she rushed toward him immediately, tripping on her dress hem in her haste. She fell hard but got up like someone desperately chasing an illusion, and ran—walked as fast as she could—toward him.
But she didn't actually have to hurry. The strongest human warrior of his time didn't move away from his spot at all. He stood there as if he was eternally damned to remain in that exact place forever.
As Aiona finally reached him and turned him around to face her, she saw with crushing despair that he too had been damned. Turned into a hollow like all the others.
"No, no, no... no..." she cried out, gripping onto his massive frame. "Please no, you were so strong. How could this happen to you??"
She wept against him. What made her sobs stop abruptly was the specific words that came out of the hollow man's mouth.
It was a mere whisper, a mumble almost completely inaudible. But her enhanced hearing caught it clearly.
"It's not your fault, Furna..." he repeated again and again, absolving her even in death.
But those selfless words only made her cry even harder, the guilt crushing her. She dropped backward onto the ground, crying like a little abandoned child. As she fell, she collided with someone else standing behind her. She turned around only to see her adoptive son—Garam—who had also been turned into a hollow.
A scream of pure anguish left Aiona's throat. She grabbed the young man and held him tightly in her arms, cradling him as she had often done when he was a toddler. She whispered his name over and over, and caressed his face gently, desperately trying to wake him up.
"Mother... Mother..." the young man called out mechanically.
"I'm here, I'm here... my sweetheart, my baby... mother's here," Aiona whispered brokenly, holding him close.
But her son didn't hear her words at all. Like a broken mechanism, he just repeated the same words endlessly, trying to call his mother at the hour of his passing.
If she had taken his warnings into account and acted on them—would they still be like this? Hollowed out of their souls? If she had eliminated Jarun when they had suggested it, would any of this still have happened?
She wept again and again, her heart completely full of overwhelming sadness and crushing despair.