Day 15
The descent into the Hollow Crown wasn't a climb; it was a fall with extra steps.
The path spiraled downward through what should have been solid stone but felt more like walking through the memory of a cave. Gravity worked in suggestions rather than rules. One moment I was walking down, the next the "down" was to my left, then behind me, then all directions at once.
My stomach hadn't forgiven me by the time I reached the actual cavern.
And gods, what a cavern.
The Hollow Crown stretched in every direction, up, down, sideways through dimensions that hurt to look at. Cathedral-spire stalagmites rose from a floor I couldn't always see. Rivers of black mana flowed like molten glass, their surfaces perfectly still despite movement. Everything echoed wrong, sounds arriving before they were made, or seconds after, or not at all.
[WELCOME TO THE HOLLOW CROWN] [MACRO FLOOR 2: STILLNESS THAT ROARS] [OBJECTIVE: DESCEND] [WARNING: SOUND IS DANGEROUS HERE]
"Of course it is," I muttered, and immediately regretted it.
My voice came back wrong. Not an echo, but a roar, my quiet mutter amplified into something that shook the stalagmites and sent cascades of stone dust raining down.
Then, silence. Perfect, oppressive silence that pressed against my eardrums like water pressure.
Day 15: Made it to the second floor. Gravity is drunk and sound is a weapon. I whispered and caused an avalanche. This place wants me dead, but at least it's creative about it.
The bond with Nyx was thread-thin now, barely present. I could feel she existed, somewhere far above, but details were lost. It was like trying to remember a dream, you knew it happened, but the specifics kept slipping away.
I hated it.
Day 16
The predators here moved in perfect silence until they struck, then the sound hit like a physical force.
I encountered my first Hollow Stalker today: a creature that looked like someone had taken a wolf, a bat, and a nightmare, blended them together, and removed all the sound until the moment it attacked.
It stalked me for an hour in perfect silence. No footsteps. No breathing. Nothing.
Then it lunged, and the sonic boom nearly liquefied my internal organs.
I survived by instinct, my Earth Manipulation throwing up a barrier half a second before impact, the stone cracking under the force of the soundwave.
The Stalker circled, preparing another strike. I didn't give it the chance.
I'd learned something important: if sound here was a weapon, I needed to use it better than they did.
I slammed my spear into the stone floor with everything I had. The impact was silent. The echo three seconds later was a shockwave that pulverized the Stalker into component molecules.
[HOLLOW STALKER DEFEATED] [+240 EXP] [DISCOVERY: DELAYED SOUND ATTACKS POSSIBLE] [COMBAT PROFICIENCY INCREASED]
My hands were shaking. Not from fear, from something else. Excitement? Bloodlust?
The Oni runes on my arms pulsed with hungry light.
Day 16: Killed something by screaming at it. Indirectly. The power here is wrong, but I'm starting to understand it. Also starting to enjoy it, which is probably a bad sign.
Day 18
The deeper I went, the worse the memories became.
The Hollow Crown didn't use illusions like the Veilwood, it used sound. Phantom conversations that never happened. Arguments I'd avoided having. Words I should have said but didn't.
I heard Emma's voice screaming at me during our last fight, the one three days before she died: "You're not even trying anymore! You've given up on me!"
I heard my own voice, cold and distant: "Maybe I'm just tired of trying to save someone who doesn't want to be saved."
I'd never actually said that. But I'd thought it. And the dungeon knew.
The cavern played it on repeat, each iteration getting louder, until I was walking through a symphony of my own failures.
I stopped hearing it after a while. Not because it stopped, because I learned to not care.
That should have worried me more than it did.
[MENTAL RESISTANCE CHECK: PASSED] [WARNING: EMOTIONAL SUPPRESSION DETECTED] [CORRUPTION LEVEL: MODERATE → HIGH]
I found a pool of that black mana, perfectly still, reflecting nothing, and looked at my reflection.
My horns had grown again, now curving back in proper demonic arcs. My eyes were fully ember-lit, the gold burning bright even in the darkness. The Oni runes had spread further, crawling up my neck in intricate patterns that pulsed with my heartbeat.
I looked dangerous. Feral. Wrong.
"Still me," I said to the reflection.
The reflection smiled back with too many teeth.
Day 19
Mini-boss fight: Shadow Hydra.
Three heads. Each one silent. Each strike a sonic boom that could crack stone.
I killed the first head by letting it bite my shoulder (HP -180), then driving my spear through its brain before the sound-shockwave could go off. The pain was excruciating. I barely noticed.
The second head I took by baiting it into a narrow passage, then collapsing the ceiling with a delayed sound-mine I'd set up earlier. Crushed. Efficient.
The third head actually spoke: "You're enjoying this."
"No," I said.
"Liar."
I ripped its jaw off with my bare hands. The claws... when had they gotten so long? They tore through scale and bone like paper.
[SHADOW HYDRA DEFEATED]
[+800 EXP] [LEVEL UP! YOU ARE NOW LEVEL 15]
[SKILL EVOLVED: DEMON'S RESILIENCE → DEMON'S WRATH]
[NEW PASSIVE: DAMAGE INCREASES WITH RAGE]
I stood in the hydra's corpse, covered in black ichor, breathing hard. My reflection in a nearby pool showed someone I barely recognized, someone whose smile was all violence and sharp edges.
The bond with Nyx pulsed weakly. She felt my bloodlust, my rage, my descent.
Knox, she sent, voice thin with distance and worry. You are losing yourself.
I'm surviving, I sent back.
At what cost?
I didn't answer. Didn't have an answer.
Day 19: Killed something that probably didn't deserve it. Or maybe it did. Hard to tell. The distinction between defense and offense is getting blurry. Also, I think I laughed. That's probably bad.
Day 21
The week ended with the realization that I was no longer fighting to survive.
I was hunting.
The difference was subtle but significant. Survival meant avoiding danger, taking only necessary fights, preserving resources. Hunting meant seeking out threats, testing my limits, pushing until something broke, them or me.
The corrupted treant I fought today was Level 16, massive, ancient, and wrong. It should have killed me. Instead, I tore through it like tissue paper, my ember-shadow magic burning hotter than it ever had, the air around me literally vibrating with power.
When it fell, I stood in the wreckage and realized I was grinning.
Not a smile. A predator's grin, all teeth and hunger.
[CORRUPTED TREANT DEFEATED] [+950 EXP] [WARNING: BLOODLUST DETECTED] [WARNING: CORRUPTION LEVEL: HIGH → CRITICAL] [RECOMMENDATION: SURFACE IMMEDIATELY]
"Can't," I told the System. "Not done yet."
The cavern ahead opened into something vast, a throne room carved from living stone, where rivers of black mana converged. And sitting on a throne of crystallized silence was the floor boss.
The Crowned Reverberant.
A skeletal titan with a massive cracked bell fused to its skull. It looked at me with empty eye sockets, and even from a distance, I felt the weight of its presence, ancient, patient, utterly devoid of mercy.
It raised one skeletal hand in greeting.
Or challenge.
Hard to tell the difference anymore.
Day 21: Found the floor boss. It's big, it's scary, and I'm pretty sure it can kill me with a whisper. I don't care. I need to know if I'm strong enough. I need to know if becoming this... thing... was worth it.
Through the bond, so faint I almost missed it: Knox, please. Come back to me. Don't let it take you.
I love you, I sent back. Remember that, whatever happens.
KNOX...
I severed the connection. Not permanently, just muted it, pushed it down where it couldn't distract me.
Then I walked toward the Crowned Reverberant, spear in hand, ember-shadow flames dancing along my skin, and let the monster I was becoming off its leash.