Chapter 9: The Hollow Crown
The moment the crown shattered, the Tower screamed.
Not a sound—something deeper. A fundamental law of reality twisting, like a bone forced backward in its socket. The golden chamber convulsed, its equations unraveling into meaningless scribbles. The walls bled light.
Elias stood at the center of the storm, his scarred hand outstretched, the remnants of the crown's power still crackling along his fingertips.
The Hollow King's voice was gone.
But the weight of him remained—a presence coiled in Elias's mind, shackled not by chains, but by logic.
"You arrogant little—"
Elias squeezed.
The voice cut off with a gasp.
Illana stared at him from the floor, her empty eye socket still dripping black. "What did you just do?"
Elias flexed his fingers. "I fired the Warden."
The Tower's Collapse
The Tower was dying.
Not crumbling—dissolving, its stone melting into equations that frayed at the edges, its spires collapsing inward like deflating lungs. In the distance, screams echoed as mages and students alike fled the unraveling structure.
Illana grabbed Elias's arm. "We need to go. Now."
He didn't move. "Where?"
"Anywhere that isn't here when the Tower realizes it can't survive without the crown!"
A thunderous crack split the air. Above them, the ceiling peeled back like parchment, revealing not sky, but the void—an endless black expanse where the Tower's highest floors had already vanished.
Elias finally turned. "Run."
They barely made it out before the ground beneath them erased itself.
The Cultists' Revelation
The survivors of the Ivory Tower gathered in the ruins of the campus courtyard—mages clutching half-melted artifacts, professors babbling in panic, Inquisitors trying in vain to restore order.
And at the edges of the crowd, watching, stood the Hollow Church.
Their masks were gone. Their faces were bare. And every single one was smiling.
The lead cultist—an old woman with hollowed-out eyes—stepped forward and knelt.
"All hail the Godslayer," she whispered. "All hail the Hollow Crown."
A murmur spread through the survivors. Eyes turned to Elias.
Illana's grip on her dagger tightened. "Oh, shit."
Elias looked down at his scarred hand.
The veins weren't black anymore.
They were gold.
The King's Gambit
That night, Elias dreamed.
Not of the Hollow King's voice, but of his memory—a glimpse of the being before the Tower, before the crown, before the hunger.
A scholar. A genius.
A man who had tried to fix the world's broken math, only to become the very error he sought to correct.
"You think you've won," the memory whispered. "But you've only proven my point. The system is flawed. The Tower. The magic. You."
Elias woke with a gasp.
Illana was gone.
On his pillow lay a note:
"The Tower was a cage. You've set the beast loose. Don't follow me."
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End Chapter 9