The Void Between Seconds
Ryn Varrik woke in absolute darkness.
No—not darkness. Negative light. The shadows around him moved with sentient hunger, licking at his limbs like black flames. He tried to scream, but the void drank the sound before it left his throat.
His right arm was no longer there. The flesh had split open like an overripe fruit, revealing crystalised shards beneath—each one pulsing with an eerie, rhythmic glow, as if breathing in time with some distant, monstrous heart. The pain was beyond something heever felt. It wasn't just his skin tearing apart—it was his bones, his blood, his very nerves being rewritten into something else, like his whole genetic code was changing
[HOST SYNCHRONIZATION: 27%]
The words seared across his vision in jagged, glitching script, the same unnatural blue as the veins now branching beneath his skin.
"You are breaking."
"Well, it is what it is" Ryn mockingly replied
"But breaking is necessary."
Ryn tried to scream. The void drank the sound whole.
Cassia's War
Above him, the battle raged.
Cassia Veydran moved like a storm given flesh, her once-elegant nano-gown now reforged into a weapon. The liquid metal had hardened into razor-edged plates, each one etched with the Veydran dynasty's fractal sigils—but something was wrong.
The gold designs along her collar wasn't just decoration. It was alive.
Thin, luminous veins of gold pulsed beneath her skin, climbing up her neck like gilded ivy. But where they met her flesh, something darker festered. Black rot.
It spreaded like poison ivy, corrupting the gold, turning it sickly and dull. Every time she called upon the Hollow Crown's power, the corruption moved, creeping further.
And the Warden—Gods, the Warden—was worse.
It wasn't just a creature. It was an amalgamation, a grotesque fusion of Conclave armor and scavenger flesh. Its limbs bent in ways that made cassie's stomach wants to throw up, joints twisting like broken machinery. Its face—what was left of it—was a screaming maw set in blackened crystal, the jaw unhinged like a serpent's.
Cassia's dagger flashed, carving a deep gash across its chest. Black ichor sprayed—
—and the Warden laughed.
The wound stitched itself back together before their eyes, the flesh writhing like maggots in rotting meat.
"Pathetic," it hissed, its voice a chorus of the dead.
It backhanded her. Cassia hit the ground hard, her armor's energy field sputtering. The gold veins along her neck flared—
—and Ryn saw.
Not just the Warden's weak points (glowing red in his vision like infected wounds), but Cassia's corruption laid bare.
[HOLLOW CROWN INTEGRATION: 41%]
[WARNING: DEGRADATION DETECTED]
The Hollow Crown wasn't just a power. It was a disease.
And it was eating her alive.
The First Ability
"Revenant's Chorus: Activated."
The words weren't his. They came from the thing nesting in his bones.
His body moved without thought. Shadows coiled around his wrist like living things, their touch both freezing and burning. The Warden lunged—
—and Ryn pulled.
The darkness answered.
Tendrils of liquid night lashed from the abyss, wrapping around the Warden's limbs. Where they touched, the creature's flesh dissolved, not like melting wax, but like ink dispersing in water. The Warden howled—a sound that wasn't sound but a vibration that made Ryn's teeth ache and his vision blur.
Cassia stared at him, her black-and-gold eyes wide.
"What the hell are you?" she breathed.
"that was an excellent question?" ryn replied
"Anddd?" cassie as she lifts her eyebrows up
"Anddd whattt?" ryn nonchalantly replied
"nothing." she replied
The Maw's Hunger
The victory lasted three seconds.
The pool of liquid shadow at the cavern's center rippled. Then it surged, forming dozens of skeletal hands that clamped around Ryn's legs, his waist, his throat. They dragged him toward the abyss with terrifying strength.
Cassia moved.
Elyria's red vial arced through the air, shattering against the stone. The explosion wasn't fire or shrapnel—it was sound, a single, shattering note that made the very air tremble. The hands screamed, dissolving into mist.
Ryn lunged, his crystal fingers digging into the rock as he hauled himself up. The void beneath him thrashed, furious.
The Truth in the Blood
They ran.
Through tunnels that pulsed like living flesh, past corpses that twitched with false life, Cassia's breath came in ragged bursts. Ryn's new vision didn't fade. He saw it now—the truth beneath her skin.
The gold of her veins wasn't pure. Where it met her flesh, black threads spread like cracks in glass.
[HOLLOW CROWN INTEGRITY: 39%]
She was dying. Faster than she'd admitted. Faster than he'd guessed.
Cassia caught him staring.
"You're dying too," Ryn gasped.
Her smile was all teeth.
"We all are."