They left the chamber in silence, the air cooler now. The ruined city of Borreal seemed to shudder beneath their feet as if sensing what stirred in its broken heart.
As they crossed the shattered gate, the winds howled like wolves and the earth split just beyond the path.
A monstrous creature rose from the crevice black-veined flesh, bones fused with rusted armor, and dozens of hollowed faces stitched into its back.
Eyes that bleed shadow.
A crown of thorns.
A shrine that shattered glass.
Kaelith readied her bow.
“That's not a beast.”
Sora unsheathed his blade, eyes fixed.
This was not a guardian.
It was a punishment.
From the shadows above, laughter echoed hollow and regal.
A figure appeared atop the broken parapet. Robes of ash. A porcelain mask cracked in the shape of a smile.
“You found the chamber, didn't you?” the figure hissed.
"Did it whisper sweet truths? Did it offer hope?"
“You think the gods punished Borreal?”
The figure's voice turned venomous.
“No… We begged for it.”
Lightning split the sky. The beast lunged.
The ruined kingdom would now speak its truths…
In blood.
The streets of Borreal were on fire again.
Not with flames but with war cries of the Hollowed, and the clash of their rust-ragged blades against stone and steel.
Kaelith loosed arrows with furious precision, each shot a scream from her soul. Sora moved like a phantom through the chaos no war cry, no sound only the cut of his blade singing like wind through a graveyard.
But they were outnumbered.
Ten to one.
No more.
Hollow soldiers, warped beyond recognition, poured from the broken cathedral like rats from a drowned world. Some were giants, clad in melted iron. Others crawled on all fours, dragging spiked chains, their mouths sewn shut but eyes filled with endless rage. They were the echoes of a kingdom that fed on its own sins.
Kaelith snarled as a spear grazed her shoulder, knocking her back into rubble. Her bow cracked, not broken, but weakening. She rolled and fired point-blank into a Hollow's eye.
But more came.
And Sora...
He bled.
Pinned beneath a fallen knight twice his size, rusted blade impaling his side, dark blood soaking the shattered stones. He tried to rise the knight drove the blade deeper.
Kaelith screamed.
“Sora—!”
She tried to reach him but a swarm of Hollowed fell among them.
She was cornered. Back to the wall. Arrows depleted. The end felt inevitable.
Then—
The water changed.
A low hum pulsed beneath the earth, like something ancient stirring awake.
Sora's body trembled.
A long dormant mark burned itself open across his chest.
A jagged brand of light, like a broken sigil, glowing white-hot from beneath his skin.
His eyes flared open, not in pain but clarity.
He gripped the rusted blade impaling him…
And pulled it out.
The knight reeled back. In one fluid motion, Sora rose, not walking he was gliding, blade in his hand, and cloak trailing like a shadow set on fire.
He moved like vengeance incarnate.
The Hollow knight struck again and Sora vanished, reappearing behind it.
His blade sliced through the beast's spine in a single, and it was clean.
Then he turned toward the army.
Kaelith froze, eyes wide.
“What… are you…?”
But he didn't answer.
Amazed.
Into the horde.
They swarmed dozens at once but his blade carved through them like reaping wheat. Arcs of dark mist explode with each kill. Limbs scattered, Armor cracked, and Bones crunched.
A Hollow beast lunged.
Sora caught his jaw crushed it barehanded and flung the carcass into a crowd.
Blood coated the stones.
Kaelith found her footing and dove back into the fray, covering her flank. Her broken bow now used like a blade, lashing, slashing, brutal and unrefined. The two were a storm, one silent and one screaming, cutting a path through ruin.
But then—
A bell tolled.
Low.
Hollow.
Endless.
The Hollow stopped.
All of them turned toward the cathedral.
A shadow descended from its heights, gliding down like ash. Cloaked in spires of bone, crowned with a bleeding halo of flame, it landed in silence.
The figure from before. Mask still smiling.
He raised a hand.
"Now... let's see what the truth has made of you."
The boss had arrived.
And the real nightmare...
Was just the beginning.
The cathedral gates creaked open as if by unseen hands, and the boss stepped forward, his form shifting like smoke within bone-crafted robs.
His staff, forged from obsidian and wrapped in mummified flesh, scraped along the stone, leaving runes burning in its wake. Around him, the air was wrong thick, heavy, and smelling of rot and forgotten screams.
A voice rasped out from behind his mask.
"You came to uncover what was lost. Let me offer you... all of it."
He slammed his staff to the ground.
The sky darkened.
The cathedral bled.
And from the soil and stone rose the Dead.
Dozens. Hundreds.
Once-men, Once-women, Soldiers, monks, and even children. Faces turn away by time, hands still gripping weapons, mouths sewn shut with crimson twine. They staggered, then charged, alongside the towering Hollowed.
Sora stood motionless.
Kaelith gritted her teeth.
"No way through this. Not without a plan."
She dropped beside him, pulling a shattered arrow shaft from her thigh. Sora didn't look at her and just stared forward.
Then—
His hand reached out.
He pointed to the bell hanging from the ruins above.
Kaelith blinked. “Disrupt his summoning…?”
He nodded once.
But the mage moved faster.
He chanted tongue splitting into three and unleashed a curse that darkened the stone beneath their feet. Vines of shadow wrapped around their legs. A hex trying to siphon breath, lock joints, cloud their thoughts.
Kaelith staggered. “I—I can't move!”
Sora looked up.
He threw his sword, straight into the bell tower.
The bell ring.
Loud.
Piercings.
The spell faltered.
The Hollowed shrieked.
Some collapsed in mid-run and the others slowed.
Kaelith gasped for air. “Smart… silent bastard.”
But the mage didn't stop. With a shriek that cracked stone, he raised his staff and summoned a black flame that howled like the damned.
He hurled it.
Sora jumped in front of Kaelith the flame exploded on him.
He was thrown back, smoke rising from his cloak, armor burned into his skin. He wrote in agony but didn't scream. He never screamed.
Kaelith turned. Rage in her eyes.
“Then I'll do the screaming for both of us.”
She drew the bone-carved bow the cloaked figure had given her. It shimmers now glowing with ghostly silver, bound by threads of memory.
She aimed at the mage but he laughed.
"You think you hold power? You are nothing."
And then he raised his hand—
Kaelith fired anyway.
But she didn't aim at him.
She aimed at the sky and the bell again.
The arrow split in three mid-air, striking the bell repeatedly.
The ringing becomes a chorus. Each strike unleashed a wave of resonance.
The army of Hollow frozen.
The curse lifted.
Sora stood up again.
And this time—
His blade glowed.
The same sigil on his chest now blazes down his arm. Each step he took melted the corrupted earth beneath. Shadows tried to cling to him but burned away like frost in fire.
He rushed the mage.
The mage unleashed a storm of dark lances.
Sora dodged.
Slashed.
Parried one and it shattered.
The two collided.
Steel against cursed bones.
Magic against soul-born silence.
Kaelith circled wide, firing cover shots, disrupting the summoning circles the mage tried to carve into the air.
"NOW, Sora!"
Sora threw his blade it missed.
No.
It hits the staff.
The obsidian shattered.
The mage staggered, mask cracked.
Sora reappeared his sigil now engulfing his whole arm grabbed the mage by the throat and drove him down onto the cathedral floor.
Kaelith's arrow found the mage's heart.
The light from the bell tower exploded one final time.
And the Hollowed army… fell.
Dead again.
Truly, this time.
Silence returned to Borreal.
Kaelith limped toward Sora. “That was… impossible.”
He said nothing.
She sighed, kneeling beside him as he clutched his side.
"You never spoke. But I think I'm finally starting to understand the weight you carry."
He looked at her.
Then—
The bell above cracked… and crumbled.
The Hollow Crown had fallen.
But something deeper and darker still waiting below.
A locked gate in the cathedral whispered in the old tongue.
“One sin leads to another…”
The bell had long fallen silent.
But echoes of the battle still hung in the blackened air of the ruined cathedral.
Sora stood only for a moment after the Hollow Crown fell.
His knees buckled.
His hand reached out instinctively… but met only air.
Kaelith turned just in time to see him fall face-first, hard, and into blood-slick stone.
"Sora?!"
She rushed to him dropping her bow, skidding across stone with raw knees, and hands grabbing at his shoulders.
His body trembled.
Not from fear.
From something deeper.
A heat rising from under his skin, like a bucket going out.
She pulled at his chestplate cracked, melted into his tunic.
A scent like burning sigils filled her nostrils.
Her hand hovered over his chest.
“The rune… what the hell did you activate…?”
Her voice cracked.
Her fingers trembled.
She didn't realize she was shaking.
She hadn't seen him fall before.
Never even seen him bleed like this.
And the silence his eternal silence, now feels heavier than death.
"Damn it—! Don't you dare die after all that. You didn't say a single word the whole time don't make that your goodbye."
She slapped his cheek lightly.
His eyes barely fluttered.
No breath came from his mouth.
Only shallow rattles.
His lips were pale.
Kaelith bit her own to keep herself calm.
Looked around the ruined cathedral.
No potions.
No aid.
Just ash and bones and silence.
Then—
Footsteps.
At first, she braced for another threat reaching instinctively for her broken bow.
But what stepped through the massive cathedral archway was a figure in a crooked hat, coat made of stitched pelts, and a cart rattling behind him full of trinkets, vials, and blades.
He raised a hand with a lazy grin.
“Well now… I'm not one to interrupt afterglows, but that doesn't look like victory to me.”
Kaelith scrambled up. "You—! Help him!"
The merchant's eyes flicked down to Sora.
"Hmmm. That one's cursed deep. Bleeding from a rune rupture, it looks like Old magic or Dangerous magic."
Kaelith stormed to him. “I don't care what it is do something!”
He clicked his tongue. "Panicking doesn't make you prettier, my love. But I've got salves... potions brewed in cursed valleys, a stitch kit made from the bones of fallen saints, and ah, yes—"
He pulled out a vial glowing violet-blue.
"Soulbind draft. Painful going in but it'll stabilize the mark... if you're lucky."
Kaelith didn't wait.
She grabbed the vial, knelt, and tilted Sora's head gently.
His eyes fluttered again barely aware.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
"This is going to hurt. But not more than losing you."
She poured the draft into his mouth.
Sora's body arched.
The veins around his chest glowed dark sigils pulsing, retreating, crackling like fire eating itself backwards.
He screamed—
No.
He didn't.
But his mouth opened, jaw clenched so tight it should've shattered teeth.
Then… he fell still.
His chest rose.
Steady, Slow, and Alive.
Kaelith collapsed beside him, her head on his chest, and eyes burning.
"Next time," she muttered,
"You better warn me before you try dying."
The merchant whistled. "Touching. Very poetic. Now, my price—"
She stood.
Bow still broken.
Clothes stained in blood.
Her eyes were ice.
“Speak the word ‘price’ one more time and I'll pull your spine through your teeth.”
The merchant smiled wider. "Ahhh. I like her."
He pushed his cart along, whistling a nameless tune. "Well then, lovers of destruction. Enjoy your rest. The next storm is already brewing."
He left through the other side of the cathedral.
Kaelith knelt back beside Sora.
She wiped the sweat from her brow.
His face was peaceful again.
And for a long time, they didn't move.
Just the ruined light through cracked windows.
Just the breath between battles.
Just her hand resting gently over his, wordlessly promising:
I'm still here.
And she would be for the next step into the cursed heart of Borreal.
And he'll stay here for the next step to the next place they face next.
The merchant disappeared into the grey, leaving behind only the fading scent of alchemical smoke and the echo of a lullaby hummed under breath.
Kaelith sat cross-legged near Sora, sharpening what remained of her knife. The silence between her breaths felt heavier now, like every second was bargained from fate.
Sora still lay motionless.
The soulbind potion was never meant for mortals like him. That old rune whatever it had consumed to activate during the Hollow fight left behind something raw.
Burning.
As if part of him was not simply bleeding, but unraveling.
Kaelith didn't sleep.
She couldn't.
She watched over him as hours became fragments, fragmented between memory and dread.
And then—
Sora's fingers twitched.
His brow furrowed.
A breath came from him sharp, like air drawn from drowning.
He had not awakened.
Not yet.
However, inside him there was something waiting for him even in his sleep.