Kael ran through the forgotten tunnels, lungs burning with each breath.
The stone passage narrowed and twisted, forcing him to duck and weave between crumbled supports and sagging walls.
His boots slipped on moss-slick rocks.
The air was damp.
Old.
Heavy.
But he didn't stop.
Couldn't.
Behind him, the Hollow's hunters were closing in.
He caught flashes of movement—shadows flickering at the edges of ruined archways.
No voices.
No shouted commands.
Gray Division moved like a blade across silk—silent, sure, and lethal.
At a collapsed stairwell, Kael hesitated.
Two paths forked ahead:
Left—a wider passage descending into total darkness.
Right—a narrow fissure that might lead upward.
The bottle at his side pulsed.
Once.
Twice.
Toward the right.
He trusted it.
He didn't have the luxury of doubt anymore.
Kael slipped into the fissure, hands scraping against jagged stone.
The walls closed around him, pressing close, stealing breath.
He squeezed through and stumbled into a ruined antechamber.
It should have been empty.
It wasn't.
Three figures awaited him, blades drawn.
Not initiates.
Trained hunters.
Gray Division specialists.
No hesitation.
No warning.
Just attack.
The first came low, aiming for Kael's legs.
Kael dodged by instinct, years of quiet training snapping into brutal clarity.
The second struck high—an arc of silver steel through the air.
Kael raised his arms to block, but the strike never landed.
The bottle flared.
Not in light.
In pressure.
A pulse like a heartbeat outward.
The hunter's sword glanced aside, as if deflected by something unseen.
The force of it spun him off balance.
Kael didn't think.
He drove his shoulder into the man's chest, sending him crashing against the crumbling wall.
The third attacker adjusted instantly, hurling a binding chain.
This time, Kael moved differently.
Not faster.
More… precisely.
Like his body anticipated the attack half a breath before it came.
He ducked, rolled, and came up with the knife Sariel had given him drawn and ready.
The chain snapped through the air where his head had been.
Kael slashed upward, catching the chain's end.
Sparks flew.
The hunter recoiled.
A second pulse from the bottle.
Sharper.
Stronger.
The ground beneath the nearest hunter cracked.
Stone vines—skeletal and dry—snapped upward, tangling around his boots.
He cursed, struggling.
Kael didn't waste the opportunity.
He bolted.
Through the broken chamber.
Up a set of half-collapsed stairs.
Toward the thin, cold air leaking from some forgotten breach above.
The hunters followed, but slower now.
Cautious.
Uncertain.
The bottle's interference was small, but it had shaken them.
It had shaken Kael too.
He had felt it.
Felt the moment the bottle had moved not for itself—
—but for him.
Outside, mist curled through the broken arches of the Hollow's outermost defenses.
Kael stumbled into the ruined courtyard, heart hammering.
The stars were hidden behind thick clouds.
No moonlight.
No guidance.
Just the slow, endless pull of the bottle's warmth.
He leaned against a shattered pillar, catching his breath.
Listening.
No immediate pursuit.
For now.
His body ached.
Scrapes along his arms and legs.
A bruise blossoming at his ribs.
But deeper than that, something else—
Strength.
Not overwhelming.
Not miraculous.
Just… steadier.
Sharper.
He could feel the bottle's touch in his blood now.
A threading.
A weaving.
Subtle, but growing.
Kael closed his eyes.
Centered himself.
They would come again.
Stronger.
Better prepared.
But so would he.
He wasn't the same boy who had knelt before the Hollow's gates months ago.
And he wasn't alone anymore.
He looked east, toward the unseen forests beyond the cliffs.
Beyond them, the broken lands.
Beyond them, secrets even older than the Hollow itself.
Kael tightened the cloak around his shoulders.
Adjusted the pouch at his side.
Set his jaw.
And moved.
Into the mist.
Into the unknown