I am 15 chapters ahead on my patreón, check it out if you are interested.
Patréon.com/emperordragon
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Chapter 134: The Hollow Man
Tony sat utterly still on the worn couch after returning to the apartment, the faded fabric sagging beneath Darren's borrowed weight. The space around him was small and unremarkable — just like its former occupant — a forgettable slice of Beacon Hills, tucked into an aging building where neighbors barely exchanged names. The only sound was the low, monotonous hum of the refrigerator in the corner, its motor vibrating through the thin kitchen wall. It was the kind of background noise that most people stopped noticing after a while — but not Tony. Not now.
His chest rose and fell with shallow, mechanical breaths, his new lungs functioning out of instinct rather than need. There was no real urgency to the movement, no true necessity behind it. It was a reflex of the flesh — this human vessel he now inhabited — as pointless as it was disquieting.
Slowly, deliberately, he flexed his fingers. Each movement sent unfamiliar signals through nerve endings he hadn't earned, synapses firing in strange patterns. The hands were too soft. The muscles beneath them weak, untrained. A body built for mediocrity — not domination. Not survival. When he touched his wrist, he could feel the pulse fluttering beneath the skin — fast, erratic. It beat with the fragile insistence of mortal life, and the sensation turned his stomach.
Disgusting.
For centuries, he had known power in its most intoxicating forms — a silent architect of chaos, threading whispers into the minds of monsters and men alike. He had slipped inside thoughts like water, bending wills until they snapped, igniting wars between shapeshifters, hunters, and innocents. They never saw the strings. They never realized they were dancing for him. Every moment had been a calculated stroke of manipulation. Every outcome, his design.
But that was before.
Now, he was trapped in something that bled. Something that tired. Something that could fall apart with a single well-aimed blow. A body that had been neglected by its owner — and desperate enough for Tony to slide in unnoticed.
And yet, there was a silver lining.
No one would see this coming.
His eyes closed, and he turned inward, reaching for the place where his power once thrived — the chorus of voices he had always heard in the back of his mind, overlapping thoughts, raw emotion, fractured memories — all ripe for plucking and twisting. But this time, nothing answered. No connection. No distant thoughts or flickers of rage to hold onto. Just an awful, suffocating quiet.
His tether was gone.
Tony exhaled sharply — not in frustration, but in cold, clinical acceptance. He could no longer feed on fear, nor amplify hate. He could no longer pull the strings of his puppets from a distance. No more hallucinations, no more twisting memories, no more invisible fingers tugging at the edges of sanity.
But even as that realization sank in, a crooked smile found its way to his borrowed mouth.
"So," he muttered, tasting the words, testing how they felt coming from Darren's throat. "Back to square one... just like six years ago."
He let the words sit there for a moment, suspended in the stale air.
"Pathetic..." he added with a quiet scoff. "But useful."
Leaning back against the cushion, he stared up at the ceiling. Cracks spiderwebbed across the plaster like faded scars — neglected and forgotten, much like this place, much like this body. But Tony's mind was already working, ticking methodically, cold and precise.
Lucas.
That name cut through the haze like a knife. A boy born of defiance. Unmarked by darkness. Unspoiled by anger or frustration. Lucas had been a fluke — an anomaly — and in that anomaly, the raw, untamed potential Tony had been chasing across lifetimes. That spark within him, that lighting... It was something else. Something rare. And more importantly — it was powerful.
"Perfect vessel," Tony murmured.
Lucas had ended him.
Or so he'd thought.
Tony's parasite form had been shattered, broken apart by Lucas's power. Reduced to a shadow of its former self. He had barely managed to cling to existence thanks to the seed, slipping into Darren's body like a drowning man reaching for driftwood. Now, he lived in scraps — emotions instead of power, survival instead of dominance.
But it was enough.
Just enough to begin again.
Tony rose from the couch, his movements stiff but steady. He paced the narrow living room, the floorboards creaking beneath his bare feet. The Hales would be on edge now. The Argents are still hunting. Grief and vengeance made excellent blindfolds.
A war between them would make the perfect smoke screen. All he had to do was nudge the pieces, slowly.
His laugh came low and quiet — not the feral sound of a beast drunk on blood, but something far more dangerous. A whisper of patience. Of calculation. Of certainty.
"No more claws. No brute force. Just the right words, spoken at the right time. That's all it takes to tip a world over."
He moved to the window, pulling aside the thin curtain. Outside, Beacon Hills slumbered under a cloudy night sky. Streetlights blinked. A car rumbled down the road. Ordinary. Peaceful.
And completely unaware of what was coming.
Tony stared at his own reflection, faint in the glass — Darren's face, yes, but hollowed, emptied of self. A mannequin animated by purpose.
"I'll make you break yourself, Lucas," he whispered, his reflection faint in the glass. "And when you do… I'll be there to take what's left."
He let the curtain fall.
Tony turned away from the window, Darren's face settling into an expression that belonged to no one — a hollow shell wearing humanity like a mask.
Then he smiled.
"Round two."