The next corridor narrowed, not from stone but from root.
They descended in single file now, the path so tight that Riku had to hold his glaive backward across his spine. The walls were not solid—woven, like fibrous threads of fungal bark twisted tightly together. When they brushed them, they shivered. Not from touch. From awareness.
Veit had not spoken since the mask.
Kael kept an eye on him from behind, scanning for signs of break. Sira walked ahead of Riku, half-turned, hand never leaving her weapon. Ilven muttered a wordless tune under his breath, but even his voice felt out of place here. The further they went, the more the Hollow seemed to correct noise—sanding it down until only breath remained.
Then the root-wall gave way.
The path ended in a fall—a natural drop into an impossibly vast chamber that stretched so high and wide the lightstones could barely catch the edges. They stood at a lip overlooking it, windless and ancient. The only sound was the whisper of their own steps echoing against nothing.
The chamber was… geometric.
From above, it looked like a collapsed cathedral—one grown, not built. Long columns like petrified bone-joints twisted into the ceiling, and below, hexagonal panels shaped the floor in mirrored tessellations. At the far end of the floor stood a platform—stone and root combined. And on it… a shape.
Riku didn't descend right away.
His eyes were drawn to the floor.
The tessellations weren't decorative.
They were pictorial.
Each hex was etched with patterns. Some had roots. Others had eyes. Some had flame. Some had claws. Together, they formed no singular mural—but they moved slightly, like muscle beneath thin skin.
Kael stepped beside him. "This chamber's alive."
Riku gave a nod. Then started down.
The descent was slow—stone ridges spiraling downward like the inside of a cracked fruit. The walls bore lines: straight, mathematical, contrasting the rest of the Hollow's organic chaos. This place had been planned.
Sira frowned. "I don't like it."
"Because it's watching?" Riku asked.
She shook her head. "Because it waits."
When they reached the floor, Riku knelt and touched one of the tiles.
It was warm.
The hex it belonged to flickered once—then darkened.
The shape of a root with three tips was now blank.
Riku stood again. "It registers contact."
Kael reached toward another.
His hand hovered over a tile—one with a symbol resembling a drake's curled wing.
Before he could touch it, the tile lit.
On its own.
Kael pulled back sharply. "It knows who we are."
Veit's voice cracked. "No. It thinks it does."
They all turned to him.
He was staring at the platform.
Specifically—at the shape on top of it.
Riku walked slowly toward the rise.
The shape was no artifact. No relic.
It was a sculpture.
Of him.
Not perfectly, but unmistakably: the same facial plane, the same broad-cut shoulders, the same fractured armor, the line of old burn across the left side of the face from the first bloodmoon. Carved in something blacker than obsidian, softer than bark.
But it wasn't finished.
Half the torso was missing.
One arm trailed into filaments.
It was still growing.
Sira breathed, "What is this?"
Riku stared down at the half-grown sculpture. It wasn't a statue of reverence. It had no crown. No weapons. Just a figure rising from the floor like memory carved through roots.
"It's not a tribute," Kael murmured.
"No," Riku said softly. "It's an imitation."
"Why?" Ilven asked. "What does it want?"
Behind them, the tiles shifted again. Two more shapes lit: a six-eyed beast and a spiral of fire.
The Hollow had chosen images.
One of them was Riku.
He stepped back from the platform, suddenly cold.
"Because it's learning," he said.
"Learning how to become."
Veit's whisper sounded louder than it should have. "We shouldn't stay."
Riku didn't move. His eyes were still locked on the sculpture. It had shifted slightly. The root-trails beneath it quivered like breath. Or thought.
"We'll mark the chamber," Riku said. "Take nothing."
They turned back toward the ascent.
But before they left, the sculpture's remaining arm—half-formed—rose by a centimeter.
No noise.
Just movement.
As if waving goodbye.