The underworld stirred.
Stone shifted. Whispers seeped through fractured stone veins. Netherhold had expanded again—but this time, I hadn't commanded it.
A path had opened beneath the Trial Chamber. Not carved by my hand, but revealed by something older… something buried.
I stood before the rift, where cold air oozed like breath from the lungs of a buried god. The darkness beyond wasn't absence—it was a memory. One that didn't belong to me, but to the world that had long tried to forget.
Vestige of the Hollow Lords.
The name wasn't given. It was remembered. Etched into the bones of the earth, whispered in runes older than this age.
> [New Zone Accessed: Vestige of the Hollow Lords]
[Threat Assessment: Unknown | Anomalous Lifeforms Detected]
[System Warning: Echo Saturation: 89% – Reality Integrity Unstable]
The walls throbbed with heat that didn't come from flame. It felt… organic. Living. This was not a dungeon meant to be explored. It was a place abandoned, sealed, and now reopened—because something had stirred beneath it.
I returned to the Soul Throne and summoned my elite. Shadows slithered across the floor before the three appeared—my finest blades.
Grave Stalker emerged from the dark, his form like a shadow given teeth. Since his evolution, he no longer moved like a goblin. He moved like a predator.
Luma hovered beside him, her light steady and cold, a celestial presence wrapped in death's calm. Her evolution had changed her—granted her wisdom, restraint, and a depth I hadn't foreseen.
The Boneflare Hound padded forward last, flames licking its ribcage, breath glowing with soulfire.
All three knelt.
"You are my spear," I said. "There is a wound in this world, bleeding secrets. Go. Carve truth from its flesh."
I raised my hand.
> [Direct Control Link Initiated: Scouting Squad Alpha]
[Mental Channel Established | Vital Sync Active]
"I will see through your eyes. Feel through your instincts. But I will not guide your hands. Observe. Survive. If you must fight… do not die without a story to bring back."
They bowed, rose, and disappeared into the newly opened dark.
The descent was swift. The corridor narrowed quickly, like the gullet of some ancient beast. Stone pressed close. Luma illuminated the path ahead while the Boneflare kept a slow, deliberate pace. Grave Stalker took the rear, watching the walls, checking for signs of warding or traps.
The air thickened. Sounds took longer to echo. Even breath felt like it lagged behind the lungs. Magic here was stretched thin and vibrating with something foreign.
> "Temperature drop: 12 degrees."
"Mana pressure rising. Reality feels... frayed."
Then the walls opened into a chamber so vast it swallowed their light. A domed hall, supported by broken pillars, covered in glyphs that twitched when looked at too long. Something massive rested at the center—a black root, pulsing, cracked open as if the earth itself had given birth to it.
Beneath it lay the dead.
Twisted corpses. Creatures with wings fused to spines. Eyes grown across limbs. Hands where jaws should be. They hadn't been slain.
They had been... transformed, then abandoned.
> [Lifeform Status: Dormant | Mutation Reversal Incomplete]
[Warning: Residual Soul Instability Detected]
Grave Stalker knelt by one corpse.
"They were evolving," he said through the mental link. "And something went wrong. Terribly wrong."
One of the bodies twitched.
A sound, sharp as snapping bone. Its back arched violently, splitting open as if rejecting its own skeleton. Flesh surged over bone in reverse, patching itself like broken cloth. The head twisted unnaturally, its spine elongating outward, barbed.
Black eyes opened—soulless.
And it screamed.
> [Entity Detected: Hollowborn Aberrant – Shatter-Spine]
[Stability: Minimal | Mutation In Progress | Adaptive State Detected]
The Boneflare reacted instantly, jaws wide with flame. It unleashed a torrent of hellfire—but the creature didn't burn.
It drank the fire.
Its body pulsed, swelling.
> [Trait Acquired: Thermal Absorption]
[Warning: Each Second of Combat May Trigger New Evolution]
Grave Stalker rushed forward, twin blades flashing. He slashed across the creature's leg—severing it cleanly. But even before the limb hit the ground, a new one had sprouted. Bladed. Serrated. Faster.
Luma flared, light pulsing in waves of disruption. The creature recoiled, twitched—then split its torso apart like a gaping maw.
> "It's learning," Luma said. "Each strike we make… it adapts."
"Kill it now," I ordered. "Do not let it live a moment longer."
Boneflare darted wide, baiting its charge. Luma struck with light again, this time aiming for its center—trying to overwhelm its soul.
Then came the moment.
Luma rose higher, eyes glowing with blinding fury. Her body ignited in a storm of pale energy.
> [Soulflare Activated]
[Effect: Direct Soul Disruption – Effective Against Hollowborn]
The beam was pure, blinding, and silent.
The creature screamed—not in rage, but in sorrow.
And Grave Stalker emerged from shadow behind it—his blade piercing the back of its skull in one precise, final motion.
Silence fell.
> [Target Eliminated]
[Drop Acquired: Fragment of Broken Evolution | Mutagen Core x1]
[Trait Unlocked: Grave Stalker – Adaptive Precision +1]
From the throne, I felt the aftershock.
This enemy hadn't been born of ambition. It had been born of failure. An evolution pushed too far. A soul warped beyond recognition.
These weren't enemies.
They were warnings.
How many had reached too far, only to collapse inward?
What if I did the same?
Hours passed. The team returned.
Boneflare limped. Grave Stalker bled from several wounds. Luma hovered silently, her light dimmer than before.
But all three survived.
Grave Stalker knelt and presented the core—twisting, unstable, mutating even as I looked at it. A living contradiction of matter.
> [Item: Fragment of Broken Evolution]
[Status: Corruption Potential High | Fusion Possibility Detected]
I held it in my hand.
It pulsed, flickered between states—bone, flesh, crystal, shadow.
What would happen if I fused it into Glep?
What if I reforged it into something new?
No.
I needed a place to try.
A place to fail without consequence.
I ordered construction of a new hall—one not for summoning or combat, but for evolution.
The Hall of Mutation.
I hollowed out a section of Netherhold and filled it with soulsteel, containment glyphs, and sealing sigils. No sound escaped. No light entered. Only purpose existed here.
> [Structure Created: Hall of Mutation – Evolution Refinement Lab]
[Function: Fusion Experiments | Adaptive Pathing | Mutation Containment]
I placed the core inside a stasis chamber.
Watched it writhe.
And whispered—
"Let's begin."
---