Darkness wasn't the absence of light anymore.
It had weight. Texture. A taste like scorched metal.
Rick's body spun through it, unmoored. There was no ground, no sky, only an endless press of black dust that felt like it was crawling into his lungs. The tether that had blazed between him and Devil flickered madly, a trembling thread of gold across the dark. It pulled him forward, then loosened, as if something were sawing at it from the other side.
His spear was gone. Or maybe it had never been real in this place. All he had were his hands—burned, shaking, still reaching.
Don't give in.
Her voice echoed like a heartbeat in his skull, fading in and out.
"Devil!" he shouted. But the sound died an inch from his lips. The Hollow ate it whole.
Then came the falling.
He wasn't falling downward. He was falling inward. The blackness folded around him like paper, tearing into shapes—faces, masks, chains, fragments of a plain that had once been whole. Through them all, eyes glimmered: gold, red, silver. All watching. All hungry.
"You are mine," whispered the broken voice of the masked figure. Not one voice now, but thousands. "You burned her root. You severed her. You wear the Hollow's crown and you will kneel."
Rick's chest convulsed. His fingers clawed at the nothing. "No…" He tried to gather himself, but the weight pressing on his ribs was immense. He felt his memories bleed—Devil's laughter, her eyes, even his own name—sliding out of him like sand through fingers.
This is how it wins, he realized. It erases you until there's nothing left to fight.
The tether dimmed to a faint thread, almost gone.
And then he heard something else.
Not a voice. A pulse.
White-gold.
He looked down—and there it was. The spear. Not in his hands but inside his chest, its light glowing like a second heart. The Hollow hissed as it shone brighter, burning back the dark. He reached inward—not with hands but with will—and drew it out.
The spear burst from his grip, blazing brighter than ever. Its blade hissed against the black, cutting open a slice of not-space. Chains writhed away from it like serpents from fire.
Rick raised it, trembling. "I'm not yours," he rasped. "And she's not gone."
The Hollow screamed.
The black folded tighter, pulling him into a new shape—a corridor of bone-white chains spiraling into infinity. The masked figure appeared at the far end, its broken mask fully gone now. What remained was a void shaped like a man, its edges fraying into tendrils. Inside it burned those thousand golden eyes.
It stepped forward. Chains rose like a tide behind it.
"Then prove it," it hissed. "Reach her—if you can."
The corridor shuddered. The tether to Devil brightened faintly on Rick's wrist. She was near. He could feel her, like warmth beyond a frozen door.
Rick planted his feet on the shifting floor of chains and raised the spear. Every nerve in his body screamed. He lunged.
---
The first clash was not sound but pressure. When his spear struck the Hollow's chains, the space between them bent inward like glass under stress. The gold in the spear flared; the black of the chains shattered into gray dust. The masked figure flickered and reappeared behind him, moving like smoke.
Rick spun. Too late. Chains wrapped his torso, pinning his arms. He roared, spear burning in his grip. The chains sizzled, burned, snapped. He staggered forward, chest heaving.
The corridor shifted again, the ground rolling like a living thing. Rick skidded, caught himself on a shard of stone that had drifted into the Hollow. He realized the walls weren't chains at all—they were made of memory. Faces, whispers, fragments of his past: his first kill, his oath, Devil's hand in his, her blood on his fingers. Each step forward meant stepping into his own guilt.
The Hollow was using him against himself.
He pressed on. The tether pulled harder now, a steady thrum. Devil was closer. He could almost see her silhouette at the far end of the corridor, flickering like a candle flame.
The masked figure's voice came from everywhere at once: "You broke her to build yourself. You left her behind. Why do you reach for what you destroyed?"
"I didn't destroy her!" Rick shouted, his voice cracking. "I saved her! I—" He stopped. Memory sliced through him: Devil's face, screaming, chains around her throat, his own hand clutching the spear as fire poured from it. The Hollow's laughter, echoing.
His stomach turned. "No…" he whispered. "That's not how it happened."
"Isn't it?" The masked figure stepped closer. "Your crown burns because it's true."
The spear dimmed.
The tether flickered.
Rick fell to one knee, clutching his head. For an instant, he saw Devil's silhouette at the corridor's end vanish, replaced by ash blowing away on the wind. His chest hollowed out.
Don't give in.
The words came again, clearer than ever. Not an echo. Not the Hollow. Her. Real.
Rick's eyes snapped open. "I don't care if it's a lie," he snarled. "I'm still coming."
He slammed the spear down. Light erupted from it, rippling through the corridor. The memories screamed and tore, chains snapping like glass under a hammer. The masked figure staggered back, its void-face rippling.
Rick surged forward, every step burning his feet, tearing his muscles. He wasn't just walking through the Hollow—he was tearing himself free from it.
He reached the end.
Devil stood there—closer now, clearer. Her hair whipped in a phantom wind, her eyes bright, her hand reaching out. "Rick!" she cried.
He reached back.
The masked figure appeared between them, its body swelling, chains pouring from its void like blood. "Enough!" it shrieked. "She is mine!"
Rick didn't stop. The spear roared, its blade a sun. He thrust.
The Hollow caught it in both hands. Gold fire and black void slammed together. The corridor exploded outward, chains whipping like comets, faces screaming as they dissolved.
Rick pushed harder. "You're afraid," he growled. "You wouldn't fight so hard if she was gone."
The masked figure's void-eyes burned hotter. "You are nothing without me!"
"Then watch me be something!" Rick roared.
With one last shove, he drove the spear through the Hollow's chest.
Light erupted. The void screamed. The corridor shattered like glass. Rick felt himself thrown backward, the tether to Devil blazing into a chain of gold between them.
For a heartbeat, he saw her—whole, real, standing on solid stone beyond the Hollow, her hand outstretched.
He reached—
And the world folded.
---
He landed on stone.
Real stone.
A plain stretched before him—not the white plain, not the Hollow's corridor, but a new place entirely. Black sky overhead, shot with rivers of light like cracks in reality. Towers of chained masks rose in the distance, swaying like trees in a poisoned wind.
He staggered to his feet. The spear was still in his hand, dim now, its glow flickering. The tether to Devil still burned faintly on his wrist.
She was there.
Across the plain, on a dais of white stone, Devil knelt. Her body flickered, but she looked up, eyes locking with his. Relief and fear warred in her face.
"Rick…" she whispered. Her voice carried across the plain like a blade of wind. "It's not over."
He started toward her.
The ground trembled.
A laugh rolled across the plain—low, guttural, deeper than before. "You cut me," the voice said. "You think you have won. But you have only reached my heart."
Rick froze.
The towers of chained masks began to sway harder, their chains clanking like bells. The sky cracked wider. Something enormous moved beneath the plain, its shape only glimpsed—vast wings of shadow, teeth like rows of knives, eyes opening one by one.
The voice rumbled again: "Welcome to the Hollow's true form, crown-bearer. Come closer. She is waiting."
Devil's eyes widened. "Rick—run!"
The ground split. A colossal chain burst upward, as thick as a fortress wall, its links covered in eyes that all turned to Rick. The plain tilted, pulling him toward the chasm that yawned open.
He raised the spear, teeth bared. He wouldn't run.
The tether between him and Devil blazed, pulling tighter, brighter. She reached out again, but now chains wrapped her too, dragging her backward into the widening crack. She screamed his name.
Rick lunged. "Devil!"
The plain buckled. The chain slammed down between them, cutting the tether in half. Gold light sprayed like blood. Devil vanished behind the chain's massive link, her scream echoing.
Rick skidded to a stop, staring at the severed tether glowing on his wrist. His heart thundered.
Then the ground dropped out from under him.
He fell—not into blackness this time, but into blinding gold light.
Above him, the Hollow roared, its true form uncoiling. Towers fell. Chains writhed like serpents. The sky folded inward.
Rick reached for his spear, for the tether, for anything—
And everything went white.
Rick has torn open the Hollow's heart but fallen into a deeper layer of it. Devil has been snatched away again, the tether severed, and the Hollow has revealed its true form—vast and alive. The next chapter can start with Rick waking inside the "core" of the Hollow, where reality itself bends, and where the final confrontation begins.