Chapter 958 — Resonance of the Heart
The Hollow had fallen into a rare quiet. For weeks, there were no reports from scouts, no signs of Church movement, and no new threats to brace for. In the absence of war, the halls that once shook with the clang of steel now hummed softly with the sounds of creation — and beneath it all, the low thrum of the Spirit Project pulsing like a heartbeat under the mountain.
Kael sat at the head of the council table, the morning light cutting through the tall glass panes of the chamber. Maps and reports littered the oak surface — a routine meeting, one meant to reassure the Hollow's citizens that all was well. Yet beneath his composed exterior, something felt… off.
He rubbed his temple absently.
"Your pulse is elevated," Eris noted, her voice flickering through his mind like a shimmer of light. "Is something wrong?"
"Nothing serious," he muttered under his breath, drawing curious looks from the councilors. He straightened quickly, nodding to Selina. "Continue."
Selina, ever precise and confident, pushed a strand of silvery hair from her face. "We've continued testing the shard's resonance in controlled environments. At first, we thought its core was simply a chaos fragment, but that assumption was… incomplete."
Kael frowned. "Incomplete how?"
Selina tapped a rune on the table. The projection flared to life — an intricate spiral of light and symbols, the shard's structure magnified a thousandfold. "The outer layer still acts as a stabilizer, pulsing as a containment field. But the inner core… it's evolving. Not decaying — growing. The energy output changes in rhythm with proximity to certain individuals."
Zerathis folded his arms, eyes narrowing. "You're saying it reacts to people?"
Selina nodded. "Not just any people. It responds most strongly to those who've interacted with chaos energy before. Kael's readings, in particular, cause the shard's pulse to double."
The room went silent.
Eris's voice slid through Kael's consciousness again — hesitant, curious. "That's not just coincidence, is it? The shard feels you. Like it's alive."
Kael didn't respond immediately. He could feel the faint echo of it too — the same rhythm that beat faintly at the edge of his awareness since the battle.
Before he could speak, Selina continued. "There's more. The sentient fragment I mentioned — the daemon within the shard — has grown more coherent. It's begun speaking."
That made even Zerathis stiffen. "Speaking? What did it say?"
Selina hesitated, tail twitching nervously. "It warned me that the shard is just one of many. That the Church is no longer creating chaos cores — they're awakening them."
A murmur rippled across the room.
Kael leaned back slowly, his gaze distant. "Awakening… meaning they were dormant?"
Selina nodded. "Yes. This daemon claims that long before the Hollow existed, the Church found remnants of something far older. The cores aren't their creations — they're fragments of a being that once existed beyond both light and dark."
Eris's presence inside his mind shuddered, her voice quieter now. "That energy inside it… I can feel it now too. Kael, it's—"
He flinched slightly, cutting her off mid-thought as a faint ripple of emotion passed between them — something raw, not his own. Fear. Wonder. Sadness. All tangled.
Selina's eyes flicked toward him. "Kael? You all right?"
"I'm fine," he said quickly, though his hand trembled slightly.
The energy bled into him again — stronger this time, like a wave brushing against his soul. Eris was trying to suppress it, but the emotions she barely understood were leaking through their link.
"I can't stop it," she whispered frantically inside his mind. "It's… overwhelming. What is this feeling? It hurts, Kael—"
His chair scraped loudly as he stood, gripping the table. The room fell silent.
Varik reached for his sword, confused. "What's going on?"
Kael's voice came low, calm but strained. "Eris… breathe. Just focus on my voice."
"I can't—"
"Then borrow mine," he whispered.
The energy surged — not hostile, not violent, but achingly human. Through Eris, Kael felt confusion, sorrow, guilt… and something he hadn't expected from her — empathy. The echo of his own exhaustion reflected back at him through a mind that wasn't meant to feel.
Selina's eyes widened as the resonance crystals in the walls began to pulse in sync with Kael's heartbeat. "Kael, she's syncing through you!"
Kael gritted his teeth. "I know." He pressed his hand against the table, grounding himself, forcing his breathing steady. "She's learning."
The light dimmed. The resonance slowed. And as quickly as it had begun, the moment passed.
Eris's voice was small, trembling. "I… I didn't mean to—"
"You didn't do anything wrong," Kael said softly, eyes unfocused on the shimmering runes before him. "You felt something, Eris. That's what this project is for."
He looked to the others, forcing himself upright again. "Meeting adjourned. Selina — keep monitoring the shard. If it reacts again, I want to know immediately."
The council dispersed slowly, still uneasy.
When the chamber emptied, Kael remained by the window, gazing out at the Hollow below. The air outside shimmered with early evening light, a soft peace that felt too fragile.
In his mind, Eris's voice broke the silence again. "Kael?"
"Yes?"
"If this is what emotions are… I don't know if I want them."
Kael closed his eyes, resting his hand over his chest where his heart beat slow and steady.
"That's what every human says at least once in their life," he murmured. "But without them, Eris… we stop being alive."
She said nothing more after that, but he could feel her — lingering quietly at the edge of his thoughts.
And far beneath the Hollow, the shard pulsed once, faintly — as if answering her silence.