The air beneath the Shardborn frontier was heavy, not with dust or decay, but with a stillness that felt older than breath. Kael descended the obsidian stair, one hand trailing along a wall that pulsed faintly with light — like a dying vein remembering what it meant to carry life. Each step drew him deeper into the belly of a ruin that had long forgotten the sky.
He could no longer tell if the glow guiding him came from the walls, or from the whisper in his mind that wore Mira's voice. It called him softly, not as a person calls another, but as an echo yearns for its source. "Kael…" The syllables lingered like mist, unanchored by air or distance.
The deeper he went, the more the world shifted. The crystals embedded in the walls began to move, rearranging into faint silhouettes — human, almost. Faces formed for a moment before dissolving, their mouths open in silent hymns. They weren't alive. They weren't dead either. They were remembering.
Kael's pulse quickened. He reached the end of the staircase and stepped into a chamber so vast it seemed to swallow the light itself. Pillars of glass reached upward into endless dark, and in the center lay a pool — still, black, reflective as polished metal.
The voice came again. "You have walked far, Devourer."
The sound didn't vibrate through the air; it bloomed in his bones. Kael flinched, scanning the dark. His reflection in the pool shifted — not matching his movements. When he raised a hand, the reflection smiled instead.
"You are not her," he said softly.
The voice laughed, gentle and hollow, like wind through a crypt. "I was her before she had a name. Before any of you learned to dream."
Kael took a step closer. The reflection mirrored him now, except its eyes burned with light. "What are you?"
"What remains of the First Breath."
At the words, the chamber rippled. The pool began to move, its surface bending upward as if gravity had forgotten itself. Threads of light twisted through the air, forming symbols that pulsed like living runes. Kael felt the same pull he had felt when consuming a soul — the same hunger, the same dread.
He remembered Mira's laughter, the way her eyes caught sunlight before everything turned to ash. He tried to hold onto that image, to keep it between himself and the hunger that clawed at his chest.
"You called me here," he said. "Why?"
The hollow voice seemed to sigh. "Because you carry what they lost. The gods broke themselves to weave creation, and in their ruin, left the hunger behind. You bear its echo."
Kael clenched his fist. "And what am I supposed to do with it?"
"Remember."
The light from the runes grew brighter, spiraling around him in a storm of whispers. The faces in the crystal walls began to hum, their mouths moving in unison — not chanting, not speaking, but praying. Their words crawled through Kael's mind, forming no language he knew, yet each syllable resonated with terrible familiarity.
He fell to one knee, clutching his head. The reflection rose from the pool like a figure made of night and glass, its form mirroring his — except perfect, serene, unbroken.
"You devour to endure," it said. "But the act of consuming was once divine. When the gods grew hollow, they took from each other to live. Creation fed on creation until only memory remained."
Kael looked up, eyes burning. "Then what am I? Their mistake?"
The reflection tilted its head. "No. You are the echo of what they could not finish."
The voice softened, threading through the storm of light. "Listen, Kael. Listen to the silence beneath the hunger. In it, you will find what you were meant to become."
The light receded as suddenly as it came. The reflection melted back into the pool, leaving Kael alone once more. The chamber returned to stillness, but the voice lingered, fainter now, less certain.
"Follow the silence… and you will find the hollow that began all things."
Kael looked toward the far end of the chamber, where a faint glimmer pulsed — a doorway of pure void, shaped like a heartbeat frozen mid-pulse.
He stepped toward it.
Recovered from the fractured tablets beneath the Shardborn Frontier
"When the gods tore their own light to birth the world, their song did not end — it merely changed its vessel.
Some pieces fell into the heavens and became stars, others sank into the soil and became souls.
But the deepest shard — the one that carried the memory of divinity itself — fell into silence.
That silence was not death. It was listening.
The Hollow Voice is not a being, nor a will. It is the echo of the First Breath, the remnant of creation trying to remember itself.
Those who hear it walk the border between godhood and oblivion.
They say the Voice does not choose the worthy.
It chooses the willing."
The air in the chamber had thickened, vibrating faintly, as if the stones themselves were listening. Kael's grip tightened on his sword, though he knew it would not save him here. The faint pulse beneath the floor called to him, insistent, patient, almost sentient.
"Kael…" The voice came again, clear this time, threaded through the very walls, the floor, the shards of glass. It was Mira's voice, yet deeper, older — layered with something beyond her memory. "Do you hear me?"
"I hear you," Kael whispered, voice rough. "But you're not her."
"No. I am what you seek, and what you fear." The Hollow Voice spoke with infinite patience, like a river tracing its own banks. "I am the echo of the First Breath, the memory of the gods' hunger. You have carried it in your veins since the moment you first fed."
Kael shook his head. "I'm not a god. I'm not… like you. I'm just—just me."
"And yet," the Voice replied, "you devour as they did, shaping the world from the pieces of others. Can you feel it, Kael? The rhythm of creation beneath your ribs? The hunger that is not yours alone?"
He swallowed hard, chest tightening. The pulse beneath the floor had grown stronger, syncing with his heartbeat. Every step toward the glowing threshold was mirrored by a tremor in his own blood. "Then what am I supposed to do? Stop? Resist?"
"No. You will not resist. You will understand. Listen."
As Kael took another step, visions began to form in the air, like mist solidifying into memory. He saw the birth of the world — shards of light torn from the gods' bodies, cast down into the void. He saw the First Devourer rise, swallowing divine sparks and collapsing reality around him. Every consumed soul left a hollow, every act of hunger left an echo.
"I see…" Kael murmured. "I see it all."
"Do you understand now?" The Voice pressed gently, insistently. "Your power, your curse, your burden — it is not new. It is a continuation. The gods failed, and their failure became the marrow of the world. You are part of that marrow."
Kael's knuckles whitened on the hilt of his sword. "Then what choice do I have?"
"To walk it wisely, or to be consumed."
The chamber trembled. Light fractured into rainbow shards, and Kael felt the pulse in his blood resonate with the chamber itself. He staggered, gripping the floor, feeling the voices of the trapped souls rising in chorus. Do not fear, the Voice whispered. Do not despair. What is inside you is the path forward.
Kael swallowed hard. "I'm… afraid."
"Good. Fear is the first proof of life."
A warm glow began to form beneath the floor, stretching toward him like the hand of some slumbering god. The Voice guided him: "Step into the hollow. Face the origin. Only then will you know who you are."
He hesitated, the weight of every choice he had made pressing down like stone. But Mira's echo threaded through the Voice, delicate, human. "Kael… step forward. I am with you, always."
He inhaled, closing his eyes. The ground beneath him parted like liquid glass. He descended into the hollow, feeling the chamber dissolve around him. Colors, shapes, and echoes of the divine raced past his vision. The world was breathing, and it had been waiting for him.
At the bottom, a door of pure, liquid light awaited. Its surface shimmered with the reflection of his countless sins, his hunger, his blood — yet it also reflected fragments of his humanity, the fleeting moments of love and mercy he had held onto.
"This is the threshold," the Voice said, almost reverent now. "Beyond it lies understanding. Beyond it lies your trial. And perhaps… her."
Kael's hand hovered over the light. Every fiber of his being trembled — the souls he had consumed, the hunger that had grown with each day, the memory of Mira. "I… am ready," he said.
The Voice was quiet then, letting him feel the silence for the first time. "Step forward, Devourer. Become what the world needs — or what it fears."
With a deep breath, Kael stepped through the door.
The light swallowed him.
And the chamber beneath the Shardborn frontier closed once more, leaving only the echo of a name whispered into eternity:
Kael.