The morning the elders summoned us, the air carried a strange stillness. Word of the recent beast sightings had spread across the outer villages, and the council had decided to act. Or so they said.
We stood before them—Kael and I—our bodies healed, our cores pulsing quietly beneath our skin. We bowed respectfully, concealing our growing strength behind calm eyes.
Elder Sora, the one with the voice like dry parchment, studied us. "You two have shown endurance," he said. "Discipline. We believe it's time you serve beyond these walls."
"Serve?" Kael asked, her tone measured.
"Indeed." He gestured toward the horizon where the forest thinned and distant smoke hinted at civilization. "The town of Vensar has requested additional help. You'll accompany a group of Naturals heading there for patrol work. Consider it an honor."
I caught the flicker in his eyes—less respect, more dismissal.
Hollows were often sent away under the guise of "opportunity." In truth, we were tools—expendable hands to carry burdens others deemed beneath them.
Still, I bowed. "We'll obey, Elder."
His lips curved faintly. "See that you do."
The journey to Vensar took two days. We traveled with five Naturals—three Bearers and two Weavers. Their colored bands marked them as Yellow Core users, mid-tier in strength, yet their arrogance outweighed their skill.
"Keep up, Hollows," one of them sneered as Kael lagged behind. "Your kind should be grateful to even walk beside us."
Kael's jaw tightened, but she said nothing. I laid a hand on her shoulder. "Let them speak. We'll learn more from their words than they will from ours."
We passed through plains where small farms dotted the land, and even here, the difference between classes was clear. Bearers rode mounts while commoners carried their packs. Children bowed when a Natural walked by. It wasn't respect—it was fear wrapped in tradition.
By the time we reached the town gates, I understood more than any elder could have taught me.
Vensar was larger than our village—a patchwork of stone and wood, its streets lined with markets and noise. Life pulsed here, but beneath it all was the rhythm of control. Guards in yellow armor patrolled the square, their weapons gleaming with runic etchings that whispered of Aetherka reinforcement.
Each wore a badge marked with the city lord's crest: The Spiral Sun, symbol of dominion.
The city lord himself, we learned, was a mid-yellow rank Weaver—a man named Lord Aesthan. His rule extended over five nearby villages, including ours. To the townsfolk, he was both savior and tyrant, a man whose word could feed a family—or destroy it.
Our assignment was simple: assist the patrol teams, handle supply runs, and maintain order. In truth, it meant obeying every Natural's whim without question.
And so, we watched.
Kael and I quickly saw the patterns. The Naturals treated Hollows as half-human—useful, replaceable, silent. A Hollow boy spilled water while serving the guards and was struck hard enough to lose a tooth. No one intervened. Not even the priests who preached purity and balance in the square.
Each night, we spoke little, but our silence was heavy with understanding.
"They built this world on fear," Kael whispered one evening, as we sat on the steps behind the barracks, watching the guards drink and laugh. "Not faith. Not order. Fear."
I nodded. "And fear can be bent. Controlled. Turned into strength."
Her eyes glinted. "You mean to use it."
"Not yet. But someday."
During the following weeks, we adapted to the city's rhythm.
Kael worked in the barracks, handling supplies for Bearers, watching their combat drills. She noted how their cores pulsed—how their strength rose and fell with emotion.
I worked among the Weavers, repairing conduits and resonance stones that powered the town's defenses. It gave me a front-row view of how they used their mental cores.
I observed. Always.
The Weavers were fast thinkers, their cores glowing faint yellow when they shaped the air. But their strength wasn't endless. Every spell cost focus, every burst of energy drained the mind. And when exhausted, their superiority vanished like smoke.
They called it "mental fatigue." I called it a weakness.
On the third month, we witnessed something that etched itself into memory.
A Hollow woman was caught stealing bread from a stall. She couldn't have been older than thirty, her clothes threadbare, her eyes wild with hunger. The guard struck her down before she could speak. One blow to the face, another to the ribs. When she fell, no one moved.
Kael's fists clenched. "We can't just stand—"
I caught her wrist. "We can't change it by dying here."
Her breath trembled with anger. "So we do nothing?"
"No," I said quietly. "We remember."
We helped the woman afterward, in secret. She didn't live long, but her final words lingered:
"Thank you… Hollow ones. You're the only ones who looked."
That night, Kael cried for the first time since we were children.
That night, I decided we would never remain powerless again.
In the months that followed, we continued training in shadows.
When others slept, we refined our Red Cores, compressing and circulating their energy through our bodies until the pressure hummed just beneath our skin.
We learned to suppress the glow, to appear as ordinary Hollows. A necessary deception.
Kael's wind became stealth itself. She used faint currents to sense movement behind walls, to listen through closed doors. With that, she began to predict guard patrols before they appeared.
I trained with my sword, practicing against weighted logs, using telekinesis to simulate the unpredictable rhythm of combat. My awareness—my mental echo—expanded. I could feel aggression before it was expressed, intent before it became motion.
We refined, observed, waited.
Rumors began to spread through Vensar.
Knights whispered of ambushes in nearby woods, where small patrols were bested by unseen attackers. No one had died, but pride had. They blamed rogue beasts, faulty formations, even the arrogance of their peers.
No one suspected Hollows.
The elders' reports to the city lord described these defeats as "disciplinary lessons from fate." It pleased him—he thought it proof that his knights had grown complacent.
But for Kael and me, it was confirmation. The world was blind to what it did not wish to see.
By the end of our first year in Vensar, we had learned everything we could about how this society breathed and bled.
Power ruled, but arrogance blinded. Fear chained the weak, but it also silenced truth.
Those who bowed, survived. Those who watched, learned.
As Kael and I stood overlooking the city walls one night, the wind carrying the faint scent of rain and iron, she asked, "Do you think we can ever change this?"
I looked at the faint red shimmer that pulsed under my skin—the heart of my core—and smiled faintly.
"Not yet," I said. "But when we do… they'll never see it coming."
The wind stirred, answering her resolve. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rolled.
And beneath it, the quiet hum of our rising power echoed in the dark.