The world reappeared all at once, not as a place, but as a breath, a pulse, a pressure.Terry crashed onto cold stone, gasping.The silence here was wrong.It wasn’t empty.It was listening.He pushed himself up, vision swimming. The floor beneath him was carved with looping sigils, glowing faint blue, shifting like liquid symbols.The air smelled of ash and something ancient, a world old enough to have scars.He wasn’t in Valoria anymore.A shadow peeled itself from the far wall.No, the shadow. The thing wearing Corvin’s shape.Its voice echoed with layered tones, like multiple throats speaking at once: “Welcome to the Hollow.Boundary between vessels. Boundary between selves.”Terry staggered to his feet.“Where are we?”“Inside the fracture.”A ripple of distortion pulsed from the creature’s chest.“Your fracture.”Terry clenched his jaw. “I’m not merging with you.”The creature tilted its head in that too-familiar way.“You already are.”Silver cracks glowed along the stone floor

Dust exploded as Terry, Mira, and Elias crashed through the warehouse roof, hitting the ground hard enough to crack the stone floor.Terry rolled, gasping, vision flickering with silver… and the new crimson glow threading through it.Mira stumbled beside him. “You okay?”“No,” Terry hissed. “But I’m conscious, so that’s something.”A groan came from behind them. Elias lay half-buried under splintered beams.Mira rushed to him. “Elias!? Can you move?”“Define move…” he wheezed, then winced as Mira dragged debris off him. “Yeah. Okay. That hurts everywhere.”Terry pushed himself upright. The sword vibrated in his grip like it wanted to escape his hand.Mira saw it shaking. “Terry. The blade, it’s reacting to that red light.”“I know.”“And your veins, they’re changing.”“I know!”“Then STOP acting like this is normal!”Terry didn’t answer. He stared at the crimson threading under his skin, pulsing, unfamiliar, colder than the sword’s silver heat.Elias coughed. “Is that… new?”“Very,” M

Silver light tore across the chamber as Corvin unleashed power that felt like a collapsing star. The chains he’d broken now hovered around him like orbiting blades, shimmering with lethal precision.Mira pulled Terry back so fast he nearly lost his footing.“Terry, DON’T engage him head-on!”“I don’t want to fight him!”Corvin stepped forward, each breath ragged, each movement trembling with barely contained madness and grief.“You must,” Corvin said softly. “Before the Vessel takes the last of me.”Elias ducked behind a fallen obelisk. “Okay! Plan! Does anyone have a plan?!”“Stay alive!” Mira snapped.Terry raised the sword, silver flaring against crimson under his skin.“Master,” he said, voice cracking, “I can still reach you.”“No.” Corvin’s gaze softened, even as power swirled violently around him. “You can’t.”And then Corvin vanished.“TERRY, DOWN!” Mira screamed.Terry spun. Too slow.A silver chain sliced the air where his head had been a heartbeat ago. The shockwave flung h

Wind howled through the shattered arches of Valoria’s eastern rise. Darkness clung to the sky, cut only by thin silver veins of celestial light far, far above, where the Sanctum waited.Terry stood at the cliff edge, cloak snapping behind him, veins still flickering crimson beneath his skin.Mira joined him. “Tell me the plan isn’t just ‘climb until we die.’”“That’s the last part,” Terry said.Elias stumbled behind them, panting. “WHAT’S the first part?!”Terry pointed upward.A narrow, spiraling path carved into the mountainside. Half collapsed. Half suspended over a bottomless drop. All hopeless.Elias stared. “So we are, in fact, climbing until we die.”“No,” Terry said. “We’re climbing until we reach the Sanctum.”Mira exhaled sharply. “Terry… your pulse is getting worse.”The red lines across his arms throbbed, pulsing like drumbeats.Terry breathed through the pain. “That’s why we move fast.”Elias raised a finger. “Speed doesn’t solve gravity.”Terry started walking.“GREAT,”

The sky above Valoria was a bruised violet when Terry stepped onto the shattered balcony of the Spire. The city groaned beneath, riddled with fires and alarms, but every sound seemed to hush as Corvin emerged from the smoke behind him.“Don’t say it,” Terry muttered without turning.Corvin exhaled slowly. “You already know, then.”“Yeah.” Terry lifted the sword, now pulsing like a heartbeat, red veining its once-white core. “It wants blood. More than ever… and it doesn’t care whose.”Corvin stepped closer, robes torn, eyes dimmed from the corruption clawing at him. “The Circle is gathering at the Dawn Gate. If we don’t strike now, they’ll close the Chamber and resurrect the Primarch.”“I’m aware.” Terry’s jaw tightened. “But look at this thing. If I swing it again, I’m not sure I stay me.”“That is why I’m here,” Corvin said.Terry finally turned, glare sharp. “To tell me it’s worth the risk?”“No,” Corvin whispered. “To ask you to let me carry the burden.”The sword hissed at that, a