Darkness was no longer just around Nerin—it had become the core of his existence, a suffocating void wrapping its icy fingers around his heart. The chains binding him pulsed with cold malevolence, leeching the fire from his veins even as the Hollow Mark screamed in silent agony on his palm. Every breath was a struggle; every heartbeat a defiant drum in the endless night.
The ruined city had become a mausoleum, its broken bones casting twisted shadows that danced with the whispers of the fallen. Above, the twin moons bled faint, sickly light, mocking the last remnants of hope that flickered within him.
From the abyssal silence, the hidden puppeteers revealed themselves—shadowed figures whose faces were masks of cracked porcelain, eyes hollow mirrors reflecting torment and deceit. They were the architects of the covenant, the true masters pulling the strings of fate with cruel precision.
Their leader stepped forward, a silhouette carved from nightmares, voice like the grinding of bones against stone.
"You were never meant to break free, Nerin. The Hollow Mark is a chain, yes—but also a key. A key to a door only we control."
Nerin's glare was a slash of blue fire, burning through the lies."Then I'll burn the door down."
Laughter like shattered glass echoed, chilling the marrow in his bones."Fool. Power without control is chaos. And chaos devours all—even its master."
The chains tightened, pulling him deeper into the abyss. Yet within that darkness, something stirred—a fragile ember of rebellion, born from the echoes of forgotten memories and whispered promises.
Nerin's voice was a rasp, raw but resolute."I will become the abyss. I will consume the chaos. And from the ashes, I will forge my own destiny."
With a scream that shattered the silence like thunder, the Hollow Mark flared to life—a blazing sun of cold fire that ripped through the chains, turning shadow to ash. The puppeteers recoiled, their grip faltering against the inferno born of his will.
But the cost was brutal. Pain tore through Nerin's soul, a reminder that freedom was never granted without sacrifice. As the last chains crumbled, the city itself seemed to groan in mourning, the echoes of the abyss whispering promises of what was lost—and what was yet to come.
Nerin staggered, burning and broken, but unbowed.
The Hollow Mark seared his flesh and soul, a cruel beacon of power and damnation.
And somewhere deep within the shadows, the covenant's fractured echoes waited—hungry for the war yet to be waged.
The city's bones creaked under the weight of silence—a silence thick enough to choke the breath from even the most desperate soul. The air hung heavy with ash and decay, but beneath the ruin's quiet, a deeper storm churned: the fractured covenant of the Hollowed was bleeding, torn asunder by betrayal and the relentless hunger for dominion.
Nerin knelt amid the shattered remnants of a forsaken altar, his body a mosaic of pain and fury, the Hollow Mark glowing cold and fierce on his palm. The chains had fallen, but their poison lingered—seeping into his veins like acid, a reminder that freedom was only the first wound in a war without end.
Around him, the remnants of his fractured followers stirred like restless ghosts, their hollow eyes flickering with unease and suspicion. The insurgent queen, her fiery gaze now tempered with wary respect, stood a short distance away—silent, but unyielding.
"You broke the chains," she said, voice a razor-edge in the stillness. "But breaking free only leaves the cage shattered—and the vultures circling."
Nerin's laugh was bitter, a cracked echo swallowed by the ruins."The vultures always circle. The question is, who becomes the carrion—and who becomes the predator?"
The queen's gaze sharpened. "And what will you become, Nerin? The king of ashes or the lord of shadows?"
His eyes, glowing blue with the unholy fire of the Mark, met hers—cold, calculating."I will become what the covenant fears—the reckoning."
From the shadows, the puppeteers watched, their fractured smiles hidden beneath cracked masks. Their grip may have loosened, but the game was far from over. The Hollow Mark was a blade with two edges: it granted power, but demanded a toll paid in blood and betrayal.
Nerin rose, the fire within him rekindling—a promise and a threat intertwined. The shattered covenant was not dead; it was merely reborn in blood and flame.
And in the endless dusk of the hollowed city, a new war was beginning.
The hollow city groaned under the weight of broken oaths and shattered bloodlines. Ash drifted through the thick, stagnant air like lost souls begging for release. Nerin's footsteps echoed hollow and unyielding, each step a hammer forging a new path through the ruins—an unrelenting declaration of war and rebirth. The Mark burned beneath his skin, a cold fire that seethed with whispers of power, pain, and ancient covenants still bleeding through time.
The fractured covenant was no longer a fragile alliance—it was a battlefield strewn with corpses and ambition. Every Hollowed was a potential rival, every shadow a lurking dagger. Trust was a luxury sold long ago for survival; now, it was weaponized, bartered with betrayal. Nerin's mind sharpened, a merciless blade cutting through doubt and fear. To rule, he would need to become both predator and executioner.
Ahead, the insurgent queen followed silently, her gaunt face unreadable, eyes flickering with the embers of respect and wariness. Her silence was a constant reminder: power invited challenges, and every ally carried the weight of a potential knife in the back.
They approached the heart of the hollow city—a shattered cathedral crowned with blackened spires that clawed the blood-red sky. Within its depths lay the Fractured Throne, the symbol of the Hollowed's broken dominion and the prize for any who dared seize it. The throne itself was an abomination, forged from twisted metal and bone, crowned with thorns soaked in the screams of the fallen.
Nerin's breath was cold, each exhale a mist of frost and fury. He knelt before the throne, fingertips grazing the jagged edges that promised power but demanded sacrifice. The Hollow Mark flared, its cold fire pulsing like a heartbeat synced with the city's own dying breath.
Suddenly, a whisper slithered through the cathedral—soft, sinister.
"To claim the throne, you must bleed what you hold most dear."
Nerin's eyes snapped open, the fire within blazing with ruthless clarity. The price was always higher than he had dared imagine. Blood, betrayal, and sacrifice would pave the way to dominion.
From the shadows, the queen stepped forward, her voice a low promise and a warning all at once.
"Are you prepared, Nerin? To lose everything to gain everything?"
He met her gaze, his own cold as the fire branding his flesh.
"Only the broken fear the fall."
The cathedral walls trembled as unseen forces stirred—ancient, cruel, and hungry. The war for the fractured covenant was no longer just about power; it was a descent into madness, a spiral into the abyss where only the merciless survived.
Nerin rose, a shadow crowned in cold fire, ready to carve his name into the hollow bones of the world.
The thorned path to dominion was laid bare.
And he would walk it in blood.
The cathedral's blackened spires loomed like skeletal fingers clawing at a dying sky, each twisted shard a monument to the countless souls swallowed by ambition and despair. Inside, the air was thick with a sickly-sweet stench—old blood, burnt incense, and something fouler, like the rot of forgotten promises. Nerin's breath came sharp and ragged, the cold fire of the Hollow Mark licking beneath his skin like a living thing eager to be unleashed.
The insurgent queen stood beside him, her silhouette a ghost carved from shadows and steel. Her eyes, dark wells of unyielding resolve, flickered as she watched the fractured throne—an altar of agony forged from bone and iron, soaked with the screams of those who had fallen before.
"This place," she whispered, voice like a blade sliding over cracked glass, "holds the echoes of every oath ever broken in this city. Blood and betrayal are its foundation."
Nerin knelt, fingertips grazing the jagged edge of the throne. The Hollow Mark flared in response, cold and electric, as if sensing the weight of the trials yet to come. The city outside moaned—a beast awakening, restless and hungry.
"Then we will add our own echoes," Nerin said, voice low, resolute. "Our own blood and shadows."
The queen nodded, but her eyes bore a warning: power was never free. It demanded a price paid in flesh, in memories torn from the soul, in the slow suffocation of trust.
From the darkness stepped a figure—cloaked, faceless, and ancient. A keeper of the covenant's secrets, a warden of the blood debts etched deep into the city's bones.
"You seek dominion," the figure intoned, voice hollow and echoing like a funeral bell. "But dominion demands sacrifice. The first trial is the Oath of Ruin."
Nerin's gaze hardened. "Speak it."
The warden's eyes glowed faintly beneath the hood. "Swear on your Hollow Mark to sever what binds you to your past. To burn every memory, every tie, until nothing remains but the hunger for power."
A silence fell, heavy as a tombstone. Nerin's mind screamed—the ghosts of his past clawing at the edges of his sanity. Faces, names, moments of fragile humanity threatened to drown him in grief.
But the Mark burned hotter, a cruel reminder that to wield its power, he must become something less than man.
"I swear it," Nerin said, voice a rasp edged with fire. "I sever my past. I burn my memories. I am hunger, I am void."
The warden nodded, a smile like broken glass cracking the shadows.
"So it begins."
The cathedral trembled, the air thickening as the walls seemed to close in, the shadows twisting and writhing like living things. Nerin's body convulsed as memories bled away, replaced by cold clarity and ravenous need.
The queen's voice cut through the storm, steady and fierce.
"Survive the Oath, and you will claim a fragment of the throne. Fail, and become another echo lost to the abyss."
Nerin rose, eyes aflame with unholy fire. The blood oath was broken—and the shadow of dominion had begun to take form.
Outside, the hollow city waited, its hunger never-ending.
And so did the price.
The cathedral's bones creaked like a dying beast, each groan a dirge for the lost and damned. Nerin staggered, the blood oath scorched deep into his soul—a blistering brand that devoured what little humanity he had left. Memories that once anchored him shattered into shards that glistened like poisoned glass beneath the cold fire of the Hollow Mark.
Outside, the hollow city twisted beneath the cracked moons, shadows bleeding into the streets like ink spilled over a forgotten page. Every corner hid a secret, every whisper carried the weight of a thousand broken promises.
But Nerin felt nothing—only the hunger, the void expanding within.
The insurgent queen, her eyes gleaming with cold calculation, stepped beside him. "The oath has bound you, but the trials have only begun."
She gestured to the shattered floor beneath the throne. The ground writhed, a mass of black tendrils bursting from cracks, hungry and slick. From this living darkness emerged creatures—not flesh, not spirit, but something worse: the Teeth Beneath the Flesh, born from the city's torment and fed by despair.
Their forms were grotesque—elongated limbs twisted like rusted blades, faces that split open in impossible grins revealing rows of jagged, obsidian teeth. Their eyes were hollow voids, devouring light and hope alike.
Nerin's gaze locked on the nearest beast. It snarled, saliva dripping like molten shadow, a hunger that mirrored his own. Without hesitation, he gripped the bone knife—the weapon of the forgotten—and lunged.
The battle was a brutal dance of flesh and shadow. Every strike sent shards of darkness splintering into the air, every wound carved deeper into Nerin's resolve. The Teeth clawed at his skin, tearing at his flesh, but each gash only stoked the cold fire within the Hollow Mark.
Pain was a currency, and Nerin had a debt to pay.
As the last beast fell, dissolving into a puddle of black ichor, the cathedral trembled again. From the depths, a voice echoed—a whisper that slithered through the cracks in his mind.
"The hunger feeds the hunger. The beast becomes the master. Will you drown, or devour?"
Nerin's breath was ragged, his body battered but unbroken. The Mark pulsed, a cruel heartbeat in the abyss.
"I will devour," he growled, voice a low snarl, "and burn the world to ash if I must."
The queen's eyes narrowed, respect and caution warring within their depths. "Then prepare yourself. The next trial is not of flesh, but of shadow and mind."
Behind the shattered altar, shadows thickened, coalescing into shapes both beautiful and terrible—a maze of memories twisted and broken, waiting to trap him in a labyrinth of despair.
Nerin knew one thing for certain: in this city, salvation was a lie, and every step forward meant losing a piece of himself.
The Teeth Beneath the Flesh were only the beginning.