His feet carried him through tunnels older than the Chains themselves.
No torches lit these paths.
No guards patrolled them.
The stone here wept ink instead of water, black veins creeping down the walls, pulsing like something alive.
The deeper Nihil walked, the quieter the world became.
Not silent. Not like his Echo.
But something else.
As though the air itself was holding its breath.
He didn't know where he was going.
But the bone did.
It hummed in his hand, pulling, whispering, remembering.
Every turn, every step, guided by some instinct that wasn't his. As if something inside him had cracked open and bled direction.
Eventually, the passage opened into a vast, hollow chamber.
A dome of stone, broken and scorched. Pillars crumbled. Walls etched in runes so old they had no language, only feeling.
In the center stood a monument. Not a statue. Not a shrine.
Just a massive slab of obsidian, jagged and towering, carved with hundreds of names.
Each one crossed out.
Every line, erased.
He stepped closer.
His reflection greeted him in the black stone. Pale. Hollow. Blood on his cheek. Eyes dim, not from exhaustion, but from purpose.
Something whispered behind him.
He turned.
No one.
But the shadows… moved.
From the corners of the chamber, figures stepped forward. Hooded. Silent. Cloaks grey like ash. Faces hidden behind porcelain masks etched with cracks.
One of them spoke.
A woman's voice, low and slow, like water dripping onto hot stone.
"You carry the Mark."
He said nothing.
Another figure stepped beside her. Taller. Mask shaped like a beast's skull.
"You heard the Voice. The Bone answered."
Still he said nothing.
"Then you are the one the chains whispered of. The Nameless Flame."
The first woman stepped forward.
"Do you wish to rise further?"
Nihil looked at the monument.
All those names.
All those failures.
All those who had climbed, only to fall.
He raised his eyes to meet hers.
"I want to become a god."
A hush fell.
The masked figures didn't laugh. Didn't argue.
They simply stepped back.
The beast-masked man turned and pointed to the monument.
"Then write your name. So the Ladder may remember you."
He walked forward.
The slab towered above him.
Its surface shimmered with a strange light, shifting between shadow and memory.
He held out his hand.
And for a moment, the ash wrapped around his fingers like a quill.
He hesitated.
He had no name.
The guards had never given him one. The Chains never needed it. Lira had called him "Little crow" but that wasn't his.
He looked down at the bone.
Then up at the empty world he came from.
He pressed his hand to the stone.
And wrote one word.
Nihil.
Latin. Forgotten. Forbidden. It meant "nothing."
Not because he was empty.
But because he had chosen to start from zero.
A warning.
To the gods above.
To the monsters below.
Nothing is more dangerous than a man with nothing left to lose.
The name burned into the monument.
The other names flickered. Dimmed. Vanished.
And for the first time in centuries, one name stayed.
NAME: NIHIL
TITLE: THE HOLLOW BEGGAR
RUNG: ONE
ECHO: WHISPER OF ASH
PATH: UNCLAIMED
The Ascent has begun.
Behind him, the masked figures knelt.
Not in reverence.
But in recognition.
Another had begun the climb.
And this time… the gods were watching.