The chamber was no longer stone.
It was light and shadow, time folding and unfolding, hymns screaming from every crack. The cocoon pulsed like a heart, each beat shaking the Hollow apart.
And at its center—Aelric.
His body was breaking. Not piece by piece, but all at once. The corruption wasn't just spreading anymore—it was blooming. Tendrils burst from his chest like ribs turned inside-out, his arm dissolving entirely into writhing flame. One half of his face had gone black, an endless abyss where his eye should've been.
And yet—he laughed.
"More!" His voice was ragged, splitting between human and something else entirely. "If you think this is enough to stop me—then you've already lost!"
---
The god's tendrils lashed out again, faster, sharper, reality bending around them. One passed through Elara's shoulder without touching flesh—and when she blinked, she realized her shoulder had already been torn, blood dripping from a wound she hadn't felt being made.
She screamed, collapsing to her knees. Her timer burned hotter.
[02 Hours : 12 Minutes Remaining]
Her breath hitched. "It's accelerating—oh God—my time—it's—"
"Stop counting!" Aelric's roar drowned her fear. "As long as you're still breathing, you've already cheated it!"
He lunged, his corrupted form moving faster than flesh should allow, tendrils of black flame colliding with golden light. The impact shattered the chamber floor, fragments floating upward as though gravity itself had forgotten its job.
---
Elara forced herself up, clutching her broken lantern. The shards still glowed faintly, threads of light leaking between her fingers. She raised them desperately, shouting over the hymn.
"Stop taking him! Stop eating him alive!"
The cocoon's hymn shifted, a dozen voices answering her plea.
He was never yours. He was always ours.
Her chest caved at the sound, but she screamed back anyway. "He was mine the moment he chose me!"
The lantern flared, briefly blinding the god's tendrils. Aelric seized the opening, slamming his corrupted arm into the cocoon's surface.
The god shrieked, the hymn fracturing into static.
---
> [Corruption Limit Exceeded.]
Overflow Protocol Engaged.
Aelric's vision flooded with warnings, but he laughed them off, blood spilling from his mouth. His corrupted eye wept black flame, tendrils sprouting uncontrollably from his spine, his ribs, his throat. He was no longer one man—he was a storm of flesh and shadow, tearing into the god with abandon.
Every strike spread his corruption deeper into the cocoon, staining its golden surface with fractures of black.
---
But with every blow, he lost more of himself.
"Elara—" His voice distorted, echoing with multiple tones at once. "If I—if I forget—"
She staggered forward, clutching the shards of her lantern. "I'll remind you!"
His grin twisted, horrifying and brilliant. "Then don't stop screaming my name."
---
The cocoon split wider. A face emerged—humanoid, but too vast, too radiant. The god's burning eyes opened fully, looking down on Aelric not as an enemy, but as an insect.
The hymn roared, shaking the chamber.
You cannot defy the law. You are nothing but borrowed seconds.
Aelric's corrupted form spread wider, his laugh tearing through blood.
"Borrowed seconds are still mine to spend!"
He struck again.
Black met gold.
Time itself shattered.
---
For a moment Elara saw everything in fragments—Aelric laughing as a boy, Aelric bleeding on rooftops, Aelric staring at his wrist, Aelric reaching for her hand. All at once, all layered, as though every moment of his life was happening simultaneously.
Her heart broke. She screamed his name until her throat tore.
"AELRIC!"
The lantern shards pulsed with her voice, flaring brighter, shielding him just long enough for one more strike.
---
Aelric's tendrils pierced deeper into the cocoon. His body tore apart in the process, bone splitting from skin, blood turning to ash, but he didn't stop. Couldn't stop.
His corrupted grin widened, monstrous and divine.
"If I burn out," he whispered, voice trembling between laughter and despair, "then I'm taking you with me."
The cocoon howled.
Golden light cracked.
---
Elara collapsed, her timer searing her flesh.
[01 Hour : 59 Minutes Remaining]
Her vision blurred, her breath shallow. She pressed her forehead against the shards of her lantern, sobbing.
"Don't go… don't leave me—"
The hymn thundered louder, as though mocking her. The god's voice swallowed her despair.
He was never yours to keep. He is ours to erase.
But then—
Through the storm, through the hymn, through corruption and collapse—
Aelric's voice.
Not distorted. Not broken. Just his.
"Elara."
She lifted her head, tears blinding her. "Aelric—"
His corrupted form loomed, monstrous, terrifying—but his grin, his eyes, even half-consumed by black flame, were still his.
"Keep breathing," he said. "That's all I need."
And then he turned back to the god, roaring with everything he had left.
---
The Hollow trembled.
The cocoon cracked wider.
And time itself began to bleed.