The silence was the first warning.
Lucian's shadows recoiled before he did, slithering back beneath his skin like startled serpents. The whispers in his skull—ever-present, ever-hungry—cut off mid-sentence.
Even the blood-rain stopped mid-fall, droplets hanging suspended in the air like shattered rubies.
Vaelros went rigid beside him.
"Oh," the vampire murmured. "This is unfortunate."
Then the world split.
A blade carved through reality itself, a seam of silver light tearing open the air. From it stepped a figure clad in armor the color of tarnished moonlight, a silver mask covering their face. The mask was featureless save for three slashes—two vertical over the eyes, one horizontal where the mouth should be. Light bled from the edges, searing the ground where it dripped.
Lucian's fangs ached. His Corruption burned, the System's warnings flaring like a dying star.
[WARNING: VEILBOUND PRESENCE DETECTED]
[Effect: System Suppression – 40%]
[Blood Corruption Progress Halted]
[Hollow King's Shadow – Restricted]
The Witcher didn't speak at first. They simply observed, head tilted, the weight of their gaze like a knife pressed to Lucian's throat.
Then—
A voice. Not from the mask. Not from the air.
From inside Lucian's skull.
You touched the Hollow and didn't shatter.
The words weren't sound. They were concepts, carved directly into his mind.
The Veil wants to know why.
Vaelros exhaled sharply. "Ah. So it's that kind of hunt."
Lucian didn't take his eyes off the Witcher. "What the hell is a Veil?"
The Witcher's mask tilted slightly. If Lucian didn't know better, he'd say it looked amused.
Vaelros answered for them, his voice uncharacteristically grim. "The opposite of your precious System. Where the Bloodbound offers power, the Veil severs it. Where the Hollow Crown corrupts, the Veil purges." He bared his fangs. "And its chosen executioners? They don't just kill vampires."
The Witcher took a single step forward. The ground didn't tremble. The air didn't shake.
But Lucian's shadowform screamed.
You are an anomaly. The Witcher's voice was a scalpel, precise and pitiless. The Hollow Crown does not tolerate defiance. Yet you live. That makes you dangerous.
Lucian forced his claws to steady. "Yeah? Come closer. I'll show you dangerous."
The Witcher didn't move.
But the mask's slits widened, the light behind them intensifying—
And Lucian saw.
Not the Witcher. Not the ruins.
A memory that wasn't his.
A throne of bone, drenched in blood.
A crown of shadows, offered by skeletal hands.
And a figure—tall, clad in tattered Witcher armor—kneeling before it, their silver mask splitting as shadows forced their way inside—
The vision shattered.
Lucian staggered, his nose bleeding black. The Witcher hadn't moved.
But now, their presence felt heavier.
You see it too, they murmured. What the Crown wants to make of you.
Vaelros' hand clamped onto Lucian's shoulder. "We're leaving."
The Witcher's mask turned toward him. You cannot outrun the Veil, traitor.
Vaelros' smile was all teeth. "Watch me."
He moved—not with vampiric speed, but something older, something that made the air itself recoil. His free hand slashed downward, and reality ripped, a wound of darkness yawning open beside them.
The Witcher lunged—
Too late.
Vaelros dragged Lucian into the abyss just as silver light seared the space where they'd stood.
The last thing Lucian saw before the darkness swallowed them whole was the Witcher's mask, its slits burning with something almost like recognition.
Then—
Cold.
Silence.
Pain.
They tumbled through the void, Vaelros' grip the only anchor in the nothingness. Lucian's Corruption writhed, his System flickering in and out like a failing signal.
[WARNING: VEILBOUND PURSUIT IMMINENT]
[Blood Corruption Resuming – Current Progress: 32%]
[Hollow King's Shadow – Unstable]
When they finally crashed back into reality, it was into the ruins of a cathedral, its shattered stained glass casting fractured light across the broken pews.
Lucian rolled to his knees, coughing up shadows. "What the hell was that?"
Vaelros didn't answer immediately. He was staring at his own hand—where the flesh had blackened, veins standing out like cracks in porcelain.
"A reminder," he said softly, "that some doors shouldn't be opened."
Lucian opened his mouth—
And froze.
The whispers were back.
But now, they weren't alone.
Beneath them, woven between the words, was something new.
A single, searing note.
The sound of silver scraping bone.
The Witcher was coming.
And this time—
They wouldn't stop at questions.