The ruins pulsed like a dying heart, their shifting structures exhaling whispers of something far older than Orion could comprehend. His encounter with the former Sovereign still burned in his mind—the weight of a past not his own pressing against his thoughts.
But there was no time to dwell.
Lyra was already moving ahead, her blade low at her side, her gaze sharp as she scanned the path forward. The Forsaken Witnesses had not followed them. Whether that was a good or bad omen remained to be seen.
"We keep going," she said without looking back. "The Hollow's presence is getting stronger."
Orion steadied himself, the remnants of the vision still echoing through his veins. Whatever awaited them ahead, it was beyond what he had faced before.
His symbiont stirred. Not in hunger. Not in warning. But in recognition.
The path before them was not just another ruin. It was a threshold. A point of no return.
And something was waiting on the other side.
---
They moved through the crumbling corridors of a once-great city, the remnants of Weavers' power etched into the very stone. Faint golden lines ran along the walls, glowing softly before flickering out.
As if something was feeding on them.
Lyra reached out, running her fingers along one of the sigils. "This place…" she whispered. "It wasn't abandoned. It was consumed."
Orion didn't need to ask by what.
The Hollow.
It had been here. It had devoured here.
A gust of wind howled through the ruins, carrying with it the scent of something distant yet near. A paradox. A contradiction.
Then, the air changed.
A presence.
Not the Hollow. Not the Forsaken Witnesses. Something new.
Orion felt it before he saw it—an unnatural distortion in the fabric of reality, like a ripple across a still pond.
And then, it stepped forward.
A figure wrapped in tattered violet robes, its face obscured beneath a hood of shifting void. Eyes—if they could be called that—burned like dying stars within the darkness of its cowl.
Lyra drew her sword immediately. "Who—"
It raised a hand.
The world stopped.
Orion's breath hitched as an unseen force pressed against his skin. Lyra was frozen mid-step, her sword caught in the air. Even the ruins themselves seemed paused, the wind ceasing, the flickering lights halted mid-glow.
Only Orion remained free.
The figure tilted its head.
"You have touched the remnants," it said, voice neither male nor female. "The Hollow. The Veil. The Weavers. And now, you stand at the precipice."
Orion struggled to move, but his body felt sluggish, as if trapped in a current beyond his own control. His symbiont recoiled, twisting within him.
The figure's burning gaze settled on him.
"You are not yet ready."
Orion clenched his fists. "Who are you?"
The figure didn't answer. Instead, it took a slow step forward, the very ground beneath it darkening, unraveling into nothingness.
"I am the one who remembers."
It raised its hand toward Orion's chest.
And then the world broke.
---
Orion was falling again.
But this was different.
Not memories. Not visions of the past.
This was the future.
He saw it—fragmented, scattered. A war beyond the stars, against something unseen, something that should not be.
A figure standing alone in the void.
Him.
But not him.
A version of himself lost to the Hollow, consumed by the very thing he now fought against.
The Veil, shattered.
Lyra, reaching for him—her voice lost in the storm.
And above it all, a single presence.
Nameless. Endless.
Watching.
Waiting.
Orion gasped, tearing himself from the vision, collapsing onto the cold stone of the ruins. The figure was gone. The world had resumed.
Lyra caught him before he could fall completely, her voice sharp. "Orion! What happened?"
He could barely get the words out.
"The future," he whispered. "It's already breaking."
The Hollow stirred.
And something else stirred with it.