The entity's laughter rumbled through the collapsing catacomb, a sound both ancient and hungry.
Ellie stood her ground, her breath uneven, her mind racing.
The Hollow Throne's whispers were now pleading.
"Do not listen. Do not answer. You do not understand what it is."
But it was too late.
The entity's many shifting eyes locked onto her, its massive form descending, coiling around her like a shadow given life.
"You have freed me," it said. "Now, you will serve me."
Ellie's body seized, an invisible force constricting her limbs. Her own shadows writhed against her will, drawn to the creature's presence.
It wasn't just speaking.
It was imposing its will upon her.
The Sovereigns' Desperation
The golden-eyed Sovereign did not wait.
"We end this now!" they commanded, raising their void-forged blade high.
The other Sovereigns channeled their power, the air crackling with energy as they prepared a final, devastating banishment seal.
Ellie felt the shift—if they completed the spell, everything in this catacomb would be erased.
Including her.
Including the entity.
Her mind screamed at her to act.
She had one choice.
The Pact
"I will not be your servant," Ellie growled, her body trembling against the entity's hold.
The creature tilted its massive, ever-shifting head.
"Then what will you be?"
She swallowed hard.
"...Your equal."
A moment of silence.
Then—the entity grinned.
A thousand voices whispered at once.
"A pact, then. Power in exchange for a price."
The weight around Ellie intensified—something ancient, something binding pressing into her very soul.
She knew the risk.
She had read of such bonds in forbidden texts.
To forge a pact with an ancient being meant becoming something no longer fully human.
But there was no other way.
The Sovereigns' spell was nearly complete.
Ellie met the entity's burning silver eyes.
"I accept."
The Hollow Pact
The moment she spoke, everything changed.
The shadows of the catacomb exploded outward, the very ground beneath Ellie's feet cracking apart.
The entity's form shrank, its formless mass coiling into her body, binding itself to her very being.
Pain—unbearable, searing, consuming—shot through her.
She screamed as her veins turned black, as her silver eyes darkened, as the Hollow Throne's power merged with something older, something far more dangerous.
The catacomb quaked, the Sovereigns' spell shattering under the sheer force of the pact being sealed.
The golden-eyed Sovereign stumbled back, eyes wide in horror.
"What have you done?!"
Ellie's breath came hard and fast as she rose to her feet.
The shadows at her fingertips no longer answered to her alone.
She could hear it now—the entity's presence within her mind, its voice intertwined with hers.
She was no longer just the ruler of the Hollow Throne.
She was something more.
Something far worse.
And as she lifted her hand, the entire catacomb obeyed.
The Birth of a Hollow Queen
The air in the catacomb shifted, thick with a power that had never existed before.
Ellie stood in the ruins of the shattered cavern, her body trembling as the pact settled into her soul.
She felt everything.
The shadows that once obeyed her now pulsed with an alien hunger, no longer just an extension of her will but a force that whispered back.
The entity's voice slithered through her mind.
"You are no longer merely a ruler of shadows. You are the Hollow Queen."
Ellie exhaled slowly. The weight of the title felt real, like something ancient and undeniable had fused with her very existence.
The Sovereigns stood across from her, their golden eyes burning with fury.
The lead Sovereign's grip on their void-forged blade tightened.
"You have damned yourself."
Ellie tilted her head, a slow smile forming.
"Perhaps."
And then—she moved.
The First Strike
The battle erupted in an instant.
The golden-eyed Sovereign vanished in a flash of light, appearing above Ellie with their blade descending in a deadly arc.
Ellie raised her hand—not to block, but to command.
The catacomb obeyed.
Shadows erupted from the ground, forming massive tendrils that lashed out, intercepting the Sovereign's attack.
The impact sent shockwaves through the ruins, the force of it carving deep fissures into the stone.
The other Sovereigns launched forward, their movements perfectly synchronized as they unleashed an onslaught of radiant slashes, each one burning with void energy.
Ellie did not retreat.
She stepped forward.
The moment her foot touched the ground, the entire cavern warped—as if space itself bent to her will.
The shadows surged, no longer just tendrils but figures, humanoid wraiths with hollowed-out eyes and jagged, shifting forms.
They attacked as one.
A New Kind of Power
Ellie twisted her fingers, and the shadows moved faster than thought, weaving around the Sovereigns' blades, forcing them on the defensive.
She was no longer just using the darkness.
She was part of it.
She could feel the Sovereigns' energy, the way their void-imbued weapons hummed with the power to sever souls.
But she could also feel their hesitation.
For the first time, they were uncertain.
The golden-eyed Sovereign lunged again, blade aimed straight for Ellie's heart.
She let them come.
At the last moment, she stepped sideways, her movement impossibly fluid, as if she no longer fully existed in this plane.
The Sovereign's blade slashed through her—but met no flesh.
Ellie vanished into shadow, her form dissolving into mist before reforming behind them.
A whisper of darkness coiled around her fingers.
"Your turn."
She drove her hand forward—and for the first time, a Sovereign screamed.
The Fall of the First Sovereign
The moment her fingers touched them, the Sovereign convulsed, their golden eyes flickering as their very essence unraveled.
They tried to resist.
They failed.
Ellie ripped them apart—not their body, but something deeper.
Something fundamental.
The shadows devoured them, consuming their existence like an insatiable abyss.
When Ellie stepped back, only a hollow husk remained.
The other Sovereigns staggered, disbelief flickering across their usually impassive faces.
For the first time in history, a Sovereign had fallen.
Ellie looked at her hands, feeling the entity's presence coiling around her soul.
It had not taken control.
It had simply given her the means.
The Hollow Queen was not bound.
She was ascending.
She turned her silver eyes—now rimmed with inky darkness—to the remaining Sovereigns.
"You wanted to destroy me."
Her voice was no longer just her own. It was layered, intertwined with the whispers of the abyss.
She smiled.
"Now you will kneel."