The impact cracked the air.
Asvard's severed arm, once dangling flesh and bone had reformed mid-swing. Veins pulsed with molten heat. His fist slammed into the demon's helm, shattering it like brittle glass. Shards of black iron scattered into the air as the demon reeled back, snarling with a gut wrenching, bone-deep growl.
Blood. Its blood. Not his.
The creature losing balance, but didn't fall. What stood before him was no grunt. The armor it wore was etched in ancient runes that hissed and emit smoke. Its eyes, now exposed, gleamed with a sick radiant violet light. It was still standing because it had never been brought down before.
Asvard's chest rose and fell. He didn't care. The pain was nothing now. His body, newly reborn, hummed with an unholy rhythm. The heartbeat in his chest wasn't the one he was born with. It was darker, heavier. And it beat for war.
"You… regenerated." The demon hissed, its broken helm falling off. "You shouldn't be able to…"
"You don't decide what I should be able to do" Asvard muttered, stepping forward.
The air around him had changed. Heat. Pressure. Power. It was leaking out of his body like steam from a broken pipe. The ground under his feet cracked. The whispers in the Hollows grew louder. Darker.
They had seen something. Something wrong.
The demon stumbled back, instinct overriding pride. But before it could react again,
Asvard was already in front of it.
He gripped the creature's face with his newly formed left hand, fingers sinking into its skull like wet clay. "You tore off the wrong arm."
Then he caved its head straight into the ground.
A shallow pit formed. Dust spiraled up, choking the air. The body twitched once, then went limp.
Silence. For a heartbeat.
Then the Hollow screamed.
A low, howling wind swept across the cracked plain. Not natural. Not alive. Something ancient was stirred awake. Asvard stepped back from the body, his hand dripping with thick, tar-like blood.
He turned his head. Around him, shadows began to crawl.
Eyes opened. Dozens. Hundreds. Peering from the edges of the battlefield, nestled into the broken corpses, etched into the stones. The Hollows were watching.
No. Judging.
Then came the sound. Not a growl. Not a roar.
Metal.
A slow, deliberate dragging of steel across stone. Asvard tensed. A presence approached, not from the front, but from above.
A figure landed on a nearby cliff, draped in black and rusted crimson. His armor was divided and living, twitching like muscle, pulsing like breath. In one hand, he held a scythe with a blade that shimmered between dimensions. In the other, a sigil burned, floating above his palm, a symbol made of four twisted circles.
"You're not supposed to be here." The voice was calm. Controlled. Absolute.
Asvard looked up, unfazed. "Neither was the last guy."
The figure stepped down, floating slightly off the ground. "Ashar. Keeper of Four. Assigned by the Direct Hand of the Throne of Blades to monitor the Hollows' perimeter. You just broke that perimeter."
"So?"
"You killed one of my commanders."
"He swung first."
Ashar narrowed his eyes. He wasn't expecting that answer. Most demons cowered or stuttered. This one… bled forward. Even when torn apart.
Ashar flicked his hand. The body of the demon twisted in on itself, swallowed by an invisible mass of energy. "Do you know what this place is, Abyssborn?"
That word again. Asvard didn't answer.
"This is the outer rim of the Unleashed Legion of Blades. One of the Nine Thrones that once stood beside the First King." His voice sharpened. "To step here unannounced is to spit in the face of the blades themselves."
"Then they should've locked their door."
Ashar's scythe glowed.
The air trembled. The Hollows bent around his form. He raised the weapon.
"I should kill you now, before you bring the attention of the Throne itself."
Asvard smiled. "Try."
Ashar didn't.
He lowered the scythe. "You're not… normal." He looked at the wound on Asvard's arm, already sealed. "Something changed you. But I don't know what."
"You being an Abyssborn itself is....very wrong." Ashar muttered to himself
Asvard stepped closer. "You're wasting breath."
Ashar paused, studying him.
Then he did something strange.
He turned his back.
"You're not ready to fight me." he said without looking. "But you've caught the attention of the Hollows. And soon, of the Throne himself. You'd better keep walking, Abyssborn. Before you start a war."
With a pulse of black light, he vanished.
The ground went silent again.
Asvard stood in place, blood still dripping from his fist. His heart thumped, louder than ever. It didn't feel like his, but it was his.
Whatever the Maw had done… whatever the shard had become…
It wasn't human. It wasn't natural. But it had chosen him.
And Hell had no idea what was coming.
As he walked deeper into the Hollows, shadows followed. Whispers turned into words. The Legion was waking.
Asvard took a few steps forward, but his legs trembled.
His breathing was tensed. The blood had stopped flowing from his arm, but the toll was already heavy. Too heavy.
The Maw. The transformation. The shard. The Abyssborn curse. The constant battles.
No rest. Not even once.
It was finally catching up to him.
He clutched his ribs, shaking. Something cracked when he punched through that helm. He didn't care. Not really.
But his body did.
If that thing was just a commander… he thought, eyes half-shut as he staggered forward, then how strong was Ashar?
The way Ashar had moved… or not moved. That stillness. The weight he carried just by standing there. The scythe hadn't even left his hand.
And yet Asvard felt it.
The threat.
The certainty.
One swing… and maybe he wouldn't be here to think about it.
And worse, "if Ashar was just a gatekeeper of the outskirts…"
"Then how strong is the one who commands him?"
He clenched his teeth. His knuckles turned white.
"And if he's that strong… then what the hell is the Throne of Blades?"
He wanted to laugh. Or maybe scream. But neither came out. Only a cough. Bitter and sharp. A line of black blood dripped down his lip.
"Hell really doesn't give breaks, huh…"
A stone cracked beneath his feet as he dragged himself further into the Whispering Hollows. His vision blurred at the cornes. The darkness around him wasn't just the shadows anymore, it was creeping into his thoughts.
He needed rest.
But he couldn't stop now.
Not after that punch.
Not after the way Ashar had looked at him. Like something unfamiliar. Something that shouldn't exist.
Like a threat.
He grinned through the pain. "Yeah… keep watching. I'm not done yet."
He dropped to one knee.
The winds of the Hollows whispered all around him. They felt colder now. More alert.
The Legion was aware of him.
But Asvard was aware now too. Of how far behind he truly was.
And how far he still had to go.
"But I'll bleed my way forward…"
He chuckled again, a dry, empty sound.
"Rest can wait. First, I need to figure out what the hell I've become. What this Abyssborn curse is".
And with that, he rose again. Barely. Slowly.
But forward.
Always forward.
(To be continued...)