Title: Echoes in the Hollow
Chapter 1: The Ashwood Pact
They called it Ashwood Hollow.
A valley stitched between broken ridgelines, where the trees grew twisted like arthritic hands and the fog never fully lifted - even when the sun dared to rise. Locals didn't speak of it. Cartographers left it blank. And anyone with a mouth full of teeth and a beating heart stayed the hell away.
Except him.
Kade Merrick had carved his name into the Hollow long before he'd ever set foot there. His reputation bled through hunting camps and darkweb cryptid forums like a ghost story with too many facts to ignore. He wasn't the first to track monsters into the woods. But he was the first to come back dragging pieces of them behind.
And he never hunted alone.
Calmyras padded silently behind him - three eyes aglow, fur shimmering like moonlight on oil, and talons that left scars in stone. No one really knew what Calmyras was, not even Kade. All he knew was that the creature had saved his life during a hunt gone sideways in Tibet - and ever since, they'd been inseparable.
The gear on Kade's back was custom: reinforced ballistic leathers, obsidian-forged blades, serum-loaded tranq darts, and a neural net scanner tuned to frequencies outside human hearing. The scanner was twitching now. Something was near. Not close, but near enough to stir the ambient static. Calmyras growled low, a reverberation that buzzed the fillings in Kade's molars.
The Hollow stirred.
It was supposed to be a recon job - tag and track a creature known as the Sliverjaw. But the trees whispered lies, and the ground smelled of copper and rot. Something had been fed. Not just a creature, but a force. Ancient. Hungry.
They found the first remains near a streambed. Animal bones gnawed clean. Human teeth embedded in bark. And a symbol carved into a tree trunk - not carved. Branded. Burned in with heat that had fused the sap into glass.
Kade reached out, fingers brushing the edge of the symbol. It pulsed.
"That's not Sliverjaw work," he muttered.
Calmyras hissed. Not in fear - in recognition.
Then the scream came. High-pitched. Wet. Cut short.
Kade drew both blades.
Something was already watching them.
And the hunt had just begun.
Chapter 2: Black Rain
The mountains of Tibet were never meant for mortals.
Four years before Ashwood, Kade Merrick had gone looking for the Locust Maw - a hive cryptid rumored to burrow through ice fields and digest entire settlements. His squad had called it a suicide mission. They weren't wrong.
The sky broke open with black rain the moment they hit elevation.
What they found in the glacier caves wasn't just a cryptid. It was a nursery. Pulsing eggs hanging from the ceiling like tumors. The air was full of spores that hallucinated memories. One by one, his team vanished.
Kade would have died there.
But something had followed them into the dark. Not a predator. Not prey.
Calmyras.
It tore the hive apart in seconds, flickering between forms. Fluid. Terrifying. Beautiful. It looked at Kade not like an animal. But like a mirror. It chose him.
He never asked why.
Now, in Ashwood, the rain began to fall again. And Kade realized it smelled the same.
The Hollow was remembering him, too.
Chapter 3: Blood Bark and Hollow Eyes
The next morning broke with a sun that refused to rise.
Instead, a sickly red smear bled across the clouds, and the forest floor steamed like meat pulled from bone. Kade moved quietly, boots pressing shallow into the moss, eyes scanning the underbrush for anything that didn't belong. Calmyras was tense, pupils narrowed, tail stiff with aggression.
They followed the scent of rot uphill to a shattered chapel built from petrified wood and bone. The door was hanging by a single sinew hinge, creaking a low, breathy rhythm that sounded almost? alive.
Kade stepped through.
Inside, a man sat nailed to the altar.
No, not nailed - grown into it. Veins had woven into roots. His skin was bark. His eyes, milky and wide, blinked without moisture.
"They're waking," he rasped, voice dry as autumn leaves. "You lit the path. You brought the blood."
Kade said nothing. He was used to cryptic lunatics. But the symbol carved into the altar was the same one they'd found by the stream.
"Who did this to you?" he asked.
The man opened his mouth, and a swarm of flies spilled out. Not metaphorical. Real. Buzzing and coated in red.
Calmyras leapt forward, jaws wide - but the body collapsed into mulch before it struck.
The door slammed shut behind them.
The Hollow didn't want them leaving.
Kade turned slowly. On the wall, new glyphs were burning into the wood. Not written - growing. Like fungus.
And outside, something heavy was breathing.
This wasn't just a hunt anymore.
This was a summoning.
Chapter 4: The Waking Roots
It came just after dusk, when the fog thickened into a choking haze and the birds stopped calling.
The chapel behind them had crumbled to ruin, as if it had never been. But the symbols - those fungal, pulsing glyphs - had burned into Kade's eyes. Every time he blinked, he saw them under his lids. And Calmyras was quieter now. Not in fear. In reverence.
They followed the trail of blood-rusted moss through a ravine where tree roots coiled up like serpent spines. Something had uprooted massive trunks and rearranged them into a spiral. A nest. No bones, no feathers - just a ring of earth that hummed beneath their feet.
Then the whisper came.
"Merrick?"
Kade spun, blade drawn.
Nothing.
Only the trees. Breathing. Groaning. Shifting.
The roots began to move.
They rose like ribs cracking from soil, dragging up something pale and glistening beneath them. A humanoid shape. Faceless. But twitching with new life. Slivers of bark still clung to its limbs like scabs.
It stepped forward.
Kade threw a knife. It struck true - and passed through.
Not intangible. Just fast. Too fast.
It reached him in two heartbeats. Calmyras intercepted, a cyclone of claws and howl. They crashed into a tree, and the tree screamed. Not cracked. Screamed.
Kade hit the detonator on his belt.
The clearing lit up with phosphorous and pain.
When the smoke cleared, the creature was gone.
But in its place, carved into the soil:
BRING BACK THE HOLLOW KING.
Kade didn't know who that was.
But something inside him did.
And it was starting to wake up.
Chapter 5: Sap and Sacrament
They say when the forest wants blood, it doesn't ask.
It takes.
Kade stumbled through a black thicket of thornbark trees, each one dripping sap as dark as oil and as sticky as dried marrow. It coated his gloves, gummed up his gear, even clung to his thoughts. The deeper he pushed, the less real the world felt.
And then he saw the altar.
Not a building this time - a clearing. Circular, perfect, carved into the forest like a surgical wound. At its center was a pool of sap, thick and still, reflecting not sky but bones. Human bones. Thousands.
He stepped forward, heart thudding.
"Don't step into it," came a voice.
Kade froze.
A woman stood on the far edge of the pool. Pale skin, hair the color of scorched wheat, and eyes? hollow. Not metaphorically. No pupils. Just obsidian holes.
"You're the one they summoned," she said. "The Hollow remembers your blood. It wants it back."
"Who are you?"
"The priestess," she replied. "Of what's left."
Behind her, more emerged. Figures cloaked in moss and bark, each bearing masks of bone carved into screaming faces.
"You have something buried in you, hunter," she said. "Something the King left behind."
Calmyras snarled.
The priestess held up a hand. Calmyras stopped. Obeyed.
That scared Kade more than the forest.
"This place is dying because he was sealed," she said. "You carry the key. The glyphs marked you. You bled into the roots."
Kade opened his jacket.
His chest was glowing.
Not metaphorically.
Lines of light - the same glyphs from the chapel - were etched into his skin. Pulsing.
"You can resist," she said. "But it's already begun."
Then she knelt.
The others followed.
And from the sap pool, something rose.
Tall.
Crowned in antlers.
Wrapped in roots.
The Hollow King was waking.
Chapter 6: Blood Bark and Bone Calls
The air was swollen with secrets, thick as resin seeping from the towering hemlocks. Kade moved like a shadow made flesh, his boots crunching through layers of fallen needles and bones. Beside him, Calmyras padded silently, its massive body a lattice of sinew and ancient grace, glowing faintly under the thin moonlight.
They had entered a place the locals never spoke of - a grove corrupted by time, its trees twisted into clawed hands reaching for the sky. Kade's nose wrinkled. The scent of copper and mold bled from the bark. "This isn't just rot," he whispered. "It's ritual."
At the heart of the grove, an altar rose from the moss like a blister. Bones - human, animal, unidentifiable - were fused into its structure, wrapped with vines that pulsed faintly. Calmyras growled low. Something old stirred beneath the earth.
Then came the chant. Not loud. Not human. Like marrow grinding against stone. Kade raised his rifle, scanning the shadows. Figures emerged - hooded, malformed, inhuman. One dragged a tongue across its shoulder as though tasting the air.
They were Bone Singers.
Chapter 7: The Breach
The fight was not a skirmish. It was a purge.
Kade fired, silver-etched rounds splitting skulls and spraying sap-thick blood. Calmyras lunged, claws severing limbs like dead branches. Yet the Bone Singers didn't die like men. They convulsed, regrew, reassembled in twitching spasms.
Kade grabbed a bone-charm from his belt and crushed it. A shockwave blew outward, stalling the creatures mid-lunge. "MOVE!" he bellowed.
They sprinted. Behind them, the grove screamed. The altar cracked open like a blister, revealing a pit. From its depths came a thing with antlers of flame and eyes like boiling honey.
Not cryptid. Not fae. Not spirit.
Something worse.
Chapter 8: Hollowfire
Ashwood Hollow was burning from the inside out.
Whatever came through the altar pit had taken root. Townsfolk began disappearing in threes. Children wailed about "the antlered man." Dreams were infected. Time twisted. People would blink and find the sun had reversed course.
Kade spent days mapping the anomalies. Sleep became a memory. Calmyras grew restless, its eyes always fixed northward. Toward the heart of the Hollow.
In the shadows of the ruins, Kade found symbols that matched the scar on his own back - left by the first cryptid he ever faced. A Wendigo priest.
This wasn't random. This was orchestration.
Chapter 9: Revenant Kin
She came with dusk - raven-black hair, ash-covered cloak, eyes like black opals. Her name was Mara. She knew his name. Knew Calmyras. Knew the mark.
"You're not just a hunter anymore," she said. "You're a hinge."
She spoke of a schism in the cryptid realm - a war between creatures of balance and those driven mad by human incursion. Kade's bloodline wasn't just marked. It was bred. Generations of cryptid hunters with latent gifts. Gifts that, when unlocked, could tip the scales.
"But the Bone Singers got there first," Mara whispered. "They're harvesting bloodlines now. You're next."
Chapter 10: The Pact of Ash and Fang
Mara offered a pact. Knowledge for alliance. Her people - the Hollowbound - were part-fae, part-witch, guardians of the barriers between the seen and the unseen. But their numbers were dwindling.
Kade agreed.
Rituals followed. Blood-binding. Fire tattoos that burned language into his bones. Calmyras underwent a transformation too - its body wreathed in blacklight flame, its roar echoing in dimensions beyond the forest.
With new sight, Kade saw the truth: the creatures hunting him weren't born. They were built. Stitched together with stolen essence.
And the architect of it all? had once been human.
Chapter 11: The Hollowbound Trials
Mara led Kade through the Veiled Path, a rift in the forest that shimmered like oil on water. Only the blood-bound could pass. The Hollowbound lived in a forgotten valley, hidden by spells cast in root and river. Their village was a fusion of the primal and arcane - totems of bone, herbal braziers smoldering with dreams, and trees hollowed into homes that whispered when touched.
The Trials were brutal.
First: the Trial of Sight. Kade drank from a cauldron of moonroot sap and saw all his past kills rise around him. Not as trophies. As questions. Each one asked: "Was I necessary?"
Second: the Trial of Grief. He relived his father's death. Then his brother's. Then Calmyras's? in a future that hadn't happened yet.
Third: the Trial of Choice. He stood between two burning doors - one led to saving the Hollow, one to vengeance. He chose the fire with no promise.
When he awoke, Calmyras lay beside him. Its eyes now spoke. We are chosen, it said.
Chapter 12: Feast of Teeth
A village on the Hollow's edge went dark. No crows. No cries. Just silence.
When Kade arrived, he found the buildings intact, but every mirror shattered. On each shard: a tooth. Some gold. Some bone. Some still bleeding.
Then the sun dimmed. Something slid out from the shadow of a well - thin as a wisp, jaws too wide, fingers too long. The Toothfeast had begun.
These weren't Bone Singers. These were their scouts - entities made from hunger and mimicry. They wore the skins of the missing, stitched poorly, lips stretched in mockery of smiles.
The battle was short but merciless. Kade's bullets did little. Calmyras had to consume one whole and burn it from the inside. Only then did the others flee.
Kade pocketed a mirror shard.
Reflected in it: his own face, smiling back.
Chapter 13: The Library of Boneglass
To understand the enemy, they needed answers. Old ones.
The Hollowbound led Kade and Calmyras to the Library of Boneglass - a repository carved into the ribs of a fallen sky-beast. Its shelves were flesh and ivory. The books, alive.
He found mention of a name: Dr. Sylus Kreel. Once a cryptid researcher. Now a transmuter - someone who grafted creatures together, blurring lines, making soldiers from the dark.
Kreel had betrayed the Hollowbound decades ago. Now he commanded the Bone Singers and Toothfeast.
Worse: he was experimenting with Calmyras blood.
One of the tomes whispered: "He seeks the Godbone. Buried beneath the Hollow. It is not a weapon. It is a key."
Chapter 14: Of Ash and Eclipse
An eclipse neared. Not the kind born of moon and sun, but one shaped by will. The Hollowbound cast protective spells, sigils carved in bark and branded on skin. But the darkness came faster than expected.
Beasts began to prowl in daylight. Shadows bent wrong. Language dissolved in the air.
Calmyras warned Kade in its growl-song: The veil is breaking.
They found an entire Hollowbound patrol crucified upside-down on pine trees, their shadows still writhing, trying to scream.
Kade held Mara as she wept. Then rose.
"Then we take it to Kreel. We end this before the key turns."
Chapter 15: The Vault Beneath the Hemlock Spine
They traveled for days into the Hemlock Spine, a range where no compass worked and the trees whispered names of the dead.
At the mountain's heart: a vault sealed in bone and prayer. Kade placed his blooded palm on the door. It pulsed and opened.
Inside: a cathedral of bones. Not human. Ancient. Forgotten.
The Godbone sat at the center - an artifact shaped like a spinal column fused with a heart. It hummed with pre-language power.
But Kreel was already there.
His body was barely human - metallic tendrils, pulsing sacs of living tissue, eyes of pure black.
"You're too late," he crooned. "I've already fed it your kind."
Calmyras roared. Kade raised his weapon.
And the war began.
Chapter 16: Pulse and Ruin
Kade dove behind a column of bone as the first volley struck. Kreel's creatures - fused things of bat, lizard, and man - descended with acid breath and talons dripping venom.
Calmyras tore through two, its shadow jaws extending beyond its body, its eyes burning ultraviolet. But they kept coming. The Godbone's hum grew louder, distorting space around it.
Kreel spoke in an unknown tongue. Flesh peeled away from reality.
Mara arrived with Hollowbound hunters, chants breaking the air like gunfire. The bone cathedral trembled. The Godbone cracked.
Kade reached for it.
And it reached back.
Chapter 17: The Memory That Wasn't
Kade blacked out. Or forward. Or sideways.
He stood in a memory that didn't belong to him - Kreel's first experiment. A dying woman. A sliver of Calmyras embedded in her spine. Her scream split time.
He saw how the Bone Singers were made. How Kreel consumed cryptids, using them as keys to unlock other realities.
Kade woke with a migraine like static lightning. A mark had appeared on his chest - glowing, shifting.
The Godbone had chosen a second wielder.
Chapter 18: Siege of the Hollowbound
Kreel retaliated.
Bone constructs the size of war elephants lumbered toward the Hollow. Creatures stitched from nightmares hunted survivors in the woods.
Kade, Mara, and Calmyras led the defense. Every bullet counted. Every breath stung of ash and blood.
During the battle, Kade's mark lit up - his body moved faster, sensed deeper. Calmyras synced with him fully for the first time.
They became a blur of blade and beast.
Still, the Hollow was breached.
Chapter 19: Death's Nursery
They discovered Kreel's mobile lab buried beneath the battlefield - grown from bone and rust, pulsing with half-born things.
Inside: tanks of failed cryptids. Children. Mothers. Voices still whispering. One begged to be unmade.
Mara found her sister. Fused to a spider-thing. Still alive.
She didn't hesitate.
She pulled the trigger.
Chapter 20: The Second Eclipse
The first eclipse had been a warning. The second would be a sentence.
Kreel used the Godbone fragment stolen from the cathedral to open a rift - one that bled stars and screamed memories.
Kade, now partially fused with the Godbone, began to unravel.
Calmyras anchored him, but barely.
The Hollowbound cast their final spell - a binding weave of memory and marrow. One chance to close the rift.
But it meant someone had to go through it.
Kade volunteered.
He turned to Mara. "Keep the Hollow alive."
And stepped into the scream.
Chapter 21: The Realm Beyond the Rift
Kade stepped through the rift. His body felt like it was torn apart and put back together in a million different places. Time didn't make sense here. It was a realm of echoes and shadows, a place where reality had long since cracked.
The landscape was one of shifting, impossibly tall structures - reminiscent of bones twisted in impossible shapes. The air felt thick, almost alive, clinging to his skin.
In the distance, a figure moved. It was Kreel. But not Kreel, not as Kade knew him. He had become something else, something? wrong. The Godbone's power had twisted him beyond recognition.
"You shouldn't have followed me, Kade," Kreel's voice echoed in the strange space, as if it was all around him. "This place is the key to all things, but you? you were never meant to be part of it."
Kade's body pulsed with the Godbone's energy, his senses heightened. He could feel every shift in the air, every heartbeat that wasn't his own. But Kreel wasn't alone.
Something far worse stirred in the shadows.
Chapter 22: The Slumbering Beasts
Behind Kreel, the ground trembled. The massive bones of the realm began to shudder, and deep within the earth, something ancient, something eldritch, began to stir. It was the true master of this place - a creature older than time itself, a being of chaos and hunger.
Kade knew then that Kreel hadn't been the real threat. He had merely been a servant, an intermediary between two worlds, between human ambition and the ancient darkness that slumbered beneath the veil of reality.
Calmyras's voice sounded in his mind: You must end this, Kade. Now.
The creature rose, its form a mass of writhing, endless limbs, bone and flesh fused into an unimaginable whole. It was an amalgamation of nightmares - something that defied all logic and reason.
Kade's pulse quickened. He was no longer just Kade the hunter. He was the Godbone's chosen. He raised his hand, and his weapon materialized from the rift, infused with the power of the Godbone.
Chapter 23: Blood and Bone
The battle was brutal, more so than anything Kade had ever faced. Kreel was no longer in control. The ancient creature controlled the space, manipulating time, space, and the very essence of reality.
Kade fired the weapon. It felt like a shot fired through an ocean of nightmares, the power of the Godbone distorting the world around him.
Kreel howled in pain as he was consumed by the creature's power, his form shattering into hundreds of twisted limbs.
But the battle wasn't over. The creature lunged, its massive, writhing body crashing toward Kade. His weapon jammed.
With one final roar, Calmyras leapt into the fray. Its claws tore into the creature's flesh, but it wasn't enough.
Chapter 24: The Price of the Godbone
The Godbone's power surged within Kade. He could feel the creature's every movement, its every thought, and it was too much. The energy was overwhelming, threatening to tear him apart.
But he knew what he had to do.
He gritted his teeth and made the final sacrifice. Kade's body cracked as the Godbone's power consumed him entirely, turning him into something not quite human anymore, not quite cryptid either. His form became an amalgamation of both, a creature of destruction and creation.
With one final scream, Kade brought the creature to its knees.
The rift began to close.
Chapter 25: The Hollow's End
Kade awoke in the Hollow. The battle was over. Kreel was gone. The Godbone's power had dissipated, leaving only echoes behind.
But Kade was not the same. He was? changed.
Calmyras stood beside him, its form now more attuned to his own, as if they had become one.
Mara approached, her eyes wary but hopeful. "You did it. We're free."
But Kade wasn't sure if they were free. The Godbone's influence still lingered, twisting in the corners of his mind.
The Hollow would rebuild, but the price had been steep. The land was scarred, the cryptids lost, and the war? had only just begun.
Kade turned to Mara. "We need to go. The world's not done with us yet."
And as they walked toward the horizon, Kade's final thought was clear.
The war was never about survival. It was about what comes after.
Thus ends the saga of the cryptid hunter and the Godbone. For now?
Shall we leave the door ajar, knowing that more shadows stir on the wind?
The door to further darkness swings wide, leaving room for new horrors, allies, and choices. The cryptid hunter's tale doesn't end at the horizon. It pulses, alive, inviting Kade into deeper, uncharted territory. Perhaps there are more creatures to face, more realms to unravel, or an ancient vengeance that still stirs in the shadows.
Shall we follow Kade's path into the unknown, continuing his journey in this fractured world? I can already hear the whispers - what comes next for him and his Calmyras, and the world they now inhabit?
As the horizon swallowed the last of the dying light, Kade felt the unsettling weight of the world pressing against him once again. The battle had been won, the Godbone's curse was lifted, but in the silence that followed, a new question arose: What next?
The Hollow, though scarred, had begun to heal. Cryptids and creatures that had once cowered in the shadows now walked freely, their whispers of survival an unspoken bond between them all. But Kade wasn't sure if freedom was something he was entitled to anymore.
Chapter 26: The Veil of Shadows
Kade sat on a rock by the remnants of the rift, Calmyras pacing restlessly beside him. The creature's sleek, shadowed fur shimmered with an otherworldly glow, its eyes alert, as though it too felt something stirring in the distance.
"You're thinking too hard, Kade," Mara's voice was soft, but her words echoed with a weight Kade couldn't ignore. She stepped beside him, looking over the wasteland of the Hollow that stretched before them. Her gaze hardened as it traveled across the landscape. "This place isn't what it once was. We need to leave."
Leave.
Kade stood, feeling the weight of Mara's words settle in his bones. "Leave? Where do we go? The world outside is a mess."
"The world's always been a mess. But you - " Mara paused, then lowered her voice, "you aren't the same anymore. You can't stay here. Not like this. You're? different."
It was true. Kade could feel it. The pulse of the Godbone still lingered beneath his skin, a cold, creeping presence that he couldn't shake, no matter how far he wandered. The power had changed him, fused him with something older, something dangerous. He wasn't the hunter who had entered the Hollow all those months ago. That Kade was gone. In his place stood something unrecognizable.
"I don't know what I am anymore," Kade muttered, staring at his hands. They were steady, but the weight of what he had become was unbearable. The fusion of hunter and cryptid had left him an anomaly - a hybrid, walking between worlds with a foot in both.
"You're something more," Mara said gently. "And that's why you can't stay. You need to find them."
Kade's gaze shot to her. "Them?"
"The ones who control the rifts. The ones who started all of this. They're not finished with you. You've become the thing they feared most. You're the key to something bigger. And they know it."
Kade could feel his pulse quicken. "Who are they?"
Mara's face was grim, and for the first time, Kade saw the truth in her eyes - the same truth that made her take a step back, as if seeing something she couldn't yet comprehend. "We need to find out. But we can't do it here. We have to leave the Hollow before - "
A sharp howl cut her off. Kade's heart skipped a beat as he turned toward the sound, the air vibrating with an unnatural hum. He could hear it, the crackle of power, the hum of reality warping again.
Calmyras growled low, its hackles raised as it sensed the shift in the air.
"It's them," Mara whispered, and Kade's blood ran cold. "They've found us."
Chapter 27: The Hounds of Fate
A ripple split the air, tearing through the fabric of the Hollow like a wound. Figures emerged from the rift - humanoid, yet not. Their bodies were twisted, malformed, their eyes glowing with an eerie, unnatural light. Their movements were swift, like the shadows themselves, and Kade could feel the power radiating off of them, pulling at the very bones in his body.
"They've come for you," Mara said softly, stepping back toward the safety of the trees. "You're their chosen now."
Kade clenched his fists, the energy of the Godbone thrumming beneath his skin like a warning bell. "Then let them come."
Calmyras lunged forward with a roar, its claws slashing at the nearest figure, but the creature was faster. It disappeared into the shadows, reappearing behind Calmyras with terrifying speed. The creature's voice, a rasping growl, cut through the air: "You've chosen the wrong side, cryptid hunter."
Kade's heart pounded as he reached for the weapon that had once been his lifeline. But as his hand grasped it, he felt the heavy weight of it - a burden he wasn't sure he could bear any longer.
The leader of the strange figures emerged from the shadows, its eyes gleaming with cold fire. It spoke with a voice that echoed in Kade's mind, a whisper that twisted and distorted his thoughts. "You don't understand, do you, Kade? You were never meant to be alive after the rift was opened. Your death was part of the plan. You were supposed to be the sacrifice."
Kade's vision blurred as the figure's words dug deep into his mind, threatening to shatter his very sense of self. He staggered, a part of him slipping away with every syllable the creature spoke.
"I was meant to be the sacrifice?" Kade spat, his voice bitter. "You wanted me dead? Too bad. I'm still here."
The Godbone pulsed with energy, flaring brightly as Kade's rage exploded, flooding the area with a wave of power. The creatures flinched, but they did not retreat. In fact, the leader stepped forward, a twisted grin on its face.
"You're too strong now," it said, eyes glowing with an unsettling familiarity. "You've become something greater than we ever imagined. But don't think you're free, Kade. You can't escape what you are now."
Chapter 28: Into the Darkness
The battle was savage. Creatures from beyond the rift swarmed the Hollow, and Kade fought with everything he had. But every strike, every slash of his weapon, seemed to only feed the creatures, strengthening their resolve.
Then, just as all hope seemed lost, Calmyras's voice echoed in Kade's mind, sharp and urgent: Get to the rift. Now.
Without hesitation, Kade sprinted toward the opening, his weapon glowing bright in his hand. The creatures shrieked in rage, but they couldn't stop him. They were too late.
Kade leaped into the rift, leaving the Hollow behind, knowing that the true test of his survival had just begun.
Chapter 29: The Edge of Reality
As Kade stepped into the unknown, the fabric of reality warped around him. Time and space twisted, and the world he had known became a distant memory, replaced by an infinite void.
"What is this place?" Kade whispered, his voice lost in the emptiness.
"You're in my world now," a voice said, cold and distant. "And you're far from the only one here."
Out of the shadows stepped a figure - tall, regal, yet shadowed in mystery. Kade's heart stilled. This wasn't just another cryptid. This was someone, something, far more dangerous.
Kade's weapon flared to life, but the figure only smiled. "Welcome to the true war, Kade. Your destiny has only just begun."
The darkness deepened, and the path forward grew uncertain. Kade was no longer the cryptid hunter he once was. He was something more. Something dangerous.
And his war had just begun.
Chapter 30: The Unseen Hand
The rift closed behind Kade with a finality that felt like the snapping of a thread. He had crossed into another realm, a world neither fully alive nor dead, a place of shadows and broken realities. His breath caught as he took in the desolate landscape before him. The ground was a jagged, shifting mass, as if the earth itself had been ripped apart and left to rot in the wake of some terrible event. Above, the sky stretched in endless twilight, a dull gray, streaked with sickly reds and purples. No stars. No sun.
Kade had stepped into the void, a place between places. And for the first time in his life, he understood what true isolation meant. There was no warmth here, no refuge, only the bitter cold of a world that had forgotten how to exist.
The world hummed - a low, resonant vibration in the air, like the pulse of a living thing. It was the kind of hum that gnawed at the back of his mind, making him feel small, insignificant. Calmyras stood beside him, its fur bristling, eyes narrowed as it scanned the horizon.
"You feel it, don't you?" Mara's voice broke the silence, and Kade turned to see her materializing from the shadows, her features sharp and defined in the dim light. She looked the same as before, but there was something different about her. Something more? alive.
Kade nodded, his eyes never leaving the shifting horizon. "Yeah, I feel it. This place? it's wrong. It's not just empty - it's hungry."
Mara's lips curved into a tight smile, but there was no humor in it. "This is the threshold between worlds. The space that separates everything you know from everything you fear. You're not just here by accident, Kade. You're the key to something much larger. Something ancient."
Kade clenched his fists, feeling the Godbone pulse beneath his skin. It had been a part of him ever since the rift was first opened, its energy merging with his own. He could feel it now, a low hum deep in his bones, like a heartbeat that wasn't his own. It was strange - unnerving - but he had learned to live with it.
The figure stepped forward, his silhouette appearing from the dark, casting a long shadow that seemed to stretch unnaturally across the broken earth. Kade's heart raced. He had been expecting this, but still, the sight of the being made his blood run cold. This was the one who had called him here. The one who had been pulling the strings from the shadows all along.
The creature was tall, impossibly so. It wore the form of a man, but there was nothing human about it. Its face was an unholy blend of angles, sharp and twisted, as if it had been carved from stone by hands that had long forgotten what mercy was. Its eyes gleamed like black obsidian, reflecting the void that surrounded them.
"You've finally come," it said, its voice low, a dark rumble that vibrated the air. "I was wondering when you would arrive."
Kade instinctively stepped back, his fingers tightening around his weapon. "Who are you?" His voice came out rough, the words feeling strange on his tongue.
"I am the one who walks between the worlds," the figure replied. "I am the Riftbearer, the keeper of what should not be. You were always meant to come to me, Kade. To this place. To this destiny."
Kade shook his head, trying to force some clarity into the fog of his thoughts. "No. I don't belong here. You - whatever you are - you're wrong. This? this isn't real."
The Riftbearer smiled, though it was more like a grimace. "Oh, Kade, you've always been too sure of yourself. You see, nothing in this world is real anymore. And that is where you've made your greatest mistake. You have the power to shape it, to bend it, but you cannot escape it. Not now. Not ever."
Mara stepped forward, her eyes blazing with an intensity that matched the Riftbearer's. "You don't understand, Kade. This isn't about what's real or what's not. This is about control. The Riftbearer isn't just a creature of this world. He is a harbinger, a messenger of something far more ancient. He's the one who opens the doors between realms."
"You're right," the Riftbearer said, his voice filled with ancient knowledge. "I open the doors. But you? you are the one who can close them. If you have the strength. If you have the will to face what lies beyond."
A sudden chill swept through the air, as if the very fabric of reality itself was tearing apart at the edges. Kade could feel the pressure building, an overwhelming force pressing against his chest, as if something - someone - was reaching out from beyond the rift, trying to drag him deeper into the darkness.
"What lies beyond?" Kade demanded, his voice shaking.
The Riftbearer's smile widened, and for the first time, Kade saw something akin to amusement flicker in those obsidian eyes. "Ah, Kade? you will learn soon enough. All that you are - all that you have become - was meant to be mine. And now, you will finally understand."
Before Kade could react, the Riftbearer raised a hand, and the world around them shifted violently. The ground beneath Kade's feet cracked open, and from the depths of the rift, something far more sinister began to emerge. Something ancient. Something that had been waiting for centuries to return.
The earth trembled as monstrous shapes rose from the void, their eyes glowing with the same unnatural light as the Riftbearer's. They were the harbingers of destruction, twisted beings that had once been sealed away but were now freed to wreak havoc upon the world.
Kade's heart raced, but the weight of the Godbone within him flared, answering the call of the creatures. The power surged through him, bright and blinding, as his weapon pulsed with a strange new energy. It was a gift. Or perhaps a curse.
With a guttural roar, Kade lunged forward, Calmyras by his side. The two of them were a blur of motion - attacking, dodging, striking. The creatures shrieked, but they couldn't keep up with the fury that Kade had become.
But as the last of the creatures fell, Kade's breath caught in his throat. The Riftbearer had not moved. He had been watching, waiting.
"You think you've won, Kade?" the Riftbearer said, his voice echoing across the broken landscape. "You've only just begun to understand the true nature of your power. You may have slain my minions, but the war is far from over. The rift was never meant to be sealed. It was meant to open."
Kade's heart skipped a beat. The Riftbearer's words were a challenge. A promise.
With that, the Riftbearer turned, fading into the shadows of the world beyond, leaving Kade standing on the edge of reality, the weight of his destiny heavier than ever.
Chapter 31: The End of One World, The Beginning of Another
Kade stood there, his chest heaving, the echoes of the battle still ringing in his ears. The creatures were dead, but the Riftbearer's warning hung in the air like a dark cloud.
The war had just begun.
There was no going back. No more hiding. No more pretending.
Kade turned to Mara, his eyes filled with determination. "What do we do now?"
Mara's eyes flickered with something unreadable. "Now, Kade, we find the others. We find the ones who truly control the rifts. And we stop them."
But as she spoke, the ground beneath their feet began to tremble once more. The Riftbearer's prophecy was coming true. The world they knew was coming apart at the seams.
And Kade knew that his fight for survival was only just beginning.
End of Chapter 31.
Chapter 31: The End of One World, The Beginning of Another
Kade stood there, his chest heaving, the echoes of the battle still ringing in his ears. The creatures were dead, but the Riftbearer's warning hung in the air like a dark cloud.
The war had just begun.
There was no going back. No more hiding. No more pretending.
Kade turned to Mara, his eyes filled with determination. "What do we do now?"
Mara's eyes flickered with something unreadable. "Now, Kade, we find the others. We find the ones who truly control the rifts. And we stop them."
But as she spoke, the ground beneath their feet began to tremble once more. The Riftbearer's prophecy was coming true. The world they knew was coming apart at the seams.
And Kade knew that his fight for survival was only just beginning.
End of Chapter 31.
Chapter 31: The Last War (Part 1)
The ground beneath Kade's boots shook violently, as though the very fabric of reality was cracking under the strain of the battle. The creatures, twisted things from beyond the veil, surged around him like an unstoppable tide. Their eyes, empty and unblinking, reflected the madness of the world they came from. Every slash of his weapon only slowed them for a moment before they crawled back into the fold, relentless.
Calmyras was a blur of fury beside him, its massive form ripping through the grotesque ranks, jaws snapping, claws slashing with lethal precision. But even the fierce beast seemed to struggle against the unrelenting onslaught, its movements becoming more desperate, more ragged. Kade's heart pounded in his chest, his body aching with exhaustion, but there was no time to stop.
He could feel the presence of Mara close behind him, her power crackling in the air like static electricity. She was focused, her own weapon gleaming with unnatural light, but the battle was shifting. Kade could feel the weight of something dark, heavier than the creatures themselves, pressing against him from all sides. The Riftbearer's presence loomed like an unseen hand, tightening its grip on the world.
His pulse quickened. No. This has to end. I will end it.
The Godbone pulsed once more, this time brighter, sharper, a beacon of raw energy. Kade felt a surge of clarity - the key - the connection between himself and the rift was undeniable. He was not just a vessel for this power; he was a part of it. And this was his choice. To seal the rift, to end the war, he had to face what lay beyond, what had been whispering in his blood all this time.
With a growl, Kade lifted the Godbone, its blade gleaming with a cold, feral light. "Enough," he muttered through gritted teeth.
The Riftbearer's voice echoed through the chaos, low and mocking. "You think you can stop it, Kade? You are nothing but a pawn in this game, a sacrifice to the greater forces. This is bigger than you."
The air shimmered around the Riftbearer, and from the shifting shadows of the horizon, a new figure appeared - tall, clad in darkness. It moved with an eerie, gliding motion, its steps impossibly silent. Its form was humanoid, but its face was an abstract mass of shifting shadows, an unidentifiable, ever-changing void. Kade could feel the weight of its gaze, a pressure that made his skin prickle with unease.
The creature stepped forward, its presence an overwhelming force. "You are right to fear me," it said, its voice like the sound of thousands of whispers tangled in a single, cohesive word. "For I am the darkness that waits. The harbinger of the end. You? are my key."
Kade's breath hitched. The Riftbearer wasn't the true master. This thing - this thing that had only just appeared - was something far worse, older, and more powerful. His heart raced, his mind screaming for a way out. But there was no escape. Not anymore.
"Who are you?" Kade forced out, the words tasting like ash in his mouth.
The figure didn't answer. Instead, it raised its hand, and the world around them seemed to freeze. Time stilled, the creatures pausing in mid-swipe, frozen in grotesque positions, as if they too were caught in the web of whatever force held them in place.
"I am the Void," the being finally spoke, its voice a low, vibrating hum. "The true destruction that lies at the heart of creation. And you, Kade? you were always meant to choose. To wield the power of the rift." Its dark gaze bore into him with an intensity that nearly made him crumble. "But I will not let you seal it. I will not let this end."
Kade's mind reeled. The rift - the creatures, the Riftbearer, Mara's cryptic words - it all clicked into place in a terrifying, unmistakable reality. The rift wasn't just a tear between worlds. It was a doorway to something older, to the Void that had been waiting for eons to consume everything. This war was never meant to be won. It was meant to spread, to destroy, to unravel.
He felt the Godbone in his hands, felt the blood that coursed through him, felt the magic of his bloodline burning like a wildfire within him. But there was doubt now. His power, his connection to this chaos, was a part of something so vast, so destructive, that the idea of closing it seemed impossible.
"Mara!" he shouted, his voice strained. "Is there any way - any way to end this?"
But Mara was already moving, her figure slipping into the shadows, vanishing before his eyes. He turned to look, but there was nothing - only the flickering images of the creatures frozen in place, their eyes vacant and soulless.
A whisper reached his ear, barely audible, carried by the wind. "You are not the one who must end this."
Kade's eyes snapped open, his heart pounding in his chest. He swung the Godbone, slicing through a creature that had leapt from the shadows, but his movements were mechanical. The words echoed in his mind, You are not the one who must end this.
Was he? Was there someone else?
The Riftbearer's laugh reverberated in the distance, echoing like a chorus of doomed souls. "You cannot win, Kade. You will fall just like the others."
Suddenly, the creatures began to stir again, the eerie stillness evaporating. Kade's chest tightened. His breath came in short gasps as his hand shook, holding the Godbone steady. He couldn't fail. Not now. Not when everything had already been set into motion.
But the Void was closing in. The battle was shifting. The tide had turned.
A sickening crack split the air.
And Kade's world shattered.
End of Part 1.
Chapter 31: The Last War (Part 2)
Kade's heart felt like it had been ripped from his chest. He stumbled backward, clutching the Godbone as if it were his only lifeline. The ground beneath him seemed to collapse, the air shifting with violent force. He barely managed to regain his footing before the entire horizon seemed to warp, twisting into something unrecognizable. The familiar battlefield, the rift that had brought them here, the creatures - everything began to distort into a monstrous blur.
In the distance, the Void being - the Void - stood, watching, its dark presence bleeding into the world around it. The Riftbearer was nowhere to be seen, but Kade could feel the rippling energy in the air, the pressure building in his chest. This was no longer just a battle for survival. This was the unraveling of everything.
"You cannot stop it, Kade," a voice rasped from behind him.
Kade whipped around, his heart seizing. The woman - Mara - stood at the edge of the battlefield, her face pale, her eyes filled with sorrow. But there was something else in her gaze, something familiar. She raised her hand as if she could feel the pulse of the Godbone in his grip, a faint shimmer of recognition in her eyes.
"This isn't just about sealing the rift," Mara said quietly, her voice carrying the weight of something ancient. "The rift is a symptom, Kade. It's the manifestation of what lies beneath. The true war isn't between worlds. It's within us. And if we don't make the right choice?"
Her voice trailed off, the implication hanging heavy in the air.
Kade's thoughts raced. The Godbone pulsed again - harder, louder - filling the silence like a heartbeat. He could feel the darkness creeping up on him. The Void wasn't just trying to tear apart the world. It was trying to tear apart him.
In that moment, he understood. The war wasn't just about winning or losing. It was about survival. But what did survival look like now? What if the world itself was unmade - what would be left?
And could he live with that?
The answer was just out of reach.
End of Chapter 31.
Chapter 32: The Hollow Throne (Part 1)
- "Some thrones are carved not from stone, but from screams."
The ruins of Varn Hollow loomed like a forgotten cathedral, jagged spires of black stone scraping the underbelly of a storm-choked sky. Lightning forked above as if the heavens themselves recoiled from what lay beneath. Kade stood at the shattered threshold, soaked in blood - some his, most not - Godbone humming low at his hip like a warning. Calmyras growled beside him, hackles raised, fur slick with gore, eyes locked on the abyss yawning before them.
They had followed the trail of aberrant energy here - a pulse that throbbed through the ley lines like a migraine. The Rift was bleeding, and Varn Hollow was its wound.
"This place was a sanctum once," Mara whispered from behind, her voice taut with dread. "A resting ground for the first ones. Until they unearthed the throne."
Kade didn't ask who they were. He had learned not to ask questions unless he was ready for truths that flayed your soul bare.
The entrance gaped before them like a mouth, thick with breathless silence. No sound, no movement. Just a wrongness that filled the lungs with invisible dust.
They stepped in.
Inside, the walls pulsed like veins beneath stone, and shadows moved without source. The floor was a mosaic of broken bones and molten metal, fusing into symbols that twisted when stared at too long. Whispers - not voices, not quite - skimmed the edge of perception. Kade tightened his grip on the Godbone, and it responded with a hot flare of resistance. The weapon did not want to be here.
Neither did he.
At the far end of the chamber stood the Hollow Throne.
It was a grotesque masterpiece - an organic structure formed from petrified flesh, sinew, and the melted faces of long-dead kings. Each of its four arms stretched to the corners of the room, and embedded within the backrest was a crystal, pulsing in time with a distant heartbeat.
Kade didn't know whose.
Mara approached it, reverent and trembling. "This is where it began," she said. "The first Rift. The one that never closed. The one that thinks."
Kade cocked his head. "The Rift has a mind?"
"No," she said softly. "It has a will."
Then everything went to hell.
The chamber convulsed. Calmyras howled, stumbling back as shadows poured from the throne like a hemorrhage. They coalesced into things - shapeless creatures with too many mouths, crawling backward on limbs that bent the wrong way. They screamed in silence. They charged.
Kade didn't wait. The Godbone sang its war song, cleaving through the first wave with burning arcs. Bloodless bodies dissolved into ash - but more replaced them, faster, stranger. They moved like thoughts - impossible to pin down, slippery and shifting.
Calmyras lunged, jaws snapping, claws raking stone. Mara unleashed a shockwave of raw Rift energy that sent half the horde flying - but the throne pulsed again, brighter now. Each beat birthed another nightmare.
They were not fighting creatures.
They were fighting memories.
"Back!" Kade roared. "It's feeding on us!"
Too late.
A creature leapt for him - not claws, not teeth. It touched him.
And he remembered.
?
Chapter 32: The Hollow Throne (Part 2)
- "Memory is the cruelest weapon of all."
It wasn't a vision. It was a plunge. Kade fell backward through time, spiraling down corridors of his own mind he had long since burned and buried. He saw faces - family, friends, lovers - all dead. All his fault.
But worse than the deaths were the betrayals.
He saw his father begging him not to follow the Rift. Saw his own blade piercing his brother's chest in a fevered moment of desperation. Saw himself, kneeling before something ancient, whispering, "Let me be the key."
"No!" he shouted aloud, wrenching himself back to the present with a raw howl. Blood ran from his eyes, his nose. He staggered to his feet.
The Hollow Throne was awake.
Its crystal eye blazed now, casting grotesque silhouettes on the walls. The throne spoke - not in words, but in knowing. It offered Kade power. Dominion. Closure. All he had to do was sit.
"Kade!" Mara cried. "Don't!"
But her voice was distant, as if underwater. The Godbone pulsed again - faint now, almost pleading.
He stepped forward.
"Kade, this throne remembers. It doesn't show you truth. It shows you what will break you. That's how it feeds."
His fingers brushed the throne's armrest.
Pain bloomed.
Visions cascaded through him like a flood. Cities burning. Calmyras lying dead beneath his feet. Mara screaming his name as the Rift devoured her. The sky turning inside out. And at the center of it all - him, wearing a crown of bone and light, seated upon the Hollow Throne as the last breath of reality was snuffed out.
He jerked back.
The throne laughed. A deep, bone-hollow sound.
It had shown him what he could become.
And it liked him.
The room shattered - walls collapsing, shadows writhing, light bleeding. They had minutes, if that.
"Kade!" Mara reached for him. "We have to destroy it - now!"
But the throne pulsed again.
Calmyras roared, lunging toward the crystal. Kade knew what the beast intended. He moved to stop him - too late.
With a final leap, Calmyras slammed into the throne's heart.
A blinding explosion.
A scream - not from any mouth, but from the very air itself.
And then -
Silence.
Kade lay sprawled on the broken floor, ears ringing, smoke curling from the shattered remains of the throne. The crystal was gone. Calmyras lay unmoving in the debris, half its body torn and bleeding.
Mara crawled toward him, eyes wide.
"Kade?" she whispered. "The throne is gone."
But Kade didn't answer.
He was staring into the hole where the throne once stood.
Because something was crawling out.
Not a memory.
Not a creature.
A person.
And they wore his face.
End of Chapter 32.