The air around Nerin trembled, thick with the scent of burning memory and forgotten sorrows. The battlefield lay strewn with remnants of shadow and bone, a testament to a war that clawed at the edges of reality itself. Yet, the true war was not just outside—it roared inside him, a tempest of fragmented memories and haunting echoes.
The cold fire of the Hollow Mark pulsed steadily, a relentless heartbeat beneath his skin. It whispered secrets in a language older than time—fragments of a past erased, buried beneath layers of pain and blood. Nerin's vision blurred, shadows peeling away to reveal flickers of a life once lived.
He saw a village swallowed by flame, screams twisted into the wind like a cruel lullaby. Faces of friends lost, twisted into hollow masks of despair. A mother's last tear frozen in time, a father's broken sword abandoned in the ashes.
The Mark flared, pulling him deeper.
A voice—his own, yet not—echoed through the void. "Remember, Nerin. Remember who you were... who you must become."
His hands trembled as memories collided with reality—the origin of the Hollow Mark, the curse born from blood debts older than kingdoms, a pact forged in agony and betrayal.
The eyeless child's words returned, sharp as broken glass: "Sacrifice or surrender."
But Nerin knew now—the choice was never his alone.
The battlefield faded, replaced by a vision of endless night pierced by shards of light—his soul, fractured but unyielding.
Rising from the depths of his shattered past, Nerin's voice rang out, cold and resolute:
"I am the echo that will rewrite the silence."
The Hollow Master's shadow loomed once more, but this time, Nerin stood ready—not just to fight the darkness, but to consume it from within.
The Hollow Master's presence recoiled like a beast smelling blood, snarling with eyes that burned through the veil of night. Nerin stood tall, the cold fire of the Hollow Mark flickering like a pulse—defiant, alive. Around him, the fractured city groaned, ancient bones shifting beneath layers of rot and curse, a world on the brink of collapse.
The echoes of his shattered past still whispered in his mind, but his gaze hardened, sharp as a blade forged in midnight. There was no going back. Every scar, every memory, every loss had led him here—to the edge where darkness and hope collided.
From the shadows stepped a figure—cloaked, silent, eyes glowing faintly like dying embers. The stranger's voice was gravel and silk, a promise wrapped in poison:
"The Hollow is more than a curse. It is a covenant. Blood for power, pain for dominion. To survive, you must embrace what you hate."
Nerin's fingers brushed the bone knife, feeling its cold bite beneath the storm of his resolve. "And if I refuse?"
The figure smiled, a slow, cruel curve. "Then you will fall like the rest, forgotten and hollowed."
Behind the stranger, the ruins shifted—the blood-red moss pulsing like a heart, shadows weaving chains that wrapped tighter with every breath. The city was alive, hungry for a soul to devour or claim.
Nerin's voice was steel, cutting through the gathering dread: "I will forge my own covenant."
A pulse surged from the Hollow Mark, blue fire spreading beneath his skin like veins of lightning. His memories, his pain, his fury—they were not chains, but weapons.
The air cracked with thunder as the Hollow Master roared, the battle reigniting with a savagery that promised oblivion.
But this time, Nerin fought not as prey, but as a predator carved from the abyss itself.
The night was soaked in ash and shadow, the remnants of the cursed city whispering forgotten laments through cracked stone and twisted steel. Nerin stood amidst the ruins, the blue fire of the Hollow Mark raging beneath his skin, a wildfire feeding on his pain and unspoken wrath. His breath was ragged, a low growl lost in the grinding silence before the storm.
Before him, the cloaked figure's eyes gleamed like dying stars, harboring secrets that burned like acid on the soul. "The Crimson Covenant isn't just blood and power. It's sacrifice beyond flesh—a bond sealed in the marrow of the forsaken. You'll be tested, stripped, remade."
Nerin's voice was cold iron, unyielding. "Then test me. Break me if you must, but I'll forge a new path from the shards."
The figure extended a hand, palm open, revealing a jagged shard of bone, blackened and throbbing with a sickly pulse. "Drink this. It's the marrow of the Hollowed—those who embraced the void and returned as gods of ruin. But beware—the price is more than blood."
Nerin hesitated. Memories flickered—friends devoured by shadows, hopes crushed beneath iron boots, the orphanage burning brighter with stolen memories. His gaze dropped to the shard, a fragment of agony and salvation.
He swallowed, the shard burning through his throat, ice and fire clawing into his soul. The world fractured—pain blossomed like a black rose in his chest, but with it came clarity. The Mark flared brighter, veins of blue fire weaving new patterns beneath his skin.
The Hollow Master's distant roar was a dirge for the weak, the dying, the forgotten. But Nerin was no longer hollow.
He was the ember that consumed the night.
Chains shattered in the distance, the blood-red moss recoiling like a wounded beast.
The trial had begun.