Into Hollow East
The last glyph had faded behind them, but Kael still felt it. That pulse, Serpent, Moon, Crown, kept returning in the curve of the landscape. Like the Hollow itself had memorized Raka's steps.
The cliffs of Hollow East loomed ahead. Jagged silhouettes cut into a bruised sky.
Kael's squad moved in silence now, senses sharp. The terrain had changed beneath their feet. Not Spiral bloom, not yet. But the pressure in the air had thickened. The Ki here didn't hum. It thrummed, slow and heavy, like something breathing through stone.
Claire kept to the front, her flare rod drawing counter-glyphs in the dirt as she walked. "These formations weren't here in the last scan."
"They weren't here two days ago," Kaelen muttered. "The land's folding."
"Memory loops," Jace said from the rear. "The glyph resonance has localized. Whatever they were sealing here. It's waking up."
Kael said nothing.
But his jaw was tight.
The squad reached a broken ridge overlooking a shallow basin. Once a village, now swallowed by cracked earth and spiraled roots of dead trees. Old suppressor pylons stuck out like broken teeth, rusted and bent.
This place wasn't on their field charts.
Lira had passed through here months ago on her forward sweep.
And yet...
"I don't remember this." Claire's voice was low. "But I feel it."
Kaelen scanned with a pulse glyph. The reading returned warped. Too deep. Too precise.
"There's something below us."
Kael crouched beside a dead tree, fingers brushing its bark.
A symbol was carved there, faint, hidden under old rot.
The broken crown.
He stood slowly.
"Set anchors. We hold this ground. This is where it begins."
Claire paused beside him. "This symbol… it's not the first time."
Kaelen looked over. "You saw it too?"
"In the basin. On the staff. In a dream I forgot until just now." She touched her temple. "They're folding memory into the land."
Descent into the Rift
They followed the break in the ridge, moving in practiced silence.
The path wasn't natural. Not worn by time or weather, but carved by pressure. A spiraling collapse of terrain that had folded inward, like the land had flinched around something it couldn't understand.
Jace kept his scanner low. "No flux bloom. No Ki spikes. Just drop in temperature."
Claire muttered, "Feels like a soul funeral."
Kaelen crouched by the half-buried object, brushing away dust. "This isn't just debris. It was planted."
Claire narrowed her eyes. "Or offered."
They descended slowly.
No Spiral beasts. No screams. Just the hum of something old.
The Hollow Zone
At the bottom of the basin, everything stilled.
No insects. No Ki hum. Even their footsteps made no sound. Muted, swallowed.
Kael turned, scanning the circular clearing. "This used to be a containment ring."
"You sure?" Claire asked.
"Yeah. But something inverted it."
He gestured to the stone. Gently rising in ridges around them, like an eye trying to close.
Kaelen scraped at the dust with his boot.
Beneath it, lines. Glyphs. Reflective spiral patterns, subtle and complex.
Claire knelt. "This isn't containment."
"No," Kael said. "It's projection."
A soft crack broke the air.
They spun. But nothing moved. Not above.
Below.
The Circle
The dust shifted again.
Not from wind. From breath. And slowly, in the center of the basin, the ash pulled back. Not revealing, but performing.
Seven bodies.
Fossilized. Preserved mid-motion. Curled inward like a ritual. Half of them wore old tactical gear. The others were Spiral-bound, some partially transformed.
In the center of the circle, lay a broken staff. Wrapped in cracked soulsteel bindings. Etched on its shaft, a crowned serpent. Split in half.
Kael didn't speak.
Claire knelt beside one of the fossilized soldiers. Her glove peeling back the tactical collar. Her fingers froze. The insignia was Tom's unit's. "They died watching something," she whispered. "Not fighting. Waiting."
"They died in sequence," Claire murmured. "Not panicked. Synchronized."
Kaelen added, "Almost like a ritual halt."
"No. Like a test," Jace said. "And someone failed it."
Kaelen's voice dropped to a whisper. "Memory trap."
Spiral Pulse
"The glyph on the staff flickered. A coded rhythm, twice sharp, once slow. A heartbeat not their own."
Then vanished.
Kael stepped back. "That wasn't residual. That was a ping."
"Echo signal?" Claire asked, standing.
Kaelen cursed. "We stayed too long."
Jace's scanner whined a second too late.
The ash behind them shattered outward. Something surged from the basin wall. A creature composed of gleaming sinew and cracked glyph plates. Half-melded into the earth. It had no mouth. No eyes. Just spiral-etched limbs and a flickering orb embedded in its chest. Pulsing with Raka's soulprint frequency, warped and stretched.
Claire's breath caught. "That frequency. It's his."
"Or something wearing it," Kael muttered. "Be ready. This thing remembers him better than we do."
Claire drew her rods. "One of yours?"
Kael narrowed his eyes. "Not anymore."
Sentry Clash
The Spiral sentry lunged, not with weight, but speed. Its movements flickering like broken frames in a dream.
Kaelen intercepted first. Blade catching its forelimb. Redirecting the impact sideways, but not before it split into three after-images that rotated around him in a tight arc.
"Projection field. Mirror type!" Kaelen shouted.
Jace threw a pulse mine. The blast stalled one copy. Two others vanished.
The real sentry twisted upward and slammed toward Kael.
Claire intercepted mid-air. Her rods crossing in a snap that cracked light through the Rift. The sentry shrieked. Not in sound, but with a sudden burst of inverted glyphs. Aimed straight at her heart.
She staggered, Ki field flaring in jagged lines. "I'm fine. Keep it away from the center!"
Kael surged in. His left sleeve tearing on the sentry's glyph-spines. The old scars beneath itched. His dagger struck the orb. Glancing.
He didn't call commands. He just moved. But it was enough.
The orb flickered. The sentry faltered, not from damage, but hesitation. It watched Kael's form even as it reeled, as if logging the final strike for something else.
It paused long enough for Kaelen to land the final blow. His blade slicing down and through its center.
The body collapsed. Ash scattered.
Nothing rose to follow.
No Spiral wave.
No backup.
Just silence.
Kael stared at the shattered staff. The serpent glyph winked once. Like it knew a joke they didn't.
Kaelen exhaled, wiping ash from his gloves. "That one… it wasn't attacking randomly."
Claire stood, her stance still guarded. "It was watching. Waiting."
Jace approached the broken staff. "That glyph, serpent, moon, crown. It's not just bait."
Kael looked up. "No," he said. "It's a key."
Raka - The Pull
Wind curled around the ridgeline like a whispered breath.
Raka walked alone across the broken slope of shale, the air around him thin and sharp. He didn't know how long he'd been walking. Only that the Seed pulsed stronger the closer he came to this place.
The light here had changed. Not darker. More aware.
He stopped.
The ground beneath his feet shimmered faintly. Spiral lines buried just under the stone, forming a pattern his eyes couldn't quite follow.
Then he felt it.
A ripple beneath the ribs. Like something beneath the Rift had just called out to him.
Not a name. Not a memory. Just a signal.
Familiar. Unforgiving.
His fingers closed around the dagger. Then he heard it. Echoing faintly across the ridge.
A voice. Not Spiral. Not human.
"Come down, Raka."