The desert storm howled like a wounded god.Crimson lightning split the sky, and sand twisted in unnatural spirals.This was no weather.This was summoning.
The Traveler faced the two remaining cultists—one clutching a rusted chain etched with cursed glyphs, the other holding the bleeding lantern like it was divine.
Behind him, the child trembled, his voice shaking.
"You don't understand. The storm's not just for calling. It's already here..."
The Traveler heard it then.Not from the cultists.Not from the wind.
But from the dunes themselves.
A scratching.A clicking.Thousands of whispers crawling over each other, like insects trying to mimic a prayer.
The sand around them shifted.
Then bulged.
Then broke.
And the Hollowborn rose.
They had no mouths—only spiraled maws of writhing teeth where their faces should be. Their skin was stretched too tightly over broken, angular bones. Their eyes—when they had them—were empty holes dripping black ichor.
They crawled like spiders.They screamed like children.They smelled of forgotten dreams and rotting sunlight.
"The Hollowborn…" the boy whispered. "They're the real offering."
The chain-bearer laughed, raising his arms."The gate opens! He stirs in the pit! The Veiled God watches!"
The Traveler did not respond. He simply adjusted the grip on his blade.
The first Hollowborn leapt.
Mid-air, it fractured—sliced in three arcs.
No movement.
Just… consequence.
The Traveler stepped forward. "You call this a god?" he asked coldly.
The lantern-bearer hissed. "You defy the god of smoke? The one who sings in static?! He'll swallow your soul!"
The Traveler tilted his head, almost curious. "Let him try."
He moved.
This time, faster.
The lantern was shattered in a single stroke. It exploded into smoke and flame—revealing the third cultist's face underneath: just a boy, not much older than the one behind him. Eyes wide with indoctrinated fear.
He collapsed, sobbing, muttering prayers to a god that didn't answer.
The chain-wielder roared and unleashed his cursed links—they wrapped around the Traveler's blade, binding it.
But the Traveler didn't flinch.
He raised his free hand.
And spoke a word.
A word older than speech.
A word that tasted like blood and moonlight.
The chains shattered.
The cultist screamed as the force recoiled back into his own body, dragging his arms out of socket and pinning him in place.
The Hollowborn swarmed then.
Ten. Twenty. Maybe more.
The Traveler breathed in, slow and deep.
The orb inside his coat pulsed in rhythm with his heart.
Then his body moved like thunder.
The blade became light.His coat became shadow.The air itself bent around him.
He didn't fight them.He erased them.
Where they stood, there was nothing. Not even footprints.Just absence.Just silence.
When it was over, the storm began to die.
The sands fell still.The sky turned black again—but not unnaturally.Just… night.
The Traveler turned.
The child stared at him. Mouth open. Eyes wide.
"Are you…" he whispered, "a god?"
The Traveler knelt. Wiped the black ash from the boy's cheek.
"No," he said softly. "But I killed one once."
He stood, looked at the fading horizon.
"The girl. Where did they take her?"
The boy pointed toward the east.
"There's a gate," he said. "In the bones of a mountain. They said it's where the sky first cracked."
The Traveler nodded.
"Then I'll go there."
The child hesitated. "Will you save her?"
The Traveler didn't answer at first.
Then, quietly:
"I don't know if I'm still capable of saving anyone. But I will not let them take her soul."
Far away, in the City of Forgotten Light…
A priest dipped his hand in molten ink and painted a sigil across a stone altar.
Above him, hanging upside-down from a silver cage, was a girl—no older than eleven—her eyes closed, lips twitching in a fevered dream.
The priest whispered, "May the Veiled One open his many mouths…"
And the air began to bleed.