If you ever get the bright idea to storm a living tower crawling with evolving nightmare fuel while carrying the fate of humanity on your back, let me offer you some advice: don't.
Unfortunately, nobody gave me that advice.
The Hollow Spire loomed before us like some eldritch finger stabbing the heavens, wrapped in oily clouds that churned like boiling ink. Pulses of red lightning flashed inside the storm, and the ground beneath our boots vibrated with an unsettling heartbeat, as if the tower itself was alive.
We stood at the edge of a ruined ridge overlooking what used to be the city's central district, now transformed into a writhing biomechanical landscape. Twisting bone-like structures jutted from the ground. Hollow creatures slithered between them, their shapes grotesque parodies of life.
Adrian adjusted his scope. "I count at least four guardian packs. Multiple Hollow variants. And that's just the perimeter."
"Good odds," Kai said with a humorless smile. "We've faced worse."
Zara snorted. "When, exactly?"
Kai didn't answer. He just scanned the landscape with cold precision, like he was calculating something far more complicated than combat routes.
I glanced at him. My brother. My supposed dead brother. And now my wild card.
"How long have you known about this place?" I asked quietly.
He didn't look at me. "Since before I disappeared."
"And you didn't tell anyone."
"I was following orders."
"Whose?"
His jaw tightened. "Not important right now."
"No," I pressed, "it's very important. You knew they were planning this. You were part of it."
"Elias"
"No! If we're going to walk into this nightmare together, I need the truth."
The wind howled around us, carrying distant, distorted screams. Finally, Kai spoke.
"The Resistance wasn't always just resisting. Some of us thought we could control the Hollow infection. Use it. Harness its power against the Scourge. I was one of those idiots. We experimented. We pushed boundaries. You were the result."
The weight of his words nearly knocked me over.
I was never an accident. I was engineered.
"For a while, it worked," he continued bitterly. "You were stable. The perfect hybrid. But then the Hollows... adapted. They sensed what we were doing. And they changed the rules."
Zara cursed under her breath. Adrian looked like he was ready to shoot something just to vent.
Kai lowered his voice. "I left because I realized the others our own people weren't going to stop. They were going to offer you to the Hollow God as a bargaining chip. I tried to stop it. I failed."
The storm above the Spire roared louder, as if mocking us.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. "So now we're here to finish what you started."
Kai's eyes hardened. "We're here to end it."
We moved fast, slipping through the shattered alleys and half-sunken ruins. Adrian led point, scanning for threats. Zara managed our tech feeds, jamming Hollow signals when she could. Kai and I took rear guard.
The closer we got, the worse it became.
The Hollow creatures weren't just patrolling they were nesting. Bone towers jutted up like teeth from ruptured asphalt. Veins of black sinew pulsed beneath the ground, feeding into the Spire.
But then we saw it. The new one.
A creature that didn't belong to any known Hollow classification.
It stood twelve feet tall, humanoid but grotesque, its skin translucent and veined with glowing blue circuits. A long, serpentine tail coiled behind it, tipped with a barbed stinger that oozed acidic vapor. Its head was a smooth dome, featureless except for a massive vertical slit where its mouth should've been a mouth filled with rotating rows of bone-like teeth.
"What... the hell... is that?" Adrian whispered.
"A rare type," Kai said grimly. "I've heard rumors. They call it a Mindpiercer."
The name made my stomach turn.
"It feeds differently," Kai continued. "Not just on bodies. It drills into minds. Extracts knowledge. Memories. Converts the victim's intelligence into adaptive data for the Hive."
"In other words," Zara said, "if it grabs one of us"
"It'll know everything we know."
"And upgrade itself."
It was feeding now. Its tail drove into a barely alive Resistance scout, who convulsed as electric pulses danced through his nervous system. Within seconds, his body was discarded like an empty husk.
We couldn't afford to engage it.
But the path ahead was blocked.
"We go around," I whispered.
"No way," Kai replied. "The longer we delay, the stronger the Spire gets. We take it out. Fast. Surgical."
Adrian shook his head. "It's suicide."
"We don't have a choice," I said. "If that thing reports back what it just pulled from that scout, they'll know we're coming."
"Agreed," Kai said. "We ambush it. I draw it out. Elias, you strike the core when it exposes its tail. Zara, suppress its neural receptors with pulse grenades. Adrian, cover fire."
We moved into position.
My heart pounded as I readied my dagger. The beast inside me stirred again, hungry for release.
"Not yet," I whispered to it.
Kai stepped into the open, cloak billowing.
"Hey, freakshow!" he shouted. "You want fresh data? Come get it!"
The Mindpiercer's head snapped toward him. It hissed, the slit-mouth opening to reveal layer after layer of grinding bone.
It lunged.
Kai dodged its first swipe and rolled behind cover. The creature's tail whipped after him.
Zara lobbed a pulse grenade. Blue shockwaves crackled, stunning the creature for half a second. That was my window.
I surged forward, partially shifting. Claws extended, eyes blazing. My dagger hummed with Hollow energy as I drove it directly into the exposed tail socket.
The creature shrieked a sound that made my skull vibrate and collapsed into spasms. Blue circuitry sparked wildly, and its form began to destabilize.
Adrian emptied his clip into its dome head for good measure.
The Mindpiercer convulsed one last time before disintegrating into a pool of liquefying biomass.
We regrouped quickly.
"Everyone okay?" I asked.
Adrian wiped sweat from his brow. "Physically? Yes. Mentally? I need therapy."
Zara stared at the remains. "They're evolving too fast. This isn't natural."
"It's the God's influence," Kai said darkly. "The longer the Spire stands, the more reality bends."
The base of the Spire loomed ahead an enormous wound in the earth where bone, sinew, and metal fused into something grotesque. The entrance pulsed open like a living throat.
"Lovely," Zara muttered. "We're entering a digestive tract."
Inside, the walls glistened with bio-organic material. The air smelled of sulfur and rot. Pulsing veins glowed dimly beneath our feet, feeding into the Spire's core.
We advanced cautiously.
Kai spoke softly as we moved. "The Obsidian Shard should be located in the Nexus Chamber, halfway up. It serves as the focal point for dimensional merging."
"How do you know that?" Adrian asked.
Kai didn't answer.
I knew why.
Because he'd been part of its design.
The corridor narrowed into a spiraling ascent. Hollow sentries patrolled along organic bridges and fleshy platforms. We used every shadow, every crevice, slipping past their patrols like ghosts.
But as we reached the mid-level, everything changed.
The walls pulsed erratically. The ground trembled. A deep growl echoed from above.
And then the Spire spoke.
Not through speakers. Not through sound.
Directly into our minds.
"The Key has come."
My vision blurred as pressure built behind my eyes. The Hollow God sensed me.
"Come, Hollowborn. Complete the convergence."
I clutched my head, staggering. The beast inside me roared, struggling for dominance.
Kai grabbed my shoulder. "Focus, Elias! Don't let it take you!"
I forced the beast back down, gasping for air.
"I'm good. Move!"
We burst into the Nexus Chamber.
The space defied physics a vast, spherical void filled with floating platforms, swirling energy currents, and an enormous obsidian crystal hovering at the center, anchored by writhing tendrils of black energy.
"The Shard," Kai whispered.
Zara set up her hacking device, tapping furiously. "I can destabilize its anchor points remotely, but it'll take time."
"Then let's give her that time," Adrian said, raising his rifle.
The moment we entered, Hollow guardians swarmed from the walls,winged monstrosities with segmented eyes and bladed limbs.
The fight was chaos.
Adrian provided cover fire, taking down anything that flew too close. Kai danced between platforms, slicing through enemies with brutal efficiency. I unleashed controlled bursts of my Hollow form claws ripping through bone and sinew.
Zara's voice cut through the mayhem. "First anchor destabilized!"
The Spire howled. The energy currents intensified, pulling debris into whirling vortexes.
A massive guardian dropped from the ceiling a hybrid fusion of machine and Hollow flesh, its four arms crackling with electric arcs.
I squared off with it, dodging its hammering strikes and countering with precision slashes.
"Second anchor down!" Zara shouted.
The Obsidian Shard trembled, cracks spiderwebbing across its surface.
The hybrid guardian roared, slamming me into a wall. My vision swam. The beast inside me begged for full release.
"Not yet!" I growled, forcing myself up.
Kai lunged from above, driving his blade through the hybrid's core. It convulsed violently before collapsing into molten gore.
"Third anchor breaking!" Zara yelled. "Almost there!"
The entire chamber shook violently. Chunks of platform broke apart, swirling into the vortex.
Then a new presence entered.
The Crown of Ruin.
It descended like a wraith, its bone mask splitting open to reveal hundreds of needle-like tendrils extending from its face.
"YOU CANNOT DENY THE DESIGN, HOLLOWBORN."
I stumbled as its mental assault struck like a hammer. My memories flickered visions of my creation, of failed experiments, of Kai standing in sterile labs watching me grow.
"YOU EXIST BECAUSE I WILLED IT."
Kai snarled. "Don't listen to it!"
Zara screamed, "Last anchor NOW!"
The Obsidian Shard shattered.
A shockwave of raw dimensional energy exploded outward. The Crown of Ruin recoiled, shrieking.
But the Spire didn't collapse.
Instead, something worse happened.
A new rift opened above us an enormous tear in reality itself. Through it, I glimpsed something vast and impossible shifting eyes, coiling limbs of cosmic proportion, and a voice that transcended sound:
"THE GATE IS OPEN."
We stood frozen, dwarfed by the sight of the Hollow God partially manifesting.
Zara's face went pale. "We were too late."
The Crown of Ruin surged toward me, tendrils flaring.
Kai shoved me aside, taking the full brunt.
He screamed as the tendrils pierced his skull, extracting streams of glowing data from his mind.
"NO!" I shouted, diving for him.
Kai's eyes met mine for one fleeting second, filled with pain and regret.
"Finish it..." he gasped.
The tendrils yanked him upward, feeding him into the rift like fuel.
I roared as my control shattered.
The beast inside me took full command.
Bones cracked. My skin split. Massive wings unfurled from my back, and I surged upward, claws extended.
The Crown of Ruin laughed.
"WELCOME HOME, HOLLOW KING."
The last thing I saw before blacking out was the Hollow God's eye turning toward me hungry.