The runes hung in the air, glowing ominously alongside the description.
Curse: [The Enchained Hollows]
Description: [Ten fragmented souls have been chained to your soul.]
Hero's first thought was simple:
What?
The description was concise and to the point, yet it introduced several concepts at once.
First, there was the concept of a fragmented soul. From his limited understanding of soul theory, Hero believed that a soul was absolute and couldn't exist in a fragmented state. It either was whole or nonexistent.
Yet this curse description contradicted that concept completely.
Second, the ten fragmented souls were somehow chained to Hill's soul.
That was a mysterious implication. Hero didn't believe it at first—that a soul could be chained to another. But a vague memory resurfaced of an entity he had encountered some time ago. That person, or thing, had somehow been able to use a soul bond ability to mimic his blessing.
He knew he had defeated that entity, but the memory was hazy and incomplete.
This curse, however, didn't seem to be a soul bond. The implication was that it was much stronger. It wasn't a relationship between two friends, but between a master and a servant.
From Hero's perspective, Hill's soul was clearly intact. His soul realm was full and complete, and his memories didn't seem hazy and incomplete like Hero's own. So if a fragmented soul was chained to the boy's soul, Hill would practically have dominion over it.
He was the superior power after all. The bigger the soul, the stronger the soul core. The stronger the soul core, the greater the soul essence storage.
The same concept would apply to a full soul versus a fragmented soul.
Hero's thoughts then turned to analyzing the potential properties of a fragmented soul.
A dormant soul, unlike an awakened one, wouldn't need soul essence to maintain its integrity. It would simply live off the innate essence of the body, known as Croura. If the fragmented souls were all dormant, they would live off the host's body, steadily weakening it until death.
But if they were awakened, the fragmented souls would eat away at the host's soul essence storage. It wouldn't be entirely parasitic like a dormant soul, as an awakened soul could survive without soul essence. But it would lose its integrity and enter a dormant state, unable to do anything unless forcefully fed soul essence.
After all, an awakened soul was much closer to immortal compared to a dormant soul.
Now... which one was it? Dormant or awakened? The boy had told him that he was sick... could that be a result of the curse?
If so, then his death is right around the corner. How tragic. Surely there is something I could do—
Wait... he was missing something.
The thought had just come to mind, but he had been swept away by the primary mystery plaguing him: how had he entered Hill's soul realm?
And almost instantly, he knew.
He knew because of the strange gaps in his memory. He possessed a great amount of knowledge, but where did it come from? He could recall no teacher, no tome, nothing social at all.
He remembered waking up on this endless black sand domain, his mind a ledger filled with complex theorems but with the first page—the one titled 'Personal History'—torn clean out.
There were no memories of a family. No face of a friend. No taste of a favorite meal. Nothing.
From what it seemed, his existence had begun here, in this boy's soul. A character who had walked on stage in the middle of a play, already knowing all his lines but with no memory of the audition.
His gaze drifted from the glowing runes to his own hands. He was solid and coherent. He was here.
The foundation of that "here," though, was an ominous void.
A silent abyss where a long-lived life should have been.
And the reason for all this... was because his awakened soul was mysteriously fragmented.
He was a hollow.
"Hero? What does it mean?"
The boy's voice tore him from his spiraling thoughts.
He looked at the boy, at his crimson eyes that were wide with confusion and fear. The boy needed an answer, and providing answers was, as it seemed, his current function.
Hero forced the corners of his mouth to lift into something that resembled his earlier grin. But it was simply a mask.
The kid didn't need to know that, though. It would bring him no benefit.
"Well, Hill," he began, his voice a touch too gravelly. "It means you're a host."
He straightened up, dusting the black sand from his trousers as he gathered his composure. "It means you're dragging some poor souls along with you for the exhilarating ride that is your life. Or what's left of them."
He pressed a hand against his chest, the movement feeling hollow and rehearsed. "And it appears," he said, keeping his voice from dropping too low, "that I'm one of them."
----
The first thing that pierced the heavy shroud of sleep was an unexpected sound.
Rrrrrip.
Soleil recognized it. The sound of sturdy fabric giving way, thread by thread.
Her eyes snapped open, and the view of darkness within her tent greeted her. For a second, Soleil didn't bother moving from her sleeping position.
But as her senses came back to life, she could hear footsteps. They were so quiet that if she wasn't training her entire focus on them, she wouldn't have noticed.
Her heart began to pound. Her life in this subterranean hell had been a masterclass in paranoia, so she knew.
Someone was in her tent.
The audacity! she thought angrily. The violation!
She pushed herself up silently, her weight shifting to the balls of her feet. Looking around the tent, her eyes made out a shape in the gloomy darkness.
It was the new kid. Hill. Asleep on the far side of the tent.
He was wheezing, and sweat seemed to be dripping from his body onto the ground beneath him. But he was definitely asleep.
A flicker of confusion cut through her anger. She had momentarily forgotten that she'd allowed him to sleep in her tent. Her mind, still sluggish from her brief slumber, had defaulted to assuming the worst. She let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding. The idiot was probably having a nightmare or something. Perhaps he had torn his clothes because of it.
But the tearing sound came again. And it wasn't coming from him.
Her gaze shifted to the left, and she saw another figure.
Someone was crouched just a yard or so away in the corner of the tent, the darkness masking most of their presence.
Soleil's blood ran cold. Thanks to the ever-present light that came from the Jaga fruit, she was able to see the outline of the person in the shadows.
The figure was feminine, her silhouette sharp against the tent's thin canvas wall. She had a cascade of dark red hair. She wore a dark shirt and what looked like corduroy pants.
Even in the gloom, Soleil could see the faint gleam of polished black shoes.
As her eyes absorbed more information, her nerves began firing off warning signals.
Then the figure shifted, and the faint light of the jagas caught her face.
Her skin was pale, having an artificial whiteness to it. Across her face were patterns of stark black ink. An upside-down triangle hung under each of her crimson eyes, dripping away like tears of darkness. Another sealed her lips in a painted slash of ink.
Soleil recognized that aesthetic.
Somehow, a mime was inside her tent.
Forgetting all caution, Soleil spoke, her voice low in warning. "Get away from him."
The mime's head snapped toward her. She rose to her feet in a fluid motion that was unnervingly graceful. She was taller than Soleil had expected. As she stood, a palpable pressure filled the tent and pressed down on Soleil.
But Soleil held her ground. "I said, get away from him," she repeated as she balled her fists. "Or I'll hit you so hard your ancestors will feel it."
The mime's demeanor changed. The painted slash of her mouth didn't move, but her eyes—her crimson, red-as-blood eyes—widened. And then a brilliant red glint shone from them.
The moment they did, Soleil's world lurched.
For some reason, she couldn't look away from the mime's eyes. It was as if some mysterious force was holding her pupils hostage.
Soleil tried to wrench her head to the side and focus on something else, but her neck wouldn't obey. Her vision seemed to narrow to those two hypnotic points of red.
With her gaze locked, the mime lunged.
Soleil panicked. She tried to raise her arms and fight back, but the effect the mime's eyes had on her was simply too great.
Her head was forced to track her opponent's eyes perfectly as she moved, and the effect was incredibly disorienting. It was like trying to fight while being controlled by a puppeteer.
The mime's foot swung low, hooking Soleil's ankle. She crashed to the ground awkwardly, her head twisting to follow the mime's gaze as it cracked against the ground. Before she could even register the pain, the mime was on top of her, sitting on her chest and pinning her down.
Fists began to hammer down on Soleil's head. One, two, three blows.
The world exploded into flashes of white light behind Soleil's eyes. She was getting dazed repeatedly, but throughout the onslaught, she still couldn't remove her gaze from the mime.
A punch landed on her forehead, and she felt the skin split. Warm wetness trickled down her temple.
The mime suddenly recoiled, leaping from Soleil's body as she scrambled away.
Soleil's vision cleared slightly, and a knowing grin crossed her face.
Where blood should have been seeping from the gash on her forehead, a flicker of blue light now danced instead. The first drop of blood caught fire, turning into a tongue of indigo flame.
This was Soleil's blessing: [Phoenix Blood.]
The fire didn't burn her skin, but healed it.
The mime stared at the spectacle, and the painted slash on her face seemed to curl into a villainous smile. The huntress had just discovered her prey could fight back, and she was thrilled.
She lunged again.
But this time, Soleil was ready. Fueled by a surge of adrenaline, she threw herself forward, her hands outstretched to claw at the mime's face, the indigo flame on her brow flaring like a miniature sun.
But then the sunrise bell rang loudly.
Hill's body jerked violently in the background.
The effect on the mime was instantaneous. Her entire body flickered like a dying candle flame. Her form became translucent, the weight of her presence disappearing in an instant. For a heartbeat, Soleil could see the back of the tent through her, and then she was gone. Simply... gone.
She was left a panting mess, sweat dripping down her face and neck as she stared at Hill, who had sat up so quickly that he was forced to clutch his head and groan in pain.