Rain fell in sheets over the ruined skeleton of Old Manhattan, washing the dust and blood from Ezra's skin. His breath came in ragged pulls, the cold cutting deep through his torn clothes. He stood near the mouth of the tunnel he'd crawled from, a lone figure silhouetted by the eerie green glow of a cracked streetlamp overhead.
The battle with the rival necromancer had left him more than wounded—it had shaken something loose inside him. A memory. A hunger. A question that clawed at the edge of reason.
He had felt it, just before the stranger vanished—a pull in his blood. Not like the surge of strength he'd grown accustomed to when summoning the dead, but something colder, older. A distant echo of familiarity.
You carry a legacy you don't deserve.
The words wouldn't leave him.
Ezra's hand hovered near the bone shard around his neck. It felt warmer now. Not comforting—more like it was watching him.
Ash whimpered beside him, tail low but ears alert. Skulk, ever silent, paced a short distance away in the shadows. Ezra looked down at the cut across his side, the flesh torn but clotted now, thanks to the bone-stitch salve Vhal had given him.
The city lights in the distance pulsed red through the fog.
He was still breathing.
But something was coming.
Back in Sector 5, word of the arena fight had spread. Ezra's name was whispered in underground channels, on encrypted NetFeeds and hushed voices in taverns frequented by mercs and dungeon-runners.
Not as a champion.
As a problem.
A no-rank orphan necromancer who'd survived a deathmatch and left behind reanimated husks unlike anything seen before.
Runners from two different mid-tier guilds had already scouted his old tenement. One left a threatening message scrawled in blood: "Join or be bled." The other left a recruitment card burned to ashes on his mattress.
Ezra had already moved on.
The sun rose through layers of choking smog and drizzle as Ezra made his way toward an abandoned subway line deeper beneath the old city. Vhal's map had updated after the confrontation with the rival necromancer, runes shifting, forming a new trail.
The Lost Sanctum wasn't behind him.
It was ahead.
And if the whispers he'd heard were true, it wouldn't wait long.
He stepped over the rusted turnstiles, boots scraping against cracked tile. Muffled groans and distant shrieks echoed from deep tunnels. Not human. Not alive. But not fully dead either.
Ash growled, low and long.
Ezra raised his hand and whispered.
"Come."
Bones stirred beneath the floor. A thin hand reached up from the grime—his skeletal sentinel returning, pieced together by blood memory and instinct. The hollow sockets of its skull flickered with pale blue light.
Ezra felt stronger this time. The summoning came faster. Easier.
Too easy.
He frowned, checking the system pane in his vision.
Necromancy Skill (Rank F) has evolved:[Bonebind: Adept] – You can now maintain two undead summons concurrently.Bonus: Summons retain minor instinctual memory from death.Warning: Use of soul-fractured remains may lead to corruption.
He read the last line twice.
Corruption?
Ezra had no idea what that meant. The System rarely offered detailed explanations unless he invested in analysis-type skills—which he couldn't afford yet.
But the more his powers grew, the more he realized there were costs the System didn't always warn him about.
Deeper into the tunnel, the path narrowed. Vines as thick as arms curled from the ceiling, pulsating with faint, unnatural light. This wasn't flora from Earth.
Ezra traced a hand along one and flinched. It was warm. Too warm.
He pressed on, stepping over carcasses—some human, some... not.
Then he saw it.
The mural.
Etched along the left side of the wall in dried blood and ash, the massive mural showed a figure standing over a field of corpses, arms outstretched. Beneath them, thousands of undead knelt. And carved beneath the scene in jagged runes:
THE FIRST HOLLOWBORN
Ezra staggered backward. His breath caught.
He wasn't the first.
The moment stretched into silence, broken only by dripping water and the low throb of distant power. He reached toward the mural, fingers trembling. As they brushed against the blood-carved symbols, a jolt tore through his arm like a lightning strike.
Ezra screamed.
Images flooded his mind—memories not his own.
Flashes of ancient cities collapsing beneath fire and bone. A woman cloaked in obsidian flames, her eyes bleeding black. A child screaming as shadows consumed the sky.
Then, a voice.
Not a whisper.
A roar.
"You carry our name. Bear it well... or fall like the others."
Ezra dropped to his knees, gasping for air. His summoned skeleton crackled behind him, bones grinding as if sensing something it shouldn't.
Ash barked, hackles raised. Skulk hissed and vanished into the shadows.
And for the first time in days, Ezra felt fear. Not of death. Not of failure.
But of himself.
He awoke some time later on the cold stone floor, damp and shaking. The mural was faded now, its symbols crumbled as if centuries had passed in mere hours.
His HUD blinked.
Title Gained: Heir of the HollowbornPassive Effect: +10% Undead Summon EfficiencyActive Trait Unlocked: [Resonance Pulse] – Temporarily enhances undead in proximity. Duration: 15 seconds. Cooldown: 2 hours.
Ezra blinked. He'd never heard of a Title like that.
Most titles were achievements—earned through fame or mission completion. This one felt… inherited.
The tunnel ended in a jagged break, revealing a chasm that split the world beneath the surface. Across it, half-collapsed stairs wound up toward what looked like the remnants of a once-grand cathedral. Faint, golden light spilled from its shattered windows.
Ezra took a deep breath.
This was it. The Sanctum.
But just as he stepped forward, something stirred in the dark behind him.
Movement.
Not the shuffle of undead. Something… human.
He whirled.
A girl—no older than him, dressed in rogue's leather and with a short blade at her hip. Her eyes glinted with curiosity and warning.
"You're late," she said.
Ezra raised a brow. "Do I know you?"
"No," she said simply. "But I know you."
Before he could ask more, the ground beneath her cracked—and three ghastly, black-armored creatures erupted from the wall, screeching.
Ezra reacted without thought. His summons surged forward, intercepting two of them.
The third lunged at the girl.
She didn't flinch. Her hand darted to the hilt of her blade, slicing clean through the creature's neck in one fluid motion.
Ezra stared.
She didn't glow. No power signature. No active abilities.
But the way she moved…
"You're not a ranker," he said, stunned.
She smiled.
"Neither are you."
They stood in the ruin-lit darkness, eyeing each other with caution and respect. The dead lay at their feet, dissolving into black ash.
"I'm Kael," she said at last, sheathing her blade.
"Ezra."
She tilted her head. "Hollowborn, huh?"
He stiffened.
Kael only smirked. "Relax. I'm not here to kill you."
Ezra looked past her, toward the ascending path into the Sanctum.
"Then why are you here?"
"To make sure you don't go in alone."
"Why?"
Kael's gaze turned serious, voice dropping low.
"Because whatever's waiting in that place… it remembers us both."