The further they pressed into the outskirts of Hollow Valley, the more distorted the world around them became.
The forest no longer whispered with the usual language of wind and leaves.
Instead, it trembled under the weight of unseen forces.
Trees stood warped—bark like bone, leaves like frozen petals of obsidian.
The ground itself pulsed faintly beneath their feet, as if breathing.
Arasha rode at the head, her eyes vigilant, senses sharpened to a razor's edge.
Rewald followed in his hovering disc, staff in hand, protective wards spinning lazily around him like glass rings catching the light.
The first wave came at dawn.
From the mists emerged creatures—once wolves, now hulking, mutated abominations with limbs of mismatched size and rows of jagged teeth where their eyes should be.
Their bodies bore glowing red veins, writhing like worms beneath their skin.
"Hold!" Arasha cried, drawing her sword, now etched with glyphs drawn from the talisman rituals.
Rewald's voice was steady behind her. "Shielding field—three seconds."
A shimmer enveloped Arasha just as one of the beasts lunged.
Her blade met its throat in a clean arc, burning with light.
Behind her, Rewald conjured jagged pillars of spectral flame that impaled two more mid-charge.
By the time the rest scattered, the corrupted earth around them steamed with ichor.
"This is the third pack we've encountered today," Arasha muttered, wiping her blade clean. "They're nesting near the valley's edges now."
Rewald nodded grimly. "They're drawn to the breach's breath, as moths to a devouring flame."
They hadn't gone much farther when Rewald's barrier flared.
"Intrusion."
From the thickets ahead emerged robed figures—seven in total, all masked, their presence oozing with the same rift energy that plagued Arasha's wound.
"Rift cult," she whispered, expression darkening.
But this time, they weren't mere pawns. These were trained. Formed like a strike unit.
The battle that followed was vicious.
Blades of void-matter clashed with divine light.
Arasha danced through their ranks like a storm incarnate, while Rewald anchored her with a lattice of spells—amplifying her movements, diverting attacks, burning through enemy shields.
One cultist tried to siphon her corrupted wound—only for Rewald to snap his fingers and collapse the man into a silent, frozen sculpture.
It ended with five dead cultists, one captured—barely breathing—and one that self-immolated in dark fire rather than be taken alive.
Among their belongings, they found a torn scroll. Black script on red-dyed parchment.
Rewald knelt beside it, lips tightening. "This symbol… This is ancient."
Arasha crouched beside him. "You recognize it?"
He nodded slowly. "It's the sigil of the Old Communion. This valley… it wasn't always a place of death."
"What was it?"
"Black Hollow Vein," Rewald said softly. "A sacred convergence. Ancient sages came here to commune with old gods—primordial forces that predate even the known pantheon."
Arasha's gaze hardened. "Then this place was corrupted deliberately. Twisted from sacred to cursed."
"Yes," Rewald whispered. "But by whom—and why—remains the greater question."
He looked toward the distant ridgeline, beyond which the true Hollow Valley lay hidden.
"I suspect we're walking into something deeper than either of us imagined. The rift cult isn't merely exploiting this place. They might have awakened something."
Arasha's jaw clenched. She adjusted the talisman near her collarbone.
"Then we proceed with more caution than ever," she said. "We root them out, and we learn what they're hiding. Whatever twisted fate binds me here—it started somewhere in that valley."
Rewald gave a grave nod.
Together, they pressed forward—into the corrupted heart of a place once touched by gods.
****
The entrance to the Hollow Valley's core loomed like the mouth of a slumbering god—silent, lightless, and ancient.
A jagged crevice in the earth, where even birds refused to fly above, and the trees surrounding it twisted away as if in fear.
Arasha tightened the straps of her armor, her breath visible in the chilled, oppressive air.
Beside her, Rewald stood, gaze narrowed beneath his hood. His talismans shimmered faintly but already flickered in protest.
"Ready?" he asked, his voice unusually hoarse.
Arasha nodded once. "Let's head in."
They stepped into the breach.
The descent was slow at first—a winding path carved by ancient erosion, marked with carvings of beings neither divine nor demonic, but something older.
The very air was thick with pressure, damp with the reek of old magic and the metallic scent of decay.
It clawed at their lungs with every breath.
Halfway down, the first attack came.
A creature, batlike but with six taloned limbs, burst from a fissure. It screeched with a pitch that cracked the runes on Arasha's armor.
Rewald shouted a word of power, launching a bolt of searing energy that missed by a hair as the creature phased in and out of visibility.
Arasha slashed upward, catching the beast mid-lunge. Black blood hissed on her blade. Another followed. Then another.
As they descended further, the monsters grew—twisted forms of forgotten species, bloated with void corruption and frightening intelligence.
One set traps using mimic illusions. Another wielded a warped mockery of human speech to confuse and bait.
Arasha's shoulders ached, her breaths growing shorter.
Each spell Rewald cast cost more effort.
The valley drained them.
And then—they saw it.
The core.
A pulsing sinkhole of shadows and crystalline roots. Floating above it was a jagged mass of obsidian, suspended midair, bleeding tendrils of light that absorbed all blessings cast its way. It was beautiful. It was wrong.
When they stepped within arm's reach—
A silent shockwave erupted.
The world shattered.
Both Arasha and Rewald were thrown like leaves in a storm, crashing against the jagged cavern walls.
Rewald hit first, skidding across the stone, blood trailing from his mouth as he tried to stand—and failed.
The screeches of approaching monsters echoed around them.
Arasha landed hard, ribs screaming. Darkness danced at the edge of her vision.
But when she saw Rewald—older, hunched Rewald, dragging himself upright with trembling arms—her instincts took over.
Move.
She leapt to her feet, agony flooding her body, her corrupted wound flaring like wildfire.
But she did not stop.
Her sword cleaved through an oncoming beast, then another.
Magic no longer obeyed, so she fought with steel, grit, and the unyielding fire that had defined her entire life.
She reached Rewald just in time to deflect a clawed strike aimed for his throat. Her left arm took the hit, armor cracking, blood spurting.
"Arasha!" Rewald rasped.
"Keep moving!" she shouted.
She didn't know how long they fought. Minutes? Hours? Her senses blurred until only instinct guided her. The world was pain, steel, and screams.
Finally, they broke through to a crevice—a collapsed alcove shielded by a fallen statue of an ancient guardian.
Arasha staggered inside, shielding the entrance with the last dregs of her strength.
A hastily-formed barrier glyph flickered to life.
Then—darkness took her.
She awoke to the crackle of a weak campfire and the sound of Rewald breathing unevenly nearby.
The barrier held, reinforced by Rewald's own magic.
Arasha slumped beside him, blood dried on her brow and lips cracked from the dry, tainted air.
"Still alive," Rewald muttered with a pained smirk. "Lucky us."
Arasha chuckled dryly, eyes fluttering closed again. "Guess it's not our time yet."
And then, finally, exhaustion—pure and unrelenting—claimed her.
****
A thin mist coiled low along the cave floor, wrapping itself around the scattered remains of battle—splintered talismans, scorched stone, and crimson smears half-vanished in the dark.
The barrier flickered faintly, its protective glyph pulsing like a tired heartbeat.
Rewald sat beside the makeshift fire, propped against a fractured wall, a hand pressed to his ribs where bruises bloomed like ink beneath his robes.
His breath came in shallow intervals, but his eyes remained alert, locked onto the sleeping form of Arasha.
She lay curled in on herself, brow furrowed, her armor torn and blackened in places.
Her hand—the one that bore the twisted fate crest—was glowing.
Faint at first.
Then stronger.
Until it was as though a second sun had bloomed in her palm, casting runes of shadow and light that slithered across the cavern walls.
Then the voices began.
A low hum, barely audible at first—like the murmuring of water in distant caverns.
But it grew, rising, building.
The tones layered over one another—masculine, feminine, old, young, speaking in a cacophony of languages: celestial, infernal, draconic, and some so old they hadn't been spoken since before the first empires fell.
Rewald straightened, one hand already reaching for a glyph etched in his belt—but he stilled. This was not an attack. Not yet.
He strained to listen.
"…she bears the mark…"
"…graced and tethered…"
"…through her, paths will open…"
"…the stars have chosen, the void remembers…"
"…many Seraphines, many fates, all strings pulled by One…"
Rewald's brows furrowed.
Seraphines… plural?
The chorus continued—tones overlapping and weaving into a great unison before fragmenting again like waves breaking on stone.
"…blessed, cursed… the blade and the balm…"
"…all who touch her will shape, and be shaped…"
"…fate bends not to will—but to balance…"
Rewald's pulse quickened. He caught phrases spoken in an ancient tongue—Alal'thunn, the speech of the shamans of the long-lost twilight plains. He only recognized it because a dying seer had once shared the forbidden dialect with him in his reckless youth.
He whispered the words back to himself, piecing them together like shards of mirror:
"The Seraphine is the hand and the hinge. When the door opens, she shall weep, she will bleed, she will be unmake."
"The Primordials do not choose lightly… but they do choose. And once chosen—there is no unchoosing. Fate's pattern will be full of knots. Tangled and untagled."
As the voices crescendoed into one final, incomprehensible syllable, Arasha's body arched with tension.
Her hand flared like molten gold.
Her mouth twisted in a soundless scream, eyes clenched as if trapped in some unknowable dream.
Rewald lurched to his feet, his injuries protesting, and stumbled toward her.
The crest etched on her palm flickered wildly, symbols overlapping and collapsing like collapsing stars. Her scowl deepened in her sleep.
He hesitated, then reached out and gripped her shoulder. "Arasha."
The glow dimmed instantly.
The voices stopped.
Her body slackened.
Rewald exhaled, long and slow. His hand fell away, trembling.
He stared at the now-dim crest, then at her pale, scarred face.
"Gods help me…" he muttered. "I hope they weren't talking about you."
But his gut churned, because he knew.
The Primordials had chosen her. And fate had sharpened her into a blade.
Whether that blade would protect—or destroy—was still unknown.