The sky had changed.
It wasn't just the color—though the crimson had long since faded into a pale, blistered grey—but the way it watched. As if every cloud held an unseen eye, and the winds whispered not warnings but judgments. Riven felt it in the marrow of his bones. Something ancient stirred in the heavens, and it wasn't pleased.
He stood on the precipice of the Wyrmhollow Chasm, the city of Valdareth a sullen glow behind him. Below stretched a bottomless wound in the world, carved long ago by a god who'd bled out his final breath in madness. No one crossed the Hollow and returned sane.
He intended to do both.
Behind him, the Hollow Mask cult waited. Eleven mages cloaked in robes stitched from failure and grief. Their faces hidden behind pale wooden masks—each carved with a different emotion: joy, sorrow, rage, despair, hope. Riven had learned quickly that the masks lied.
"Are you sure this is where your soul calls you?" asked the one called Whisper. She wore the mask of laughter. Her voice held none.
"No," Riven said. "But I'm going anyway."
Whisper didn't nod. None of them did. In the Hollow Mask, consent was silence.
They followed.
The descent began with silence.
Riven expected screaming winds, shifting stones, the hiss of lurking abominations.
Instead: only the sound of their own breathing. Shallow. Uneven. Too loud.
Each step down the obsidian spine of the Wyrmhollow was a step away from sanity. The air thickened. Time warped. Shadows moved where light didn't touch. Riven felt his Soulbrand pulse at irregular intervals, as if unsure if time still flowed.
They passed ruins built upside down. Bones of creatures that had never been born. Once, Riven looked up and saw his own corpse staring down from a ledge. It waved.
They kept going.
At the seventh circle, Whisper finally spoke. "This is where the soulbreak begins. Past here, memories slip. Hold on to pain. Pain is the only thread strong enough."
Another masked figure, bearing the visage of Hope, began to hum a lullaby. It was the only thing that kept one of them from screaming.
Riven did not speak. He followed the pull in his soul, the echo of that ancient Voice that had once offered him transcendence.
They reached the bottom after time lost meaning.
There was no floor. Only reflection.
An obsidian lake stretched before them, so perfectly still that their own faces looked alien in its mirrored surface.
But there was no reflection for Riven.
Only darkness.
A ripple spread.
Then it rose.
The creature had no name, only absence.
Ten of the eleven Hollow Mask fell to their knees instantly, blood leaking from eyeholes, ears, mouths. Their minds snapped like rotted thread. One burst into violet flame. Another turned to crystal and cracked apart.
Only Whisper stood.
Only Riven remained whole.
Barely.
The creature hovered above the lake, its body fluid and vast—part serpent, part sky, part shame. It had no face, but it saw them both.
It spoke.
Not in words.
In reminders.
Riven saw himself again on the altar. Not dying—but begging.
Not brave—but broken.
He saw every moment he failed. Every time he flinched. Every time he hated himself for surviving.
"You are still weak."
Riven fell to one knee.
Whisper reached for him. Her hand turned to smoke.
"You are still afraid."
He screamed. The Soulbrand pulsed. The lake shattered.
Memories surged—ones not his.
A throne of stars.
A hand dripping with seven-colored blood.
A promise.
Then silence.
When Riven awoke, he was alone.
No lake. No creature. No Whisper. Only him.
And a new mark upon his chest—just above his Soulbrand. A black sun devoured by silver thorns.
Void Pact Acquired:
Rank: Forbidden
Passive: Immunity to soul manipulation below Grand Arcanum tier.
Active: Transcend Pain — Sacrifice a memory to gain raw power for one minute. Afterward, the memory is permanently lost.
Curse: Each use strengthens the bond to the Void. Use it enough... become it.
He stood.
Laughed bitterly.
Then cried.
Not from pain. But from the memory he'd already sacrificed.
He could no longer remember his sister's face.
Back in Valdareth, the city boiled.
The High Conclave had declared Riven a Heretic Ascendant. Bounties were painted on every wall. The nobles who had once laughed at his sacrifice now paid assassins in gold to end what they'd begun.
In the slums, stories spread.
Of a boy who walked through fire.
Of shadows that whispered his name.
Of nobles found dead with their souls hollowed out.
Fear became currency.
And Riven was its mint.
He returned to the Hollow Mask's hideout two nights later.
Only Whisper remained. Maskless now. Her face scarred by truth, eyes filled with storms.
"You touched the thing beneath the world," she said.
"I made a deal," he replied.
"Deals have costs."
"I've paid the first. I'll pay the rest."
She looked at him. "Then you'll need to learn control. Power that devours its wielder is no power at all."
Riven looked past her. Toward the city gates. Toward the Whiteflame Sanctum.
"I won't be the only one paying."