Chapter 23: Into the Hollow Core
Light swallowed Kai as he fell—so blinding, so absolute that even closing his eyes did nothing. His body felt weightless, suspended in a torrent of energy that burned without heat and pressed without force. The sensation was impossible, contradictory, like being crushed and lifted at the same time.
He didn't know how long he fell.
Seconds?
Minutes?
Hours?
Time didn't feel real here.
Then—suddenly—gravity returned.
Kai hit solid ground, skidding forward on rough stone. He groaned, pushing himself up as the light faded around him. His vision blurred for a moment, then refocused.
He stood inside a vast cavern—if cavern was even the right word. The space was impossibly large, stretching beyond the limits of physics. The walls were made of dark crystalline material, covered in flowing lines of violet energy. They pulsed like veins, each beat synchronized with a deeper rhythm.
A heartbeat.
The Hollow Star's heartbeat.
Kai took a slow breath.
"So this is the core…"
The ground beneath him shifted slightly—like something massive turned in its sleep far beneath the surface. He tightened his grip on his scythe.
The air here was heavier. Thick. Saturated with dense, ancient power that crawled along his skin. Even breathing felt like inhaling liquid starlight.
Ahead of him, a path formed.
Not a natural one.
The stone rearranged itself, bending and warping until it shaped a narrow walkway stretching into the darkness. As Kai stepped forward, the path glowed with pale light—guiding him, inviting him, perhaps testing him.
Or leading him to doom.
Kai shook out his shoulders and walked.
The deeper he went, the more the Hollow Star Core shifted. Shadows moved along the walls like living ink. Strange whispers slipped through the air—too quiet to understand, too loud to ignore. They weren't words, exactly. More like impressions, emotions, fragments of memories belonging to something vast.
He hardened his expression.
"Not going to get in my head," he muttered.
The whispers quieted, as if listening.
Then a new sound emerged—footsteps behind him.
Kai spun instantly, scythe raised.
A figure stepped out of the darkness.
He froze.
It wasn't a shadow.
It wasn't a monster.
It wasn't a vision.
It was a person.
A woman with long silver hair, pale as moonlight. Her eyes glowed faintly with starfire, and her robes were woven from shimmering threads of darkness and light—like they were spun from the night sky itself.
She raised both hands in a gesture of peace.
"Easy," she said. Her voice was soft, calm, yet resonated unnaturally in the chamber. "If I wanted to kill you, you'd already be dead."
Kai didn't lower his scythe. "Who are you?"
She smiled faintly.
"An echo. A remnant. A guardian. Choose whichever term you like." Her eyes softened, studying him with a mix of curiosity and… sadness. "I have been waiting for the next Candidate for a very long time."
Kai stiffened. "How do you even know who I am?"
The woman walked closer, unthreatening yet impossibly graceful.
"The Hollow Star remembers all who come here. And I remember all who fall into its orbit."
Kai took a step back.
"I'm not here to become whatever the last Hollow Star was."
"I know," she said gently. "Not yet."
That only made him narrow his eyes. "What do you want from me?"
"Nothing."
Her answer was immediate.
Unexpected.
Kai blinked. "Nothing?"
"Yes." She stepped beside him, walking toward the glowing path. "The Hollow Star no longer chooses kings. It no longer commands conquerors. It merely tests who dares to touch its core."
Kai followed reluctantly.
"So you're part of the test?"
"In a way." She tilted her head, listening to the distant heartbeat. "My role is to prepare you for what comes next."
"And what is that?"
She paused at the edge of a vast chasm.
The path ended abruptly.
Beyond was a swirling void—an entire abyss of cosmic darkness, rotating like a slow hurricane. In the center was an enormous sphere, suspended by nothing, composed of fractured starlight and obsidian plates.
The Hollow Star Core.
She gestured toward it.
"That."
Kai exhaled shakily.
"Let me guess," he muttered. "Jump?"
She chuckled softly. "Not quite. You must reach it. The path will form only for those who are chosen."
Kai frowned. "I didn't agree to be chosen."
Her gaze sharpened.
"And yet here you stand."
The air trembled.
A deep hum resonated.
The abyss stirred.
Stone bridges began to form across the void—but in shattered lengths, disconnected, erratic, pulsing in and out of existence like flickering memories.
Kai felt his muscles coil.
"So this is the real trial."
"No," the woman said.
He turned sharply.
She looked at him with an expression far too serious for her earlier calm demeanor.
"This is only the beginning."
Before Kai could respond, she stepped onto one of the floating platforms—and faded like a dissolving reflection.
Kai stared at the empty air where she'd stood.
"Figures," he muttered. "Always vague answers."
The Hollow Star pulsed.
A path extended out before him—barely stable, trembling as though resisting existence itself.
Kai tightened his grip on his scythe.
"Fine," he whispered into the cavernous dark.
"I'll play your game."
He stepped onto the first platform.
It shuddered instantly, sinking slightly beneath his weight. The abyss below churned, violet lightning cracking through it.
Then—
A roar.
Not from a beast.
From the Hollow Star itself.
Something erupted from the abyss.
A creature made of fractured starlight and void—like a cosmic serpent with wings of broken glass and eyes made of pure light. It coiled around the void, body stretching for miles.
Kai's breath caught.
"Of course," he muttered.
He raised his scythe.
The Trial had begun.
The Hollow Star Candidate would not ascend without battle.
Kai steadied himself as the beast lunged toward him, jaws wide.
He whispered—
"Come on, then."
And leapt directly into its attack, scythe blazing with raw cosmic force.