The Hollow Night pressed down like living ink, draping the mountain in silence. Khaldron's disciples stood in the dark, weightless, perfected, senses sharpened beyond comprehension.
Far below, cloaked in the shadows of the foothills, approached the Silent Crown—the Grand Plains' elite of the elite. No ordinary spies, no mortal assassin could rival them. Only the highest elders and an ancient watcher even knew of their existence. Their mission was simple: infiltrate, observe, report, and erase.
They moved like shadows in shadows. Their disguises flawless: monks, merchants, beggars, wounded travelers—all layers of illusion crafted with forbidden techniques.
The first operative, disguised as a wandering monk, felt it immediately—something was wrong. His senses screamed, yet there was nothing to see. No energy, no movement, no aura. The mountain was dead.
But then—he heard it.
Not a voice. Not words.
A transmission straight into his mind. Cold. Dark. Colder than ice.
"You do not exist here."
No body spoke it. No lips moved.
The chill penetrated every thought, freezing his mind, unraveling every carefully constructed veil. He tried to retreat, tried to call his comrades, tried to strike—but the cold presence brushed past him, weightless, infinite, and impossible to fight.
His heartbeat faltered.
His veil of mind-control cracked.
Every illusion, every trick, every disguise he had spent decades perfecting faltered in the face of the disciples' awakening.
Another operative, disguised as a cripple, felt the same. The faintest ripple of thought carried the same icy transmission:
"You are nothing."
A beggar girl, carrying a child as cover, felt the constructs she used to mask recording crystals shatter without contact, without sound, without warning.
The Silent Crown—so feared, so deadly—was collapsing.
They could not perceive the disciples.
They could not touch them.
They could not even understand them.
Only that cold, dark voice whispered into their minds, undoing their will:
"Leave. Or cease to exist."
One operative hesitated. Tried to fight the mental intrusion. Tried to convince himself it was hallucination.
The voice cut deeper:
"You do not belong. You cannot exist here."
And in that instant, he vanished.
Not killed. Not struck. Simply erased—his disguise, his mission, his memory dissolved into nothingness.
Above the mountain, the ancient watcher recoiled.
Even it could sense the magnitude of what had just occurred: a mortal mind, even one trained to the peak of secrecy, undone by presence alone.
Below, Khaldron remained silent, observing. His disciples had not moved. They had not acted. Yet the Hollow Night obeyed them, bending around their presence, erasing threats before they could touch the mountain's ground.
The Silent Crown—the most elite of the elite, feared across continents—had walked into a storm they could not perceive. And deep in the Hollow Night, the world began to tremble at the awakening that had erased them.
The first light of dawn had not yet pierced the mountains, but the world around the Azure Cloud Sect felt changed. The Silent Crown's absence—like a void carved into reality—was palpable even to those who had not seen them.
Khaldron did not speak. He never needed to. His presence alone was enough to stabilize the disciples, their weightless forms still as drifting smoke, their senses stretched into every shadow of the peaks.
The disciples felt it first: a faint ripple across the continent. The ancient watcher, the one who had glimpsed the approach of the Silent Crown, stirred again. Its gaze, cold and eternal, stretched toward the mountain. Even it was shaken.
"They erased the most elite… with nothing but presence," it murmured to itself, its voice like distant thunder. "This sect… this Hollow Night… has awakened beyond comprehension."
Within the Azure Cloud Sect, whispers of the true name—the name hidden from outsiders—passed silently among the disciples. Hollow Night. It was more than a name. It was a declaration. A symbol of mastery beyond mortal measure.
Khaldron finally moved, gliding to the highest terrace. His eyes, older than time yet youthful in appearance, scanned the horizon. The disciples, young as twenty-one in body but perfected in essence, mirrored his gaze. Every movement, every breath, every thought synchronized to a level of impossible precision.
"Today," Khaldron's voice finally broke the silence—cold, calm, precise—"you have glimpsed the edge of the world's fear. But this is only the beginning."
The Hollow Night within them pulsed, responding to his words. Body, soul, and spirit surged together. Every muscle, vein, and meridian stretched toward perfection. Their minds expanded, touching realms beyond comprehension, aware of the world's currents and flows without thought or effort.
Even as the dawn's first light threatened the peaks, the Hollow Night remained unbroken, a shadow of absolute mastery resting upon them.
Far below, in the lands of the Grand Plains, rumors of missing elite agents began to surface. The council would investigate, and the ancient watcher would act—but for now, the sect had claimed a silence so complete that nothing mortal could breach it.
And in the Hollow Night, the disciples prepared for what would come next: not merely survival, not merely mastery of the mountain, but the transformation of the world itself under their weightless, perfect presence.
He crawled through mud and jagged stones, one arm clutched to his chest, one eye wide and unblinking. The rest of him… erased. Not broken. Not slain. Unmade.
He could not see them. He could not hear them. He could not touch them.
But they had seen him.
"Why… why am I still alive?" His voice cracked against the cold dawn, trembling, ragged.
He remembered the presence: weightless, infinite, unmovable. The disciples had not moved. They had not struck. Yet he had felt every fiber of his being shredded by something beyond comprehension.
Then it came—the voice.
Not spoken. Not heard. Not projected by lips or air.
A mind transmission. Cold. Dark. Colder than ice that had never thawed.
"Memento nominis… recita omnibus qui supervixerint. Vivis quia volumus. Sed vita tua est umbra. Loquere et noli iterum appropinquare. Obliviscere vires tuas. Obliviscere spem tuam. Nox Cavata…"
He tried to scream, tried to resist, tried to flee the unending chill pressing into his mind. But it penetrated every thought, every nerve, every memory.
The name burned into him:
"Nox Cavata… Nox Cavata…"
He muttered it aloud, trembling. No one could understand the words. Even if they heard, the syllables were meaningless… yet the weight of the name pressed invisibly upon their souls.
He remembered the moment his arm was shredded. Not by hand, not by weapon—but by existence itself twisting against him, tearing at his body. His remaining eye had been ripped open by the perception of something older, darker, and infinite.
And still… he lived.
Why? He understood, in the deepest recess of his mind:
They had left him alive as a warning.
A witness to whisper a name no one could comprehend.
To plant terror that even the Grand Plains Council could not yet grasp.
He dragged himself forward, mud clinging like frozen chains. Every shadow seemed alive, pulsing with the memory of what had passed over him.
"Nox Cavata… you let me live…" he rasped.
The only answer was the echo in his mind:
cold as stone, heavier than mountains, darker than any night.
He would carry the terror of Nox Cavata forever.
The Council's Witness
The chamber of the Grand Plains Council was cold, stone walls echoing every movement. Nineteen elders sat in silence, their robes rustling like dry leaves. Even among them, fear had a presence.
The doors opened slowly. A single figure was dragged forward, supported by two guards.
It was him.
The survivor.
Only one arm remained. Only one eye stared, wide, unblinking. His skin was torn, his hair matted with blood and dirt, and the remaining flesh bore the pallor of a man who had touched death and been spat out.
A hush fell over the chamber. Even the most battle-hardened elders felt it—the absolute silence of terror that clung to him.
He raised his single eye, trembling, and his lips moved—but only a whisper, so hoarse it barely carried:
"Nox… Cavata…"
The name sounded like a curse, a vibration that scraped the edges of their minds. None understood it. None could even attempt to. Yet all felt its weight: the air seemed heavier, colder, darker.
One elder, a man who had survived hundreds of battles and whispered with ancient ghosts, swallowed hard.
"Explain… what happened?" he demanded, though his voice shook.
The survivor raised his remaining arm, clawing at the air as though trying to grasp reality itself.
"They… they… do not exist. I… I saw nothing. I felt everything… every nerve, every breath, every heartbeat… shredded. My arm, my eye… all that remained. Only… they spoke in my mind… Nox Cavata… I… live because they willed it."
A shiver passed through the chamber. The council exchanged glances.
"Why leave him alive?" one whispered.
The survivor's eye widened, fixed on nothing, the terror of his memory clawing through his mind.
"To… tell… others… a warning… the Hollow… the… Nox Cavata… only… a witness… nothing else… nothing… else…"
Silence pressed in, heavier than stone. The council could not shake it. The name, incomprehensible, yet felt in every sinew, radiated dread.
Finally, one elder spoke, voice low and trembling:
"If even the Silent Crown… the finest in all the Grand Plains… can be undone… by something we cannot see, cannot fight… then this… sect… this Hollow Night… Nox Cavata… has awakened beyond any measure we know. And this survivor… is their message."
The chamber remained frozen. One arm, one eye, one whisper of a name—and the fear of the impossible had been delivered.
The survivor sat slumped on the stone floor of the council chamber, his single arm trembling, his one remaining eye wide and unblinking. Each breath came as a shuddering rasp, shallow and broken. The room seemed to close in around him, the walls bending with the weight of what he had seen.
He did not cry. He could not. The tears had been burned from him on the mountain. His voice had been ripped from his throat. His mind… his mind was a battlefield of shattered fragments, a mosaic of horror and nothingness.
"I… I…" he whispered, voice cracking into silence.
The council leaned forward instinctively, yet none dared approach. There was something about him—a living void—that warned against contact.
"I… saw nothing. Nothing… but felt everything. Every nerve… every heartbeat… shredded… undone… erased…" He coughed, shivering. The single eye darted wildly, as if trying to perceive the incomprehensible.
His thoughts were fractured. Memories no longer connected. Days and nights collapsed into a single endless, freezing moment. His senses screamed at him: the weightless presence, the cold dark voice, the name—Nox Cavata—burning into my skull…
He clawed at his head with the only hand he had left, tears streaking his dirt-caked face.
"They… spoke… in my mind… Nox Cavata… I… I live because they willed it…"
The council heard the words, but the meaning escaped them. Still, the terror radiating from his mind pressed into their bones. Even the most composed elder felt a chill as if the void itself had brushed past them.
He rocked back and forth, muttering fragments:
"Everything… gone… nothing left… they… saw me… unmade… all… gone… only… this… name… Nox Cavata…"
He tried to stand, but the room swayed. He fell back, whimpering like a wounded animal. His mind was no longer his own—it had been splintered and partially consumed, leaving only the hollow echo of awareness, a terror-soaked shell incapable of even fear in the ordinary sense.
"I… I remember… they do not exist… and yet… they… erase… all… I… cannot… think… cannot… nothing… Nox Cavata… I… live…"
One elder whispered, horrified:
"His mind… it is broken. He is not alive in the way we understand life… he is a vessel for… a message. The Hollow Night… the Nox Cavata… it is beyond comprehension."
The survivor's eye, wide and unseeing, shifted toward them. He attempted a gesture with his remaining hand, quivering violently:
"Tell… everyone… witness… the Hollow… Nox… Cavata… remember… or…"
He trailed off into incoherent babble, drooling at the edges of his lips. The elder recoiled. The chamber was silent but for the survivor's broken muttering, and the air itself seemed to hang with the echo of the name—Nox Cavata, incomprehensible, infinite, and suffocating.
Even after being dragged from the mountain, he was no longer a man. He was a warning. A shell. A whisper of horror that carried the truth of the Hollow Night.
And in the silence that followed, every elder knew: the sect had chosen him to survive, not for mercy, but for terror to spread across the Grand Plains.
The council did not immediately speak. Instead, they summoned the highest of their elders—masters of Genesis Peak, men and women whose cultivation had transcended time itself. Their robes flowed like liquid shadow, eyes reflecting eons of battle and observation.
The survivor was brought forward, trembling, one arm and one eye apparently intact. But the elders knew better. The flesh, the bones, the meridians—all were perfectly preserved, as if no blade, no technique, no force had touched him.
It was his soul that bore the wound.
The elders extended their senses, probing the layers of his spirit. The chamber seemed to contract under the weight of their power.
At first, nothing appeared—his cultivation remained intact. His channels, meridians, and primordial energy were untouched, shining quietly within him.
But then—the deeper truth revealed itself.
Fragmentation.
Holes where his awareness should have been.
Echoes of mind destroyed and erased.
Even the greatest elders of the Grand Plains had never seen such damage. Part of his very essence—the core of his soul's continuity—was missing.
One elder's eyes went wide. His voice trembled as he spoke:
"His cultivation… is intact. Every meridian, every vein, every channel… untouched. He could cultivate tomorrow as if nothing happened… but his soul… it is broken beyond repair. He has lost a part of himself. Even if he lives, even if he cultivates, he is… incomplete."
Another elder leaned closer, probing deeper:
"It is not death. It is not injury. It is… erasure. The Hollow Night does not kill, does not wound the flesh. It tears at the spirit, carving out fragments of existence itself. The man… is whole only in body. In soul, he is hollowed, fractured, a shadow of what he once was."
The chamber of the Grand Plains Council was carved directly from the heart of Genesis Peak, a peak older than any living memory. Stone walls, blackened with age, rose like jagged cliffs, their surfaces etched with ancient runes that pulsed faintly in resonance with the cultivation of the elders. Shafts of pale light fell from narrow openings high above, cutting through the mist curling into the chamber like living smoke.
At the center of the room, the survivor was seated on the cold stone floor, one arm wrapped uselessly around himself, the single eye staring blankly. His body, intact, betrayed nothing of the terror that had unmade his soul. The air around him was heavy with a chill that seemed unnatural, a weight pressing down on the bones and spirit alike.
The elders stood encircling him, robed figures moving like shadows across the stone. Each of their eyes glimmered with the light of Genesis Peak cultivation, capable of sensing energy, intent, and even the subtlest fracture of spirit. Yet even they paused, each inhalation sharp with unease.
The room itself seemed alive with tension. The torches mounted in iron sconces flickered without wind, casting twisted shadows that danced like specters. The engraved runes along the walls pulsed in rhythm with the survivor's ragged heartbeat, as if even stone and magic acknowledged the fracture in his essence.
"Show me again," whispered the eldest of the elders, his voice hollow, echoing against the black stone.
Two juniors extended their senses, probing the survivor's energy. They saw the perfection of his cultivation—every meridian, every channel, every vein unbroken. Energy flowed freely, pure, untainted.
And then… the void.
Part of his soul had been carved out.
The sensation struck them like a physical blow, a hollow chill seeping into their own senses. They recoiled, staggering back from the intensity.
"It is not physical," one elder murmured, voice trembling despite decades atop Genesis Peak. "No wound, no strike, nothing touches the body… and yet…" His eyes widened as he looked at the survivor. "…he is hollowed. A shadow of a man. Even if he cultivates, the soul he lost… will never return."
The torches flickered violently as though reacting to the name that burned in the survivor's mind. One of the younger elders dared to whisper:
"Nox… Cavata…"
Even spoken aloud, the syllables seemed wrong, unnatural. They scraped along the bones and nerves, leaving a residue of fear that was almost physical. The survivor shivered violently, mumbling fragments of the name:
"They… I… Nox Cavata… alive… because… witness…"
The chamber seemed to constrict. The shadows along the walls leaned closer, as if straining to listen. Mist coiled across the stone floor, thickening in unnatural swirls, twisting around the survivor like invisible chains. The elders sensed it: the Hollow Night did not strike with weapons, but with perception itself. Its reach could hollow a man without bloodshed.
One elder stepped forward, hand raised, trembling slightly. The chill around him pressed harder, the runes along the walls thrummed louder.
"Even Genesis Peak cannot heal this. He can cultivate. He can grow stronger than the strongest of us. But the soul he lost… even the mightiest techniques cannot restore what Hollow Night takes. He is a warning. He is… a shell."
The survivor's one eye shifted toward the ceiling, unseeing, yet aware. The mist around him quivered in response to his fear. His breathing was shallow, erratic, as if even the air in the chamber was too thick for him.
The elders fell silent. Around them, the chamber of Genesis Peak seemed to hold its breath, ancient stone and runes resonating with a dread that had never been encountered in all the centuries of the Grand Plains. The survivor's broken presence filled every corner, every shadow, every echo.
Outside, the wind howled across the peak, carrying with it the faintest whisper of what he had seen: the Hollow Night, the incomprehensible power, the Nox Cavata…
Even in this chamber of the highest cultivation, the terror was absolute.
The council could only stand, watching, feeling the weight of what had touched the survivor, knowing that the sect they called Azure Cloud—the Hollow Night in truth—had achieved mastery beyond human comprehension.
And the survivor, broken in soul but intact in body, remained their living, silent message.
The council remained in tense silence. Genesis Peak's chamber, carved from living stone and etched with runes that pulsed faintly in resonance with the elders' power, seemed to thrum in anticipation. Mist swirled along the floor, coiling around the survivor's broken form, carrying the weight of the Hollow Night's touch into every corner.
One elder, the oldest among them, rose with deliberate slowness. His robe dragged along the stone, whispering against the blackened runes.
"We cannot leave him like this," he said, voice trembling yet commanding. "Even fractured, he is a witness. Perhaps… we can restore him. A new arm, a new eye. A vessel of flesh to match what is left of his cultivation."
A younger elder, her eyes sharp and unyielding, shook her head.
"Even if we forge a new arm, even if we graft it with the finest Chaos Saint techniques… without the soul, it is meaningless. It will be nothing more than a lifeless limb. Flesh, bone, and muscle—but devoid of the will that animates cultivation. The Hollow Night has hollowed him. The soul cannot be replaced."
Another elder, one who had ascended to the Chaos Saint level, spoke next, voice low and measured:
"I could grant him a new arm. Perhaps even a new eye. My technique rivals those of the ancient masters. But even I cannot bind a soul where none exists. The Hollow Night has carved part of his essence away. Without that spark of life—the consciousness that drives cultivation—the body will be useless. He may move, he may fight, but he will never be whole. His cultivation… will not truly manifest. He will be… a shell."
The chamber seemed to shiver at his words. The torches flickered, shadows twisting unnaturally along the walls, as if reacting to the impossible horror of the Hollow Night.
The survivor's one eye shifted, unseeing yet aware. His remaining arm twitched, the only motion hinting at life—but the elders knew better. The body was intact, but the soul's fracture could never be repaired.
"Then what do we do?" whispered a mid-level elder, voice almost lost in the thick, cold air.
"We leave him as he is," the oldest elder said with finality. "We can grant flesh, but it will never replace what was stolen. He is a warning. A shadow. Let him live—but only as a testament to the Hollow Night's power. Any attempt to restore him fully… is futile. Even a Chaos Saint cannot grant what Hollow Night has taken."
The room fell silent. The only sound was the survivor's shallow, ragged breathing, mingling with the hum of the runes and the swirl of mist across the stone floor.
Outside, the wind lashed against Genesis Peak, carrying faint echoes of the name that had shattered the man's mind: Nox Cavata.
Even at the peak of mortal cultivation, even in a chamber of Genesis Peak masters, the Hollow Night's reach had proven absolute.
The council had made their decision. The survivor would live, but only as a hollowed vessel, a reminder of power beyond comprehension. Flesh could be mended. Soul could not.
And in the cold, silent chamber, the survivor understood—if he had the clarity to do so—that he was no longer truly human.
He was a warning. A witness. A shadow.
The survivor's single eye, wide and haunted, fixed on the eldest of the council. His trembling lips parted, and the hoarse whisper that came forth carried the weight of unbearable torment:
"Mercy… please…" he rasped. "End this… end me. I cannot endure… this hollow… this nothing… I beg you… let me die."
The chamber fell into suffocating silence. The torches flickered, the runes along the walls pulsed faintly, and the mist curling along the floor seemed to lean closer, as if even the stones themselves shuddered at the raw despair.
One elder, his face lined with centuries of battles and cultivation, leaned forward. His voice was low, almost tender:
"You are asking for death… yet you do not understand what you still carry."
The survivor's head shook violently. His remaining arm twitched helplessly.
"I do… I feel it… the emptiness… every moment… it burns. I am… a shadow… a vessel… I cannot… I cannot endure this suffering. Please… a merciful strike… end me… I am broken."
Another elder, one who had reached the heights of Genesis Peak, spoke softly, almost reverently:
"Your body remains intact. Your cultivation, untouched. The Hollow Night has hollowed your soul—but your achievements, your ability to survive what no mortal could endure… they are beyond measure. To strike you down now would be to deny the magnitude of what you have endured."
The survivor's eye glimmered, desperate, almost pleading.
"I do not… I cannot… continue like this. Every breath… every thought… it is agony. I ask you… have mercy… please…"
The eldest of the council exchanged a long, silent glance with the others. The chamber seemed to hold its breath. The torches burned steadily, shadows creeping along the walls like black fingers, echoing the weight of the Hollow Night that had carved the survivor's mind.
Finally, the eldest spoke:
"No. We will not end your life. You will not die in the hollowed state forced upon you. Instead… you will receive therapy, treatment beyond what mortals could dream. We will honor you, even if your mind is lost. Your endurance, your achievement… is testament to what few have ever faced."
The survivor's eye trembled, a flicker of disbelief crossing his haunted gaze.
"Ther… therapy…?" he whispered.
"Yes," the elder said, voice heavy with sympathy yet unyielding authority. "We will restore what can be restored, not to grant you completeness, but to ease your suffering. You will live as an honored witness, a testament to the power you endured, and the Hollow Night that none can hope to match. Even fractured, even hollowed… you are revered."
The mist swirled closer around him, the shadows leaning toward him as if acknowledging the decree. The survivor slumped, exhausted beyond measure, the single eye blinking slowly as understanding seeped through the fog of trauma.
He would live.
Not whole. Not complete. But honored.
And the council knew, in the silence of Genesis Peak's chamber, that the Hollow Night had left its mark—not only on him, but on the entire world.
The survivor's one remaining eye glimmered with a fire twisted by agony. His trembling lips moved, yet the words were no ordinary speech. They were drawn from the depths of his shattered mind, from the hollow where the Hollow Night had carved him, steeped in despair and incomprehensible power.
"Accursed be ye all… accursed, as the black night falleth upon the weary soul! May thy hearts know the emptiness that gnaws at mine own! Be wretched, be undone, as I am undone!"
The chamber fell deathly silent. Even the elders, masters of Genesis Peak and veterans of centuries of conflict, felt a chill crawling along their bones. The torches flickered violently, shadows twisting and dancing across the walls as if recoiling from the words themselves.
He lifted his trembling arm, pointing toward the council with a gesture that was both pathetic and terrifying.
"Hearken unto mine curse! Every joy shall turn to ash, every breath to frost, every hope to hollow wind! Ye who dared stand witness to my torment… accursed, accursed, accursed!"
The mist coiled more tightly around him, carrying his words like a poison through the chamber. The runes etched into the stone walls pulsed faintly, responding to the surge of fractured spirit energy.
One elder whispered, voice taut with dread:
"By the heavens… his mind… the Hollow Night… even broken, he wields power we cannot touch…"
The survivor's single eye blazed, tears streaking the dirt and blood upon his face.
"May the seed of fear plant in thine hearts, and may the night that hollowed me rise to claim thee in kind! As I am unmade, so shall ye know the weight of what lieth beyond mortal ken! Accursed be… Nox Cavata's mark upon thee all!"
Even after the words fell silent, their echo lingered. The torches sputtered, the mist coiled unnaturally, and a cold pressure pressed on the minds of the elders, a shadow of the Hollow Night reaching across distance and spirit.
The council knew then: even fractured, even hollowed, even reduced to a living shell, the survivor remained a weapon of the Hollow Night, a living curse.
And outside the chamber, across the Grand Plains, the wind seemed to carry a whisper of that name, incomprehensible and terrifying: Nox Cavata…
The survivor's body shivered, his single eye still flickering with the residual fire of his curse. Even the masters of Genesis Peak could feel the fractured energy radiating from him, a raw, hollowed force that clawed at the edges of perception.
It was decided quickly. No therapy could fully restore him. No cultivation method could repair the pieces of his soul torn away by the Hollow Night. To attempt otherwise would be folly—and dangerous.
The eldest of the council, his voice carrying the weight of centuries, gave the order:
"Contain him. Put him to sleep. Preserve the body. Guard what remains of his essence. Nothing more can be done."
The disciple-guards, masters in their own right, moved silently. They channeled the most refined Genesis Peak containment techniques, binding his body in a cocoon of energy and sealing the fractured spirit within layers of immovable runes. The mist coiled tighter, drawn into the sigils, and the survivor's breathing slowed, shallow and regulated by the containment.
Even in this state, the hollowed echoes of his mind lingered, whispers brushing the edges of perception.
"Nox Cavata…" the room seemed to echo faintly, though no sound passed mortal lips.
Once the survivor was contained, the council turned their attention to the matter at hand. The chamber, heavy with shadows and the faint hum of Genesis Peak's ancient runes, was alive with tension. The elders moved to the raised dais, robes flowing like liquid shadow over the black stone floor. Mist curled in the corners, thick and suffocating, as though the chamber itself awaited the debate.
"This… this cannot be ignored," said one elder, his voice trembling despite centuries of mastery. "The Hollow Night has done what none could imagine. A mortal shell, untouched, yet hollowed in soul. A Chaos Saint cannot repair him. He is a warning. He is… a harbinger."
Another elder leaned closer, hands clasped tightly. "And the name… Nox Cavata. Even now, spoken in whispers, it chills the bone. The Grand Plains must understand the threat we face. The Azure Cloud Sect… the Hollow Night… is beyond mortal reckoning."
The council fell silent, contemplating the magnitude of what had been revealed. The survivor, contained and asleep, was both their burden and their testament. His hollowed mind, shattered beyond repair, was a message: the Hollow Night had awakened, and no one—not even the greatest masters of the Grand Plains—could face it unprepared.
Finally, the eldest spoke, voice low and steady, cutting through the tension like a blade:
"Prepare the meeting. Summon the council in full. Every voice, every strategy, every contingency. We debate how to respond—not to a myth, not to rumors, but to the undeniable reality of the Hollow Night. And we must proceed knowing that even the strongest may not withstand its reach."
The chamber seemed to pulse with anticipation, the ancient stone echoing the weight of the unseen, unfathomable threat. Outside, the winds howled across Genesis Peak, carrying faint whispers of Nox Cavata, the Hollow Night's mark, and the silent promise of destruction.
The council moved into action, preparations meticulous, every detail scrutinized. The highest echelons of mortal strategy were about to confront something that exceeded mortal comprehension.
And in the shadows, the survivor remained, suspended between life and death, a living testament to the Hollow Night's terror.