The Hollowlands boiled.
Lightning stitched the broken skies, casting the battle in searing flashes of silver and blue.
Mist swirled violently around Caelum as he stood atop the corpse of the first Hunter he had slain — bloodless, but broken beyond recognition.
Below him, the others regrouped. Ten Hunters now, forming a circle. Their masks gleamed like ghostly moons in the stormlight.
Selvara knelt at Caelum's side, blood running down one arm.
"You've drawn their full attention," she muttered, smirking despite the wound.
"Good," Caelum growled.
His voice was rough, deeper — tinged with something... darker.
The Anathema stirred within him, whispering of violence.
But Caelum chained it down, forcing his mind to stay sharp.
"Then let them come."
---
The Hunters moved.
Faster than before.
Coordinated. Deadly.
One wove a net of pure soulflame, casting it high over Caelum and Selvara.
Another shattered the ground beneath them with a hammer strike, sending shockwaves through the earth.
Caelum reacted on instinct.
Soul-thread spears exploded from his palms, intercepting the incoming net midair, tearing it apart into fragments of searing blue fire.
He twisted the mist around himself, creating a shell of armor that absorbed the aftershock from the quake.
Selvara launched forward with a snarl — her curved blade carving deep into one Hunter's defenses.
They fought back-to-back, two blasphemies against the order of Solaris.
And still, the Hunters pressed in.
Each a master of their craft.
Each willing to die to fulfill their blood oath.
Caelum gritted his teeth.
He could feel his reserves fraying, soul-threads snapping at the edges of his consciousness.
Even the Hollowlands — chaotic and rich with fractured energy — could not feed him fast enough.
He needed more.
He needed power.
---
Flashback — The Last Night in Solaris
The memory came unbidden.
Standing before the Soul-Forge at the heart of House Dareth, young and desperate.
Staring at the Web-threads above him, gleaming and perfect — the culmination of generations of controlled magic.
He had reached out.
And something had reached back.
A hand.
A hunger.
A whisper: "You are not enough. But you could be."
He had screamed, torn apart at the soul-level, burned by forbidden energy.
That night, the Anathema had marked him.
That night, he had become something other than human.
---
Present — Hollowlands
Caelum inhaled sharply.
The memories were not a weakness.
They were a reminder.
He was no longer bound by the laws of Solaris.
He was something new.
Something worse.
"Selvara!" he barked. "Cover me!"
Without waiting for an answer, Caelum plunged a hand into the shifting mist at his feet — and pulled.
The Hollowlands responded.
Black, roiling strands of corrupted Web surged into him, wrapping his body in shimmering darkness. His bones cracked. His blood boiled. His soul screamed.
For an instant, Caelum's entire body blurred, flickering between states of existence.
The Hunters staggered, their perfect formations breaking.
Caelum moved.
One heartbeat, he was in front of them.
The next, behind.
He struck — a jagged spear of raw Anathema piercing the defenses of the nearest Hunter.
The man gasped once — then dissolved into threads of soulmist.
One down.
Caelum turned.
Another Hunter raised her stave — but Caelum snapped his fingers, shattering the Web around her. She fell screaming into the mist, her body folding in on itself.
Two down.
The others recoiled.
Their perfect poise broken.
Selvara laughed — a vicious, delighted sound.
"NOW, CAELUM!" she roared.
Together, they charged.
---
Hours Later — After the Battle
Smoke drifted lazily through the ruined clearing.
Ashes and broken soulthreads rained from the sky like dying stars.
Caelum leaned against a shattered pillar, breathing heavily.
The ground was littered with the corpses of Hunters — some whole, some... less so.
Selvara limped toward him, her armor cracked, blood drying on her cheek.
"You did it," she said, voice thick with something like awe.
Caelum didn't answer immediately.
He stared at his hands — hands that trembled, not from fear, but from the sheer violence he had unleashed.
What am I becoming?
The Anathema inside him purred contentedly.
Selvara placed a hand on his shoulder — heavy, grounding.
"Don't flinch from it, Caelum Vey," she said quietly. "Don't mourn the ashes."
He looked up, meeting her fierce, unyielding gaze.
"Solaris will send more," he said.
"They already have," Selvara replied.
From the mist beyond the Hollowlands, shapes approached.
Not Hunters this time.
No, these new figures wore heavier armor. Carried heavier weapons.
Executioners.
Solaris had escalated the war.
---
Elsewhere — House Dareth, Solaris
A boy stood alone in a great marble hall.
Young. Fragile. Bearing the same gray eyes as Caelum once had — but filled not with anger, only sorrow.
The Matriarch of House Dareth bent down to him.
"Do you understand your task, child?"
He nodded, lip trembling.
"You are the new heir," she said. "Caelum Vey is dead to us."
"But if he returns," the boy whispered.
The Matriarch smiled coldly.
"If he returns," she said, "you will kill him."
The boy bowed his head.
In his small hands, a soulblade shimmered — tuned perfectly to Caelum's fractured Web signature.
A weapon made for fratricide.