The Ashlands ended with silence.
No shrieking winds. No crackle of distant fires. Just the broken world beyond, stretched out in eerie stillness beneath a sky smeared with ash and red. Valen stood at the edge, armor strapped tight across his shoulders, Echo pulse low but steady in his veins.
The ruins of the Old World highway stretched before him, fractured blacktop swallowed by time and the Rift's slow decay. Faint outlines of rusted cars and half-melted billboards still clung to the bones of what once was.
Behind him, a team of seven rebels waited, silent. All armed, all armored, but none truly ready.
Kira stepped up beside him. She scanned the road, jaw tight. "You still think this is worth it?"
Valen didn't answer immediately. He crouched, ran his hand along a patch of shattered pavement. A faint hum trembled beneath it—barely detectable. Echo residue.
"I think the Ashlands are no longer the front line," he said. "This is."
She sighed, tapping her rifle's barrel against her thigh. "Then let's get it over with. But you lead, Creed. If this goes south…"
"It won't," Valen said quietly. "But if it does—I'll handle it."
Kira met his eyes for a long second. Then she nodded.
They moved out.
⸻
The first few miles passed in grim silence. The road ahead was flanked by collapsed buildings and scorched trees, the remnants of a city once teeming with life now hollowed out by Rift corruption. Valen kept to the front, his senses sharpened by months of surviving in the ruins.
The deeper they went, the heavier the air felt. The light changed too—less natural, more fractured. As if the sun didn't quite know how to reach this place.
"Echo residue's thick here," muttered Bren, one of the scouts. "Like something's still feeding."
"Stay sharp," Valen replied. "Keep your weapons primed, no sudden—"
A scream cut through the air.
Valen spun, Echo surging as he raised a defensive shield just in time to catch the lunging blur of motion. Something hit him hard, knocking him sideways as claws raked over his armor.
He hit the ground and rolled, rising to his feet in a single motion. Across from him stood a humanoid figure—or what remained of one. Pale flesh stretched over a twisted skeleton, ribs exposed, head tilted unnaturally to one side. The eyes were vacant, but pulsing with red cracks of Rift energy.
"Riftborn?" Kira gasped.
Valen shook his head grimly. "No… worse."
Another one emerged from the shadows. Then another.
They didn't speak. They didn't roar. They simply moved, twitching and stumbling with jerks like broken puppets.
"Dead men," Valen muttered. "Possessed by Echo remnants."
"The Hollow," whispered Lira, trembling. "They were just stories."
"Then we're in the story now," Valen growled.
⸻
The Hollow charged.
Valen met them head-on, Echo coiling around his arms like smoke solidified. He struck with precision—one slash through a creature's chest, another burst of concussive energy that tore through the asphalt.
The rebels opened fire, bullets cracking into the shambling horde. But the Hollow didn't fall easy. They bled black, moved through wounds like nothing mattered.
Kira fired from behind cover, dropping two with well-placed shots to the head. "Aim for the skulls!"
A Hollow lunged at her from the side.
She didn't see it.
"Down!" Valen shouted, diving across the road.
He slammed into the creature before it reached her, shoving it back with a burst of raw Echo force. It howled—if the thing had lungs—and lashed out with sharpened bone.
A claw tore across Kira's thigh as she stumbled.
Blood sprayed.
Valen didn't hesitate.
He grabbed the creature by the face and let the Echo surge.
The Hollow's head imploded in a burst of blackened light, the body collapsing into a pile of ashen rot.
Kira hit the ground, clutching her leg.
Valen knelt beside her, pressing his hand to the wound.
"You'll live," he muttered.
"Hurts like hell," she hissed.
"You're not dying today."
⸻
But the Hollow weren't finished.
They came in waves, from the buildings, from the sewers, from the ruins.
And something was guiding them.
Valen could feel it now—pulsing in the distance, like a beacon buried under the road. A fractured Echo source. Not whole, not alive, but still full of power and hunger.
He stood slowly, Echo shadows flickering across his body.
"I need to clear them," he said, voice low.
Bren shouted, "There's too many!"
Valen didn't respond.
He stepped forward, deeper into the chaos.
Then he let go.
Not all the way. Just enough.
He called to the Echo—no, something beneath the Echo. A variant that had clawed its way into his mind since the ritual. The burning one. The one that left scars.
His skin shimmered.
A black fire ignited around him, not like the previous bursts—this one roared.
The Hollow screeched and staggered back.
Valen raised both arms. The fire leapt higher, spiraling into a vortex of destruction.
He moved like lightning—warping across the battlefield in pulses of heat and shadow. Each step left seared earth. Each strike evaporated flesh.
His voice deepened, distorted. A whisper bled from the back of his mind.
"More… give me more…"
Valen clenched his jaw. "Not now."
The fire blazed higher.
Ten Hollow fell.
Fifteen.
Finally, the last one crumbled to dust.
Silence.
Valen stood in the center of scorched earth, panting.
Kira watched him, wounded, her eyes wide.
"What was that?" she asked.
Valen didn't answer.
He looked at his hands—still burning. Still flickering.
And in the back of his skull, that voice… it was laughing.
⸻
They set up a temporary shelter in the ruins, tending to the wounded. Kira's leg was wrapped tight, her blood staunched. The others kept their distance from Valen—not out of fear, but uncertainty.
He sat alone on a broken slab of concrete, black flame dying down.
Kira limped over and dropped beside him.
"You saved us," she said.
Valen didn't respond.
"You unlocked something new again, didn't you?"
"It's not a gift," he said. "It's a leash."
"Still," she said, "we're alive because of you."
He looked at her finally. "Barely."
They sat in silence for a moment. Wind stirred the ashes.
Kira leaned back and exhaled. "So. What now?"
Valen stared into the dark horizon. "We go deeper."
"Seriously?"
"There's something under this road. I felt it."
Kira shook her head. "You're going to get yourself killed."
"I already did," Valen whispered.
Then he stood and looked back at the others—still watching him like they weren't sure if he was one of them anymore.
He didn't blame them.
He wasn't.
Not entirely.