Chapter 167 – Embers of Eternity

Kaela’s scream echoed through the fractured chamber, a raw and primal sound that sliced through the veil between worlds. The remnants of the Hollow’s domain twisted and writhed around her, unstable and imploding. Fractured timelines spiraled into one another, collapsing under the weight of what had just occurred. The relic blade trembled in her grasp, still pulsing with the energy of a forgotten age.

Ethan knelt beside her, drenched in sweat and shadows. The Hollow’s influence had not retreated entirely. It simmered beneath his skin, veins flickering with both molten gold and inky black. His chest heaved with labored breaths as if every inhale was a battle between who he was and what the Hollow wanted him to become.

"Kaela..." His voice cracked. The sound was human. Fragile. Hers.

She turned to him, brushing a hand over his cheek. "You're still here."

He nodded weakly, though his eyes flickered with residual darkness. “For now.”

All around them, the convergence fractured. Realities splintered like glass dropped from the heavens. Through each crack, they saw glimpses of what could have been—realms where the Hollow reigned unchecked, worlds where they had fallen, where hope never stirred.

Kaela stood, drawing Ethan up with her. Her grip was firm, not from desperation but from certainty. “Then we make this moment matter.”

In the distance, the Harbinger reassembled. Its form, once pristine and emotionless, now trembled with barely contained fury. The mirror-like surface of its face had cracked beyond recognition, revealing swirling black beneath—a void that devoured light.

“You think you’ve won?” it snarled. “You’ve severed one thread. The tapestry remains. The Hollow is the tapestry.”

Kaela narrowed her eyes. “Then we burn it all.”

The relic blade pulsed in agreement, resonating with Kaela’s rage and Ethan’s resolve. Together, they stepped toward the collapsing core—the heart of the Hollow’s influence. A place born from silence, shaped by sorrow, and fed through generations of despair.

As they neared, the landscape shifted. The chamber turned inside out, revealing a spiraling descent of floating stairways and memories suspended in crystalline fragments. They passed echoes of themselves—fighting, breaking, healing. In one vision, Kaela was consumed by the Hollow. In another, Ethan stood over her lifeless body.

They ignored the false futures.

They moved toward the source.

“I feel it,” Ethan muttered, voice distant. “It’s changing... adapting.”

Kaela stopped at the edge of a suspended platform. “Because it’s afraid.”

A tremor ran through the void. The Harbinger howled.

“You do not understand! You are not unraveling the Hollow. You are unraveling existence! This plane was forged in its breath, tempered in its hatred. Remove it—and all collapses!”

Ethan clenched his fists. “Maybe that’s the price.”

Kaela turned to him, fierce. “No. We’re not trading one collapse for another. We find another way.”

She looked toward the spiraling core. Its surface was a swirling mass of soul energy, light and dark spiraling in constant war. But beneath it, deeper still, she saw it:

The Seed.

It pulsed at the bottom of the convergence—a tiny sphere of golden flame, encased in black. The first spark of the Hollow. Its birth. Its weakness.

Kaela gripped the relic blade. “We’re going to the source.”

They descended into the depths. Each step sent waves of distortion across the spiral, causing the illusions to cry out, attempting to lure them off the path. One voice was her mother’s. Another, Ethan’s younger self. They resisted.

Closer now.

The Harbinger chased them, its broken form flaring with desperate energy. It hurled shards of mirror light, ripping time apart around them. Ethan threw up a hand, shielding them with a golden barrier that pulsed from his chest. The clash sent them sprawling onto the last platform.

Below them—the Seed.

Kaela reached into the air and called the blade back to her hand. It burned hotter than ever, thrumming like a heartbeat.

“We destroy it?” Ethan asked, his voice heavy.

She looked down. “No... we set it free.”

The Hollow was never meant to be a prison. It had once been a being of balance, a force of transition—until it was twisted by those who sought to control the unknown. The Seed still remembered what it had been. It only needed to be reminded.

Kaela closed her eyes and stepped off the ledge.

Ethan shouted her name.

She plunged through the void, wind and light roaring around her. Her blade extended forward, not as a weapon—but as a key.

She reached the Seed and placed the tip of the relic into its surface.

The world stopped.

Memoryscape: The First Flame

Kaela stood on a plain of nothingness. No sky. No ground. Only warmth. And in front of her—a child.

Golden eyes. Black skin rippling with stardust. A being not old, not young. Simply… eternal.

“Why do you want to end me?” the child asked.

“I don’t,” Kaela said. “I want to free you.”

The child tilted its head. “I was made to contain all that must not be. So others would not have to.”

“No one should carry that alone.”

The child looked at her hands, then reached out. “Then carry me.”

Kaela nodded.

Light erupted.

Ethan watched as the Seed erupted in gold and white, swallowing the void in its radiance. The Harbinger shrieked one last time before it was consumed.

Then—silence.

A breath of eternity.

Kaela floated upward, glowing like a star, eyes shut. Ethan caught her as she collapsed into his arms.

He whispered, “You did it.”

She opened her eyes. “We did it.”

All around them, the fragments of the Hollow began to dissolve. Not with violence—but peace. The convergence settled. The false realities stilled. The world beyond called.

They stood, hand in hand, staring into the dawn of something new.

But far below, unnoticed by either of them, a single fracture remained. A sliver of shadow.

And within it—a whisper.

“Balance must always be kept.”

Far away, in a place untouched by time, another pair of eyes opened.

And they remembered Kaela.

Remembered Ethan.

And they were not pleased.