The chamber was eerily silent, the kind of silence that lived after violence—heavy, metallic, clinging to the back of the throat like cold iron. The air still smelled of M.A.W. rot and scorched circuitry. Akio stood in the center of it all, Dawn Hound cloak trailing faintly behind him, blade held loosely at his side.

  Shattered robot sentinels lay strewn across the floor in mangled piles—casing cracked open, metal limbs twisted at impossible angles. But woven among them were bodies. Researchers in white lab coats collapsed where they’d been standing minutes earlier. Their faces were frozen mid-scream, eyes wide in terror, as if even death had not been enough to release them from what they’d seen.

  Akio surveyed the carnage around him with clinical detachment.

  Lucent Sector uniforms, he noted, scanning the insignias with quiet precision. Government researchers. Mostly civilians.

  A few meters ahead, Gabriel worked at the central control terminal—Dusk Hound silhouette carved sharply against the flickering monitors. One gloved hand rested on the panel as red, circuit-like light unfurled from his fingertips, snaking through the damaged machinery like living code. His floating card constructs spun and reshaped themselves in the air—data inscriptions forming, erasing, rewriting—as if trying to stitch the truth back together.

  After several tense seconds, the glow snapped out.

  The cards collapsed into motes of crimson and vanished. Only one solidified fully—dropping neatly into Gabriel’s waiting hand like an SD card.

  “This is all that’s left,” he said quietly, holding it out. “Everything else was wiped.”

  Akio stepped forward and took it, the small piece of tech cold in his palm. He ran his thumb across its surface, letting his breath steady. Then the pale blue traces flickered to life—lines of light crawling along its outline as he activated his ability.

  A rush of images flooded him.

  He saw the facility hours earlier—sterile halls, humming consoles, researchers moving calmly through their work. Then a flash. A jagged blur of movement. Screams. Shadow cutting through white coats. The alarms blared. Lockdown doors slammed. Bodies fell. Camera feeds cracked with static—

  Black.

  Nothing else. The final seconds had been erased with surgical precision.

  Akio exhaled slowly as the last remnants of the memory dissolved. The glowing card in his hand folded in on itself, its edges bending like paper as it reshaped into the delicate outline of a feather. Its light turned soft, pale blue.

  He released it and the feather drifted upward behind him, hovering for a quiet beat before dissolving into dust-like light. A sign he had stored the data internally. No need for the physical copy.

  He turned to Gabriel and gave the smallest shake of his head.

  “It wasn’t a rogue M.A.W. creature,” Akio said quietly. “There’s no sign of anything breaking in or out.”

  Gabriel considered this quietly, then nodded.

  “Definitely not a creature,” he murmured. “This was a person. The erasure was far too precise to be natural… but everything’s rotting from the inside out.”

  Akio swept his gaze over the room again. The carnage was absolute but disturbingly exact. Thin arcs of black corrosion ran along metal casings, creeping tendrils that continued eating through the material even now. The same blackness streaked across the fallen researchers, marking them with a quiet, insidious decay.

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  Akio felt dread tighten beneath his ribs. He recognized the pattern. It wasn’t perfect, but close enough that his instincts screamed the truth.

  “It’s too similar to be a coincidence,” he said.

  Gabriel nodded once. The unspoken conclusion passed between them like a cold wind.

  This was the work of the Hollow.

  No one really knew what the Hollow was—not the Sentari, not the government, not even the vigilantes who had survived crossing paths with it. Rumors claimed it came from the deep strata beneath the earth, rising out of the domain where the M.A.W. festered. Some called it a harbinger. Others called it the will of destruction itself.

  People spoke of a masked silhouette clad in shifting shadow, cloaked in a darkness that moved like living ink. A curved scimitar of corrupted metal hung at its side—segments clicking into alignment like a spine. And on the right side of its mask, a singular red eye burned like a dying star.

  Wherever it went, the M.A.W. followed.

  Unlike Echo, who operated with strategy and ideology, the Hollow was… something else. Unpredictable. Abrupt. Silent. It struck without warning and disappeared without trace.

  Gabriel’s voice cut through his thoughts.

  “If it really was the Hollow,” he said, “we need to determine its motivation. It’s highly unlikely it’s working with anyone. So what is it after?”

  Akio shook his head. “Hard to say. But Echo wouldn’t be involved. The Hollow doesn’t care about ideology or systems. It goes after everyone, doesn’t matter who you are. No pattern. Just destruction.”

  Gabriel’s voice lowered. “Then we have to consider the possibility that it’s not personally motivated. Maybe it’s acting on the will of the M.A.W. itself.”

  Akio didn’t answer right away.

  He remembered every encounter they’d ever had with the Hollow. They had hunted it more than once, only to be beaten back or forced to retreat. One scratch from that infected weapon would have been the end.

  The Hollow fought like a beast, but what unnerved Akio most was that it wasn’t wild. It didn’t snarl, didn’t gloat, didn’t revel in destruction. It was silent—precise, efficient, calculated. A predator without noise. A storm without sound.

  And every time they faced it, Akio had never been able to tell why it fought. Only that it intended to leave nothing standing.

  He gripped his blade tighter. The weight of memory pressed against the edges of his thoughts.

  The last time the Hollow had appeared before vanishing had been that night with Aira. The image resurfaced sharply—the tunnels beneath the city, the shriek of cracking metal. The swarm of M.A.W. creatures spilling out of the dark like a living tide.

  At the center of it all had been that singular red eye, a masked figure wielding a scimitar of corrupted metal. A slash meant to kill. Aira’s blood on the ground.

  A moment Akio had never managed to forget.

  His stomach twisted sharply.

  “…You don’t think,” he murmured, voice dropping, “it’s after her. Do you?”

  The words felt sour on his tongue—fear and anger tangled together.

  “…To finish the job.”

  Gabriel didn’t answer immediately. He stood a few paces away, half lit by the flickering ceiling panels—still, unreadable, gaze lowered to the bodies as if processing something deeper than the surface details. But Akio knew that silence. Gabriel understood exactly what he was talking about.

  Akio exhaled shakily. Logically, it shouldn’t make sense. The Hollow didn’t operate on patterns. It didn’t have vendettas. It tore through anything in its path without pause or preference. There was no reason it would target her specifically.

  And yet…

  The thought clung to him like a burr. The Hollow had tried to kill her once. It could try again. And if it did—

  Gabriel stepped closer, cutting off the spiral before it could gather momentum. A firm hand landed on Akio’s shoulder, grounding him instantly.

  Through their private comm channel, Gabriel’s voice crackled softly—quiet, steady, protective.

  “If it comes down to it,” he said, “we’ll fight it off. We won’t let anything happen to her. I promise.”

  The certainty in his tone sank into Akio’s chest, easing the tight coil of dread just enough for him to breathe again. He nodded once, letting the reassurance settle where fear had been clawing.

  “…Yeah,” Akio replied softly. “You’re right.”

  He forced his mind back into order, letting that cool, ruthless focus take over. Three years had passed since the Hollow was last active. Anything could have changed in that time. Nothing about the limited evidence they had pointed toward a personal motive. Speculation was dangerous. Emotion even more so.

  He slid his blade back into position, the glow stabilizing along its spine.

  “Let’s keep moving.”

  Gabriel nodded, falling into step beside him. Together they disappeared into the dim corridor ahead, cloaks brushing against the debris strewn floor, their silhouettes swallowed by the sterile, humming dark of the deeper facility.

  But as they moved, Akio couldn’t quite silence the small, stubborn part of himself that refused to let go of the fear.

  Because the Hollow didn’t follow rules. And if it had returned now, he couldn’t shake the uneasy whisper in the back of his mind.

  That somehow, impossibly…

  It might be connected to her.

  ─ ? NEXT CHAPTER POV ? ─

  Damien

  Dark steampunk fantasy

  The world of Rohana exists beneath a barrier of luminous crosses that has enclosed humanity in a dome. Within it, people bow to Rohai and his Church of Harmony, who have divided the world into city dwellers who harness crystal technology and villagers who reject it.

  Haran Baratti fled his homeland with his infant son, Heron, and found refuge in a remote village in a neighboring country. But the sanctuary they seek does not last, and events revolving around Haran's past leave Heron alone, forcing him to return to his father's homeland. But to get there, he can only do it by obtaining a special passport, which will allow him to travel to different kingdoms.

  Having been raised in a different culture, Heron will have to navigate a world of mechanical cities powered by crystalline powers and governed by various social structures. There he'll meet allies and face dangerous foes. And those whom he encounters have secrets; some of them, if revealed to the public, may reshape the very foundations of the Rohana Federation. Will Heron, in learning those secrets, realize that maybe some of those secrets should have stayed buried?

  What to expect:

  ? Dark steampunk-inspired power fantasy with extensive world-building

  ? Magic systems where power comes at a psychological cost

  ? Visceral, well-choreographed combat sequences

  ? Mysteries that unfold across multiple volumes

  ? Steampunk aesthetics merged with elemental magic

  ? Stories where the actors are often found in morally grey areas