Chapter 8: The Last Shred of Humanity
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The city was already dead.
It just didn't know it yet.
The sky hung open like a bleeding wound, the thing beyond it pressing closer—formless, vast, waiting.
The Hollowed Ones had become something worse.
And I?
I was no longer Ren.
But I wasn't fully gone.
Not yet.
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The man was still there.
Still breathing. Still trying.
I could hear his heartbeat—fast, erratic. The pulse of something alive.
I stared at him, feeling the weight of a choice I wasn't sure I could still make.
The presence above whispered to me again.
"Let it go."
"Let him go."
"You are not one of them anymore."
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A crack ripped through the street beneath us.
Not a normal crack.
Not something made of stone or asphalt.
It was deeper than that.
Like the world itself was breaking.
And through that wound in reality, they crawled out.
Not Hollowed Ones.
Not anything that had ever existed before.
They were the next step.
Born from me.
Born from this thing inside me.
Limbs bent at unnatural angles. Mouths where there shouldn't be mouths.
They knew me.
Because I had made them.
And they were waiting for my command.
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The man's voice was shaking.
"Ren."
I looked at him.
Not out of recognition. Not out of instinct.
But because of something else.
Something I shouldn't have still felt.
He stepped forward, his hands curled into fists.
"You can fight this."
His words felt distant.
Like something from another lifetime.
Because he didn't understand.
I wasn't being controlled.
I wasn't being forced.
I was choosing this.
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The Hollowed Things turned their heads in unison, waiting for my will.
One thought, and they would consume him.
Erase the last thing tethering me to what I once was.
My fingers twitched. My breath felt unnatural.
Because something inside me still hesitated.
A whisper—not from the presence above.
From something smaller.
Weaker.
But real.
"Is this really what you want?"
I didn't know.
And that terrified me.
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The city trembled again.
A new force was arriving.
Something different. Something fighting back.
Blinding white light erupted from the sky, carving through the void above like a blade.
For the first time, the presence recoiled.
And I felt it—
The weight of another will.
Not human.
Not divine.
But something that refused to let this happen.
The man stepped back, staring at the sky.
His breath hitched.
"They found us."
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The Hollowing had spread too far.
The world had noticed.
And now?
It was about to strike back.
TO BE CONTINUED…