Chapter 63 – Heart of the Hollow God

The air grew thick as Rin stepped into the inner sanctum of the Hollow God. The oppressive silence weighed heavily on his chest, pressing him deeper into the heart of a world long forgotten, a place of death where even the gods had perished. The sanctum was an expanse of endless stone, cracked and worn by the centuries, and it hummed with the remnants of a god's despair. It was a place forgotten by time, hidden in the shadow of a being who had once been worshipped, but now only echoed the hollow remnants of what it had once been.

In the center of the sanctum lay the Hollow God itself, its massive, skeletal form sprawled across the cold stone floor, its hollow eyes staring into infinity, forever searching for meaning but finding none. Its body was a warped and shattered mockery of a divine entity, its flesh charred, its bones blackened by a fire that had long since burned itself out. The god's once-mighty wings, grand enough to block out the sun, had withered into brittle, jagged shards, incapable of flight or defense. It was a being of profound sorrow, an eternal reminder of the perils of despair.

Rin stood in front of it, his shadow falling across the Hollow God, and despite the ancient aura of death that clung to this place, he felt no fear. There was nothing left in the god to fear. The Hollow God had already consumed itself.

The creature's hollow eyes shifted, and though no mouth opened, a voice echoed in Rin's mind, cold and empty, like the whisper of a long-dead dream.

"You have come."

Rin did not answer immediately. His gaze flicked to the massive, decayed heart at the center of the god's chest, suspended in an ethereal glow. It pulsed, as though it were still alive, but the beat was weak and erratic. The god's heart had long since ceased to function in any traditional sense—it was no longer the source of life, but of death.

"I offer you what you seek," the voice continued, reverberating in Rin's mind like the last gasps of a dying star. "Consume my heart. Take my Hollow Gift, and transcend death itself. Become one with me. Together, we will endure the endless void."

Rin's heart beat faster as he approached the Hollow God's heart. His gaze fixed on it, a swirling vortex of blackened tendrils and cracked bone, as though it were a living thing that had forgotten the very meaning of existence. It was an alluring power, one that promised the kind of immortality that Rin had once craved, the very thing he had sought in the beginning—freedom from the cycle of life and death.

But something in Rin's core stirred in warning. The power beckoned, but so did the truth.

The Hollow God's offer was a trap, one that threatened to bind his soul to its own endless despair. The heart before him was not a gift, but a prison. To consume it would be to become part of the god's hollow existence, a piece of its lost self, forever adrift in an ocean of unyielding sorrow and nothingness. The Hollow Gift was not transcendence—it was damnation.

"No," Rin finally said, his voice barely a whisper, but filled with conviction. "I will not become part of your void."

For a long moment, the god was silent. Rin could feel the weight of its unblinking gaze, as though the god was weighing his very soul. Then, the voice returned, but it was different now, tinged with a hint of something resembling sorrow—or perhaps regret.

"You would deny eternal peace? You are already a creature of death. I offer you a chance to never feel the sting of mortality again. To walk beyond the reaches of time and fate. Is this not what you sought?"

Rin's fingers tightened around the hilt of his sword. The Hollow God's words stung, but they did not sway him. He had walked this path, had faced death more times than he cared to count. The hollow existence this god offered was not a gift; it was a mockery of life, a never-ending void that gnawed at the soul, devouring hope, devouring meaning.

"I am not a god," Rin said, his voice steady now. "I refuse your offer."

The Hollow God let out a sigh—whether in defeat or something else, Rin couldn't say. But the tension in the air grew palpable, thick as the mists of the underworld. The god's form began to tremble, the air around it warping and distorting with the force of its will.

"Then, you are no different from the others," the god's voice echoed, raw and empty. "You are like the others who sought immortality but never understood the price. I am nothing but an empty shell now, my soul long consumed by my own sorrow."

Rin took a step forward. The god's words were a poison, but Rin knew better now. His path was not to be found in some hollow existence beyond death. No, he would walk the path of death itself and reshape it, not escape it. He would not trade his soul for the hollow eternity the god offered.

The Hollow God's body began to tremble with power, and Rin could feel it—the massive pull of its essence. The heart, glowing ever brighter, seemed to beckon him, urging him to consume it. Rin's mind buzzed with a dark temptation, but he stood firm. He would not succumb. Not now. Not ever.

Instead of yielding, Rin drew a deep breath, calling upon the power of his Death Core. He focused, gathering the energy into his hands. The raw force of the Death Dao swirled within him, his connection to death becoming a sharp, focused blade.

With a surge of power, Rin raised his hands and thrust them forward, tearing through the god's withering flesh. The air crackled with the sound of shattering bone, and the Hollow God's body crumpled as though it had never existed at all. The massive, decayed heart at the center of the god's chest pulsed one last time before it shattered into a thousand pieces, its essence spilling into the air like blackened mist.

The god's scream, a keening wail of loss, echoed through the sanctum as its form disintegrated into the ether. Rin stood at the center of the destruction, his breath steady as the god's essence swirled around him, drawn into his very being.

With a surge of power, Rin absorbed the Hollow Essence, feeling it fill him, knowing instantly that he had gained something far more potent than what the Hollow God had promised. It was the essence of a being who had transcended the need for a soul, a being who had embraced the emptiness that lay at the heart of death itself.

The knowledge flooded his mind in an instant, a torrent of forbidden wisdom. The Hollow Essence granted him the ability to manipulate the cycles of life and death, to draw upon the energy that bound the living and the dead, to control the very threads of existence itself. But Rin knew that this power was unstable, a temporary gift that could warp his mind if he were not careful. The more he used it, the more it threatened to consume him, to turn him into what the Hollow God had become: a being of nothingness, a shell of despair.

But for now, it was his. And it would serve him.

The sanctum was quiet now. The Hollow God was no more, its essence consumed and absorbed. Rin stood alone in the center of the ruins, feeling the weight of his new power settle over him like a cloak, heavy but invigorating.

Rin turned, the fragments of the Hollow God's essence swirling around him like a dark mist, and he walked out of the sanctum. The path ahead would be more treacherous than ever. He had gained power, but it was not without its price.

Power gained through external means was always a double-edged sword. It could give him the strength to break the heavens, but it could also break him in the process. Rin knew this. And he would learn to control it—or perish.

To be continued…