Chapter 7 – The Flight Against the Hollow Herald
The jungle held its breath.
Above the broken Vault, beneath a sky veined with unnatural light, the Herald of the Hollow stood — tall, gaunt, faceless, and cloaked in layers of torn scripture. It had no eyes, yet it stared. It had no mouth, yet the air screamed.
Chains of divine glyphs coiled around its limbs like cursed mantras etched into ash.
"That's not a messenger," Luv muttered, thunder crawling over his arms. "That's a warning."
The atmosphere bent. A shimmer passed through the ruined clearing as if the world itself was blinking.
Around them, the chanting husks of Hollow cultists began ripping their mouths open, whispering sounds not meant for mortal tongues. Their words came out backward, stitched with pain and absence.
The Herald lifted its hand—
—And the world went silent.
Not "quiet." Not "still."
Silent.
Sound itself died.
The rain stopped making noise. The hum of thunder dimmed into nothing. Even breathing made no sound. It was as if reality had turned off the concept of auditory existence.
"It's sealing us," Astha realized. "Cutting us off from the world's memory."
The Herald moved—without motion. A ripple of black scripture chased its feet as it glided forward. The cultists knelt like broken puppets.
The sigils it left behind began forming a dome of silence—a battlefield locked from gods, fate, and even death.
---
Luv struck first.
"Thunder Wrath!"
No voice came out, but the storm still answered. Lightning burst from his arms as he dashed, leapt, then drove a bolt straight at the Herald's chest.
It struck the center mass—
—but the Herald's body shattered like smoke, dispersing and reforming behind Luv in a whisper of cursed wind.
Before Luv could react, a cold hand touched his spine.
A symbol seared into him.
Luv collapsed, eyes wide, lightning flickering as the glyph of silence burned across his back.
---
Astha moved.
Smritidhaara lashed out, a serpent of flame and memory, wrapping around the Herald's right arm. The moment it made contact, embers exploded — not physical fire, but memory-born wrath.
The Herald twitched. Its arm began to rot, screaming without voice as it was force-fed the forgotten screams of those it erased.
"You don't get to erase him," Astha hissed, leaping forward.
Kālaratri appeared, summoned in a blink of memory-fire — the black-red blade glowing with celestial resentment.
One slash.
Then two.
Then three, each cutting deeper through the silence-dome, creating fractures in the stillness.
But then—
The Herald snapped its fingers.
The corpses of Hollow cultists all around them twitched—
Then rose.
Eyes empty. Mouths stitched shut again.
"A memoryless army," Astha whispered. "He's binding them to the silence."
---
Luv rose, pain searing across his spine, the silence glyph cracking with every heartbeat. He held one arm behind him and spun in place—
"Vajra Spiral Kick!"
A shockwave erupted. Five hollow-bodies disintegrated in an instant. The thunderstorm returned, faint but growing.
Astha nodded.
They moved as one.
Kālaratri danced in Astha's hands, carving cultists into ash. Smritidhaara burned the ones that refused to fall — its flames eating memory, branding the battlefield with names the gods tried to destroy.
Luv zigzagged between strikes, lightning crackling as he slammed his fists into the risen dead, eyes glowing like the storm within.
The Herald of the Hollow lifted both hands.
Scripture glowed in the sky — forming symbols from a language even the gods had forbidden. The characters twisted, inverted, and set the air on fire.
The dome of silence collapsed inward, suffocating every sound again—
Except one.
Astha's voice cut through like a blade:
"You erased their names."
His body glowed with burning sigils.
"Now remember mine."
He pulled Smritidhaara back, wrapping it fully around his right arm.
Then, with both hands, he lifted Kālaratri high and struck directly across the Herald's mask.
CRACK.
It shattered—not fully, but enough.
Black light bled from the fracture.
The Herald reeled, screaming — and this time, they heard it.
The silence finally broke.
---
The air collapsed back into sound.
The wind screamed. Trees cracked. Thunder howled.
The Herald hissed like torn fabric, its form unraveling at the seams. Then it faded—vanishing into mantra smoke and sigils—its fractured mask fragment dropping onto the stone.
The cultists collapsed.
Silence ended.
But the tension did not.
---
Astha stood motionless. Kālaratri lowered, Smritidhaara burning faintly.
Luv limped over, spine still branded.
"We didn't kill it," he said.
"Just hurt it enough to run."
Astha knelt and picked up the mask fragment.
Inside the broken mantra-sigil, a second message appeared — glowing faintly like a wound that wouldn't heal.
"The Temple awakens.
The Hollow does not kneel."
He clenched his fist.
"Then we'll burn the temple," Astha said.
"And the Hollow with it."