Chapter 4: Whispers of the Hollow
The trees swallowed the light.
Aelric's boots crunched over untouched snow as he followed Rhea down the narrow trail. The sun, weak and pale, barely filtered through the skeletal branches. What little warmth it offered disappeared the moment they passed the boundary stones.
Behind them, the forest had been just that — quiet, grim, but still obeying nature's rules.
Here, beyond the Frost Hollow's edge…
The air shifted.
The silence wasn't natural. It was heavy. Watchful.
The path wound deeper between the trees. Pines twisted into unfamiliar shapes, bark warped, branches hanging low like withered arms. Ice clung to every surface, glistening like glass, but it wasn't cold enough for that.
Rhea slowed, eyes wary, one hand brushing the hilt of the knife at her belt. "Stay sharp," she murmured.
Aelric didn't reply. His System whispered softly at the edges of his mind.
[Environmental Disturbance: Reality Distortion — Minor.][Cognitive Hazard Potential: Moderate.][System Growth Opportunity: Detected.]
The same as before — but stronger now. The System wasn't fully integrated yet, fractured from his arrival in this world… but its instincts were sharp. It tasted power nearby.
And danger.
A faint sound drifted through the trees — laughter.
Soft. Sweet.
Utterly wrong.
Aelric's eyes narrowed. Rhea froze beside him, shoulders tense.
"You hear that?" she whispered.
He nodded once.
The laughter faded. Silence rushed back in, thick as fog.
Aelric's fingers brushed the phoenix-feather token under his cloak, the old charm warm against his skin. It wasn't magical, not in any immediate, active sense — but the wards carved into it… they held weight.
The Hollow respected old things.
As they pressed on, the forest grew stranger. Snow blanketed the ground, but no animal tracks marked its surface. The trees creaked softly, but there was no wind. Shadows stretched where they shouldn't, coiling unnaturally along the frozen earth.
And then they found the footprints.
Human. Small. Light.
Leading off the path, vanishing between the trees.
Rhea crouched, inspecting them. Her expression tightened. "Lyra," she muttered.
Aelric crouched beside her. The tracks were fresh. Not even half a day old.
"Could be bait," he pointed out quietly.
Rhea's jaw flexed, but she nodded. She wasn't naive.
The laughter returned — softer this time, almost beneath hearing, carried by the still air like perfume.
Aelric straightened, eyes scanning the twisted woods.
The footprints were real. The laughter… less so.
The System pulsed.
[Cognitive Manipulation Active — Resist Check: Passed.]
Good. He still had control.
Ahead, the snow parted slightly, revealing a clearing — ringed by bent trees and brittle undergrowth. At the center stood a shape.
A figure.
For a moment, Aelric's heart paused. It looked human — slight, cloaked, pale hair visible beneath a hood.
Lyra?
Rhea exhaled, starting forward — but Aelric's hand shot out, stopping her.
"Wait."
His eyes narrowed. The figure wasn't… right. It was too still. The snow around it unbroken. No tracks leading in or out.
And its shadow… stretched the wrong way.
The System whispered again.
[Entity Scan: Incomplete. Classification: Non-Human. Threat Level: Unknown.]
Rhea tensed beside him, seeing it now. "What in the gods' names…"
The figure tilted its head — slow, unnatural — and for the briefest instant, its eyes glinted beneath the hood. Not human. Not wolf.
Something else.
"Oldblood?" Aelric guessed under his breath.
Rhea's face paled. "Worse."
The figure smiled — sharp, too wide — and faded like mist, vanishing into the trees.
The clearing was empty. But the Hollow wasn't.
It was watching.
And it had teeth.
Aelric straightened, eyes cold now, calculating. The Hollow wasn't just cursed. It was alive — with things that walked in shadows and whispered in voices not their own.
Perfect.
Because where danger bred…
So did power.
...
The clearing remained silent, but Aelric's instincts screamed otherwise.
Whatever that hooded thing had been, it wasn't gone. It was circling. Watching. Testing.
Predators did that. So did hunters.
Aelric had been both.
Rhea's hand hovered near her knife, her face pale, eyes wide. Her bravado was thinning — understandable. Most villagers had never faced anything worse than a starving wolf. This… this was older.
"Stay close," Aelric ordered quietly, scanning the treeline.
Rhea opened her mouth to argue — then thought better of it. She nodded, tension tightening her jaw.
The laughter returned — distant now, layered, like more than one voice. Sweet. Mocking.
The snow beside them shifted.
Aelric's eyes snapped down. The surface rippled — not from wind, but from something moving beneath it.
"Down!"
His shout was sharp, practiced. He shoved Rhea aside as the snow exploded upward.
A shape burst free — all twisted limbs, sinew, and fur that rippled like smoke. Its body was vaguely lupine, but wrong — too lean, limbs too long, teeth jagged like broken glass. Its eyes glowed faintly, a sickly amber.
A Hollow beast. Warped. Starved of sanity.
It lunged for Aelric.
His movements were clean. Efficient. He sidestepped, one boot driving into the snow-packed earth, twisting aside as claws slashed past him.
The System pulsed.
[Combat Encounter Initiated.][System Fragment: Combat Adaptation — Partial Activation.]
Aelric's vision sharpened. Time didn't slow — not truly — but his mind processed faster, lines of trajectory, weak points, muscle tension.
The beast whirled, slavering jaws snapping. Rhea scrambled back, drawing her knife, but her panic made her clumsy.
"Stay down," Aelric snapped.
The creature lunged again — faster this time.
Aelric didn't dodge. He met it.
He sidestepped just enough to avoid the teeth, grabbed its furred arm — wiry, rough — and drove his knee into its ribs. Bone cracked beneath the blow.
The beast howled, twisting, slashing wildly — claws grazing his shoulder. Fabric tore, but Aelric barely flinched.
Cold calculation ruled him now.
The System whispered again.
[Weak Point Identified.][Adaptive Counterstrike: 12% Efficiency Boost Available.]
Aelric's fingers found the creature's jaw — forcing it upward — and with a practiced, brutal movement, he drove his hunting knife into the exposed throat.
The beast gurgled, body spasming, warm blood spilling over the snow.
It collapsed, limbs twitching, as its body began to… unravel.
The fur and flesh hissed, dissolving into grey mist that bled into the snow. No corpse remained — just faint scorch marks in the ice and an acrid scent of magic.
Rhea stared, wide-eyed, chest heaving.
"What… what was—?"
"A Hollowspawn," Aelric interrupted calmly, wiping his blade on the snow. "Twisted animal. Half-magic, half-madness."
"And… you've fought those before?"
"Not exactly." His lips twitched faintly. "But I learn fast."
The System chimed softly.
[System Integration: Combat Adaptation - Partial Synchronization Achieved.][Skill Fragment Obtained: Predator's Insight (Uncommon).][Skill Effect: Temporarily highlights enemy weak points after brief observation.]
Good. It was beginning. Piece by piece, his System — fractured by reincarnation — was stitching itself together.
Rhea stood slowly, still rattled but steadying. "That… that thing… it came from the snow?"
Aelric nodded. "The Hollow's not just trees and whispers. It infects everything."
"And Lyra?"
"Could still be alive." He scanned the clearing, noting faint impressions leading deeper — not animal, not human. But recent.
The girl had gone that way. Or… something wearing her shape had.
Aelric's eyes narrowed, mind calculating. The Oldblood remnants, the Hollow beasts, the system's fragments… this forest wasn't a curse.
It was a crucible.
And he would walk through it.
For Lyra. For the fragments. For power.
But also… for the soft, flickering memory of the hopeless look in her mother's eyes.
Aelric wasn't a hero. But he was a man who kept his word.
And God's help, whatever got in his way.
"Come on," he said, adjusting his pack. "The Hollow's just getting started."
Rhea swallowed hard — but followed.
The snow closed behind them. The trees whispered.
And the hunt continued.