The choice tore at Damian's soul like physical pain. As they gathered the necessary ritual components—silver wire blessed under dying stars, crystals that hummed with temporal energy,herbs that grew only in the spaces between heartbeats—each item felt like a potential weapon turned against his own heart.
As they prepared to leave, Damian lingered over the forbidden texts. Cold draft snaked around his ankles, and for a moment, the ancient bones underfoot seemed to shiver. Something was watching from the shadows between stacks, aware that knowledge was being stolen.
He pocketed the second text, the choice burning in his hand like stolen fire. This one described how anchors could voluntarily strengthen the bond instead of severing it, embracing cosmic connection despite knowing the cost. The cryptic inscription along its edge made his skin crawl with recognition:
Love is a key that opens all locks, but some doors should never be opened.
Some had been consumed entirely, their mortal forms unable to contain infinite energy. But others—rare, precious others—had achieved something unprecedented. They had become bridges between realms, beings who existed in multiple states simultaneously, love made manifest in defiance of universal law.
If their bond was destroying them both, perhaps the answer wasn't to fight it but to surrender completely.
That night, Varos erupted in coordinated chaos that made the previous Hollow attacks look like random violence. The creatures surged through the streets in unprecedented numbers, but these weren't the shambling, directionless remnants Damianhad seen before. These Hollows moved with purpose, targeting specific locations and individuals with strategic intent.
Someone was directing them. Someone was turning the city's victims into weapons.
Damian fought to protect the refugees who had gathered near his clinic, people who had nowhere else to go when the boundary between life and death began to collapse. Their terrified voices created a cacophony of fear as reality warped around them.
Buildings flickered between states—new and ancient, whole and ruined, existing and not. A woman aged fifty years in seconds, then snapped back to childhood, screaming as her memories scattered like leaves. Clocks melted into temporal puddles that reflected moments from past and future simultaneously.
But Damian's magical abilities were spiraling beyond his control, corrupted by the temporal distortions affecting the entire city. The absorbed pain he usually channeled defensively became aggressive, lashing out at anything nearby regardless of whether it posed a threat. Dark energy sparked from his fingertips like poisonous lightning.
The first wave of Hollows approached from the east, their footsteps creating an irregular rhythm that spoke of souls fractured beyond repair. Damian counted at least a dozen distinct sets of movement, their breathing ragged and uneven as they shuffled through the temporal chaos.
“Get behind me,” he called to the refugees, extending his staff to its full length. The carved wood hummed with defensive enchantments, but even those felt unstable in the chaotic magical field surrounding them.
The lead Hollow moved with the jerky unpredictability of something that had forgotten how bodies were supposed towork. When it spoke, its voice carried the hollow echo of someone whose soul had been carved away piece by piece.
“Cold... so cold...” it moaned, its breath creating frost in the suddenly frigid air. “Need warmth... need to stop the emptiness...”
These weren't coordinated attackers—they were desperate remnants drawn to the clinic by the warmth of life and healing it represented. Their partially-extracted souls craved the comfort Damian's presence offered, but their fractured minds couldn't distinguish between gentle healing and violent consumption.
The lead Hollow lunged with clumsy desperation, its movements driven by need rather than malice. Ice-cold fingers reached for Damian's face, seeking the warmth that might fill the terrible void where its soul had been. He heard the whistle of displaced air, felt the temperature drop so fast his breath turned to mist.
Damian swept his staff in a defensive arc, catching the creature across the chest. The impact sent it staggering backward, but its desperate hunger drove it forward again almost immediately. These weren't enemies to be defeated—they were victims to be saved.
“I can't touch them safely,” Damian called out, feeling the dark energy crackling around his hands. “The temporal distortions are making my Paincraft unstable!”
More Hollows pressed forward, their movements becoming more agitated as they sensed the magical chaos radiating from him. They moaned and wailed, not from aggression but from the terrible awareness that the very thing they sought might destroy them.
“Get back!” he shouted to the huddled refugees, feeling the dark energy building in his hands like poisonous fire. “I can't control it!”
The corrupted magic sparked from his fingertips in wild arcs, seeking any target nearby. One bolt struck a wooden crate, reducing it to splinters in seconds. Another carved a smoking furrow in the stone wall of his clinic, leaving behind glass-smooth channels that glowed with residual heat.
A Hollow materialized from the shadows beside him, its frozen claws reaching not to attack but to embrace, desperate for any contact with living warmth. Its touch would have frozen his blood in seconds, but the creature moved with the tragic gentleness of someone trying not to hurt what they needed most.
Just as the creature's touch would have drained the life from his body, Cael appeared with devastating force. Not manifestation—arrival. He moved through the physical world like it was built specifically for his use, cosmic power flowing through him like visible starlight.
The Hollow reaching for Damian simply found peace. Cael's touch didn't destroy or banish—it completed the soul-journey that had been interrupted by temporal extraction. The creature's agonized expression softened into gratitude as its consciousness finally crossed the threshold it had been trapped beside.
“Together,” Cael said, his voice carrying harmonics that made reality itself resonate. “They're not enemies—they're lost souls seeking rest.”
The moment their hands touched, Damian felt his chaotic power stabilize. The wild arcs of destructive energy flowing from his fingertips found proper channels, guided by Cael's cosmic authority into forms that could heal rather than harm. The poisonous lightning became threads of golden light that wove protective barriers around the cowering refugees.
Together, they moved in synchronization that felt like music made visible. Cael's otherworldly energy and Damian's earthbound magic flowed together seamlessly, each complementing the other's strengths and compensating forweaknesses. The connection between them transformed what should have been combat into a mass healing.
Damian could feel Cael's presence in his mind, not intruding but supporting, lending him cosmic perception that let him understand each Hollow's particular torment. Through their bond, he could sense what fragments of soul remained, could feel the specific wounds that trapped them between life and death.
A group of five Hollows approached with shuffling steps, their movements synchronized not by malevolent control but by shared desperation. They reached out with hands that trailed frost, seeking the warmth of living souls but unable to touch without destroying what they craved.
