The sky over Sector 9 was the color of bruised ash.
Ezra and Rei stood at the mouth of the old Queensline Station, just a mile from where her stolen map chip had marked the anomaly. The tracks had long since decayed, eaten by rust and time, but the tunnel entrance still gaped like a mouth waiting to swallow them.
Rei tightened her grip on her makeshift weapon — a repurposed plasma scalpel duct-taped to a kitchen knife.
"You sure about this?" she asked.
Ezra didn't answer. He stared at the swirling red mist rising from the opening ahead, his breath fogging lightly in the late dusk air.
[UNREGISTERED GATE DETECTED]
Gate Designation: 17-B (OFF-GRID)
Status: Unstable – Estimated Collapse in 2 Hours, 47 Minutes
Threat Level: Unknown
Entry Limit: 2 Participants – Group Entry Locked
WARNING: This Gate is unranked and unregulated. Proceed at your own risk.
Ezra stepped forward.
Rei blinked. "Wait—are we not gonna talk strategy?"
He paused. "Survive."
"That's not a plan, that's a wish."
The Bone Rat clicked its teeth in annoyance and darted into the mist ahead of them.
Rei muttered, "Great. Now even the pet thinks we're insane."
They crossed the threshold.
The world bent sideways.
It wasn't like the shift you feel walking through a normal Gate — the kind most Awakened brag about on streams, where you step into a dungeon made of fire or jungle or ruin.
This was… wrong.
Colors twisted. Time slowed.
Ezra felt his skin tighten, like his bones didn't quite fit anymore. For a moment, it was like the world was trying to reject him.
Then:
[Gate Entry: Successful]
The mist cleared.
They stood in the middle of what looked like an abandoned subway terminal — but it had been altered. Walls shimmered, etched with glowing red glyphs that bled light like ink in water. The ceiling dripped slow-motion droplets from stalactites that hadn't been there a second ago.
It was a fractured dungeon, a hybrid — part urban ruin, part corruption.
Ezra crouched and touched the cracked tile.
[Undead Signature Detected – High Concentration]
[Unstable Necrotic Field: 34% Saturation]
The Bone Rat hissed.
"I don't like this," Rei whispered, gripping her weapon tighter. "Feels… familiar. Like fever dreams."
Ezra looked around. His system pinged again.
Objective: Investigate the Source of the Distortion
Optional Objective: Locate the Hollow Signal
"Hollow Signal?" Rei echoed, reading over his shoulder. "What the hell does that mean?"
"Let's find out."
They moved through the station slowly, weaving between derailed trains and skeletal remains. Some were human. Others… weren't. Twisted forms. Elongated skulls. Fused limbs. A failed evolution of undead?
No — not failed.
Prototype.
They found the first threat near the shattered ticketing booth.
A Gate Echo — a humanoid undead covered in cracked black armor, empty sockets burning with red light. It twitched like a marionette, dragging a rusted axe behind it.
Ezra didn't wait for it to strike.
[Skill Activated: Mark Prey]
[Command: Bone Armament]
His forearm extended into a jagged bone blade as his undead surged forward. He had summoned two earlier — a Ghoul and a Skeleton Guard. They obeyed without hesitation.
The fight was brief but brutal.
The Echo was fast, swinging its axe with unnatural precision. It cleaved the Ghoul's leg off and slammed Ezra into a bench hard enough to bruise his ribs.
But Rei came from behind, driving her plasma-knife into the thing's spine.
Sparks. Crackling heat.
Ezra lunged and drove his bone blade through its skull.
The creature fell, its armor evaporating into smoke.
[EXP Gained: 89]
[Loot: Fractured Core – Unstable]
[Skill Fragment Detected: "Soul Siphon" (Locked)]
Ezra stared at the new message.
[You have encountered a Hollow Fragment]
Soul Slot 1 – Ready for Binding. Insert Fragment?
He hesitated.
"Do it," Rei said. "Whatever this place is… it's testing you."
Ezra exhaled and accepted.
[Binding… Success.]
Soul Slot 1: Soul Siphon (Lv. 1)
(Convert damage dealt by undead into health regeneration for the summoner.)
He staggered slightly as energy surged through his limbs. The Bone Rat clicked approvingly.
Rei smirked. "Well. That's definitely not normal."
Ezra's voice was steady. "Nothing about me is."
They continued downward.
The tunnels curved into impossible angles. Reality rippled. At one point, they passed what looked like a floating train car suspended in air by chains of light.
Ezra felt his system vibrate again.
[WARNING: Hollow Signal Approaching]
Source: 47 Meters Ahead. Prepare for Hostile Entity.
"Whatever it is," Rei muttered, "we're about to meet the landlord."
Ezra summoned a new undead from the shadows — a Wailing Skull, low-tier, but useful for distractions.
They crossed into a vast open chamber at the heart of the Gate.
It was… wrong.
At the center stood a pulsing obsidian obelisk, jagged and breathing with each beat of mana. Floating above it was a creature that didn't have a name.
It resembled a cloaked figure made of smoke and bone. Its eyes were just pinholes of white. Its voice was static and sorrow and thunder all at once.
[HOLLOW HOST DETECTED]
Entity Class: Aberrant
Title: The Mourner
Rank: C (Suppressed)
Warning: Binding Attempt Detected – Source Conflict Identified.
Ezra didn't understand the message — not fully.
But he knew one thing: it wanted him.
The creature's voice slammed into his mind like a hammer.
"YOU. SHOULD. NOT. EXIST."
Ezra stumbled backward. Rei clutched her ears, bleeding from the nose.
[Soul Slot 1 Resists Interference: Weak Success]
The Bone Rat screeched and leapt forward.
The battle began.
Ezra's summons charged. The Mourner retaliated with tendrils of void magic, lashing through the skeletons like paper. His Ghoul exploded in black fire.
Ezra snarled, casting Bone Armament and launching a flurry of strikes to distract the entity while his Wailing Skull triggered its scream.
[Soul Siphon Activated – +14 HP]
It wasn't enough. He was still losing.
"Rei!" he yelled.
She was scrambling to the far side of the chamber, dragging wires from the Gate's obelisk.
"I think I can force it into collapse!" she screamed back. "But you'll have to hold it for thirty seconds!"
"Do it!"
Ezra grit his teeth.
Everything hurt.
But something inside him cracked again. Not pain. Not power.
Resolve.
He lunged forward, his blade burying deep into the Mourner's core.
It screamed — a sound like broken memories.
Rei twisted the wires.
Light shattered.
The Gate began to fold.
[GATE COLLAPSE INITIATED – ESCAPE NOW]
Ezra grabbed Rei's wrist.
They ran.
Behind them, the creature howled as the chamber folded inward like a dying star.
They dove through the exit as the Gate imploded in a blast of light and bone-shattering pressure.
They hit the street coughing, gasping, barely alive.
The Bone Rat rolled out after them, slightly singed but intact.
The Gate vanished.
So did the Mourner.
Ezra collapsed to one knee.
[Gate Cleared: Rank Evaluation – Incomplete]
[System Note: You are being watched.]
He looked up at Rei, who was bleeding from a dozen cuts, but grinning like she'd just robbed a god.
"You," she gasped, "are either the luckiest son of a bitch I've ever met… or the most cursed."
Ezra smiled faintly. "Why not both?"
Rei sat down beside him.
"Ezra…"
He turned.
"That thing said you shouldn't exist. That Gate wasn't just off-grid. It was for you. What are you?"
He stared at his trembling hands.
"I don't know."
But deep in his core, where the Soul Slot burned with new power, where the name Hollowborn had begun to whisper faintly through the system like static…
…he was starting to get an idea.