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Chapter 15 - THE HOLLOW MARCH

The path behind the trial chamber sloped downward, winding into a broad tunnel carved by hands far older than the flood. The air was dry, and the walls pulsed faintly with veins of dormant crystal. There were no torches. No carvings. Just silence, and the growing sound of something… marching.

Kalious and Malious moved cautiously, their relics now glowing faintly at their sides. The floor trembled in a steady rhythm, as if a great army walked somewhere beneath the earth.

They emerged into a vast cavern.

What they saw stole the breath from their lungs.

Beneath them, across a chasm of cracked stone, stretched an endless formation of dark figures, thousands, maybe tens of thousands. Shadow-forged warriors stood in perfect silence, armor like obsidian, spears like midnight lightning. Rows upon rows of hollow-eyed monsters that didn't breathe, didn't twitch, didn't live.

"They're waiting," Kalious whispered.

Malious's eyes narrowed. "No. They're hibernating."

At the center of the army stood a towering altar made of fused bone and black crystal. Upon it, a figure knelt in meditation, bare-chested, skin etched in shadow marks, head bowed like a statue. Though distant, Kalious felt it, felt him.

The man who had destroyed their tribe.

"He's not gone," Kalious said. "He's preparing."

A low pulse shook the chamber, resonating with the relics. The kneeling figure stirred. Not fully, just enough to send terror crawling up their spines.

Malious pulled Kalious back. "We can't fight this. Not yet."

"But if we leave..."

"We don't leave," Malious said. "We warn. We train. We gather whoever is left who still remembers the righteous sovereign way. Then we end this."

Kalious nodded slowly. "We too, will march then."

"Yes," Malious said, stepping away from the edge. "But not hollow."

They turned back the way they came.

Behind them, the army slept.

But not for long.

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