The weapon fell with a silence that devoured the void. Kaelus's true form—once a being of unimaginable power, now emptied of all essence—collapsed upon the fractured ground, the echoes of his sacrifice settling like dust across infinity. The chains that had bound her loosened, and the Hollow Dagger felt it first in the absence: the invisible tendrils holding her in place frayed and dissolved, as though the air itself recognized the moment of liberation.
She fell to her knees, not from exhaustion, not from gravity, but from the sudden weight of freedom she had never known. Her body trembled, a fragile vessel unaccustomed to its own life. The void around her shimmered with a silence that was not empty, but watchful, like the universe itself had paused to witness the first heartbeat of a being who should not have lived for herself.
She lifted her hands. Fingers curled, uncurling, as if testing the texture of her own flesh for the first time. Power surged beneath her skin, raw and unrestrained, as if centuries of imprisonment had condensed into a single, scorching pulse. The ancient essence of Kaelus now flowed within her. Not his mind, not his thoughts—only his core, the rhythm of his being, the fragment of divinity he had poured into her veins.
The sensation was violent. A storm trapped in her chest, a river that had waited eons to break its banks. She trembled, but she did not cry. She could not; tears were still foreign, an unclaimed language. Still, somewhere deep, something quivered. A single beat of recognition, a spark she could neither name nor ignore.
Her eyes, hidden behind the shadow of her hood, flickered with reflections of the void itself. Stars bent unnaturally as the air around her rippled. The Hollow Dagger had wielded death, had been an instrument, had been nothing—and yet now she was something entirely new, something unstable, something alive.
She rose, but each movement tore through her, as if the body that had been built for obedience was suddenly tasked with housing creation itself. The air bent with the intensity of her aura; whispers of power, almost sentient, brushed against her mind. She flinched at each one, every pulse a reminder of the unmeasured weight she had inherited.
It was not mastery she felt. It was the terrible, intoxicating reality of her inheritance.
She staggered forward, each step leaving the void trembling beneath her. Colors unseen by mortal eyes exploded across the endless black, and the faintest echo of the ancient divine language Kaelus had chanted in his final moments lingered in the air, wrapping around her like a protective cocoon. "Vayriath… Selun'khar… Kalythar…"
Her lungs, long unused, drew the void itself into her chest. The rhythm of Kaelus's heart—no longer his, now hers—beat in tandem with hers, a foreign harmony that made her ache with an alien longing. She knew, instinctively, that the power would overwhelm her if she did not claim it carefully. But claiming it felt like grasping the sun, like holding a storm in her palms, and her body screamed against it.
A tremor ran down her spine. The chains that had once restrained her were gone, yet her mind was still shackled by disbelief. She had been a puppet. She had been a weapon. She had been nothing. And yet now she was something, more than she had ever allowed herself to imagine. Her chest heaved as raw energy coursed through her veins, threatening to tear the very skin from her bones.
And then, just for a fraction of a heartbeat, the echoes of faces long gone brushed the corners of her mind. Not memories she fully possessed—fragments, only glimpses—but enough to unnerve her. Kaelus, Seraphine, the Spirit Realm, the cries and laughter, the love she had never truly understood… all collided inside her skull, and she staggered under the weight of having lived without life.
She collapsed forward onto the void's surface, her hands scraping against a ground that felt both solid and liquid, as if reality itself was testing her grip. Her vision blurred. Stars spun. Colors screamed. And then a small, almost imperceptible warmth coalesced in her chest. Not her own. Not entirely. But a spark, a reminder of Kaelus's last embrace, a whisper of the father who had given everything so she could carry herself.
She clutched at her chest, not from pain but from the raw intensity of the inheritance. Every ounce of Kaelus's power tried to find harmony with the body he had left behind. She screamed internally, not aloud—her throat had never learned the language of emotion. And yet something inside her body began to hum, a resonance of power, a song she could not name, but felt in every nerve.
The void rippled as if acknowledging her presence. Time, still frozen in the outside world, waited patiently. The ritual below, the kingdoms beyond, all remained paused, their movements trapped in the threads of destiny that she had yet to touch. Here, in this dark cradle of creation and abandonment, she faced only herself—and the pulse of the father who had loved her enough to give everything.
And then, ever so slowly, she tested her newfound limits. She extended her hands, and the very air screamed in response. Energy surged outward, not with the force of destruction, but with the raw assertion of existence. The ground beneath shivered. The void stretched and contracted with her movements. She felt it: the power was hers, and it was terrifying. And yet, terrifyingly, it was beautiful.
She sank to her knees again, clutching at the energy that threatened to tear her apart. It was too much. Too fast. Too vast. The ancient being's essence, compressed into her mortal frame, was overwhelming, and she realized for the first time that power without mastery could be a torment equal to death.
Tears—or something like them—hovered on her eyelashes, refusing to fall. She would not cry. She could not. But her body recognized the weight of grief, the burden of inheritance, the unbearable beauty of what had been given.
The air vibrated with the faintest whisper of Kaelus's voice, woven into the divine language: "My daughter… my precious child… carry it well… carry it true…"
A sob, silent and private, trembled in the depth of her soul. She had no name, only the title she had carried for centuries: Hollow Dagger. And yet, for the first time, she understood the depth of what she had lost, what had been given, and what she might yet become.
The void itself seemed to stretch into infinity as she took tentative steps forward, her body pulsing with energy that had never known restraint. Light flared around her hands, then her arms, then her chest, until it seemed as though she were a sun trapped in mortal flesh. The sensation was overwhelming, intoxicating, frightening. And still, she moved, because she had no other choice but to be.
Every step she took was a test, a negotiation with the power she had inherited. Her body strained against it. Her mind fought against disbelief. Her heart—what remained of it—throbbed with a foreign rhythm that whispered of Kaelus's final act, the legacy he had embedded in her.
For the first time, the Hollow Dagger realized the terrifying paradox of her existence: she was whole, yet incomplete; powerful, yet fragile; alive, yet bound by the echoes of her past obedience. And in that realization, a fragment of freedom bloomed inside her. Not total, not yet, but enough.
She staggered to a halt and knelt in the center of the void, letting the energy swirl around her like a storm caught in a glass jar. Her body shivered violently, but she did not fall. She could feel every pulse of the power coursing through her. Every fragment of Kaelus's essence now part of her being. Every ounce of raw creation that had once been a father's heart now lived inside a vessel forged by centuries of suffering.
Her breath came in shallow, ragged waves, yet for the first time, she breathed for herself. She did not think of orders. She did not think of kings, or kingdoms, or wars. She only existed.
And then, a final tremor. The chains that had held her—the chains that had made her a weapon, a puppet—shattered completely. The void pulsed, acknowledging her emergence, and for the first time, she understood that she had a choice.
Not yet of vengeance, not yet of memory. Only the raw, terrifying freedom of a body that could wield infinite power, and a soul that was waking from centuries of silence.
Her head drooped slightly, and she let herself collapse onto the void floor—not from weakness, but from the sheer, exquisite weight of existence. She closed her eyes. A single tear fell, not claimed, not understood, but felt. And in that silent moment, the universe held its breath with her.
The ground quivered beneath her, though no one else in the world saw it. The ritual below continued, the kingdoms waited, frozen in time, and yet here, in this pocket of infinity, a single being had awoken. A Hollow Dagger, now more than weapon. A vessel of power. A spark of life that carried within it the essence of a father who had loved too much, and a destiny too vast for mortal comprehension.
And as she sank into the stillness, letting her energy settle around her like a storm reluctantly giving way to calm, she felt it—the first whisper of herself, fragile and trembling, but unmistakable. She was alive.
Time would move again. Soon, the world would begin to turn. And she, though hollow in name, carried within her the heartbeat of an ancient being, a legacy of sacrifice, and the terrifying potential of unrestrained power.
But for now, she remained in the void. Alone. Trembling. And free.
Her journey, truly, had only begun.