The horn blast rolled down the spiraling tunnel like thunder dragged through a grave.
Kael's blood iced.
He staggered to his feet, chest heaving, still reeling from the shock of touching her. His Hollowborn power—his devouring core—remained dead silent, as if smothered beneath an invisible hand. It felt wrong. He felt wrong. Empty in all the places he was used to feeling monstrous.
The Void Woman didn't float anymore.
She hung forward, head bowed, arms trembling as though her own existence weighed too much.
But the broken chain at her wrist…
It lay on the floor in coils of black metal, steaming, as though reality itself burned to touch it.
Kael swallowed hard.
"You said they're coming. How many?"
She lifted her head slowly.
"All of them."
The air thickened, as if the temple inhaled sharply.
Kael spun toward the stairway. A ripple of movement danced along the tunnel, shadows flickering in unnatural rhythm. Footsteps. Controlled. Synchronized. Trained.
Not soldiers, Hunters.
The Order of the Red Sky.
His stomach dropped.
"They shouldn't even know I'm here."
"They don't," she said softly. "They followed the disturbance."
"What disturbance?"
Her faceless head tilted.
"You touched me."
As if on cue, the chamber groaned, ancient stone cracking beneath invisible pressure. Her void power seeped through the cracks like dark mist.
"Can you stop that?" Kael hissed.
"I am trying," she whispered. "Your presence… destabilizes me. The void responds to what devours. Instinctively."
"I'm not devouring anything!"
"No," she agreed. "That is why the temple reacts. It is confused."
Another horn blast—closer, vibrating the walls until dust rained from the ceiling.
Kael whipped toward the exit.
He saw the first glint of armor around the bend.
He had seconds.
"Can you fight?" he asked her.
The Void Woman laughed.
It was a terrible sound: brittle, ancient, and echoing like a whisper inside a tomb.
"Yes," she said. "I can fight."
Her hands curled into fists.
"But not while I'm chained."
Kael looked at the five remaining chains binding her limbs and waist. Each one hummed with a divine seal—the gods' own power, woven into metal.
Breaking one chain had nearly cracked the entire chamber.
"Freeing you might bring the whole temple down," Kael said.
She nodded.
"It might."
"And if I don't?"
Her voice felt like cold fingers brushing his spine.
"Then they will kill you, and they will bury me again, and the gods will win."
A shape emerged in the tunnel.
A tall figure clad in armor of lacquered bone and red metal.
A hunter's mask carved with the sigil of the Wrathblood.
The Hunter raised a spear humming with destructive godblood.
"Kael," the Void Woman whispered, "choose."
The spear leveled at Kael's chest.
"By decree of the Pantheon," the Hunter intoned, voice booming, "you are to be executed on sight."
Kael's empty chest throbbed, an afterimage of the power he no longer felt.
Great.
Perfect.
He couldn't even devour anymore.
The Hunter hurled the spear.
Kael ducked—barely—feeling the weapon graze his cheek and bury itself into the stone behind him with a violent explosion of dust.
He rolled behind a pillar, coughing, heart hammering.
Two more Hunters stormed into the chamber, spreading left and right, their weapons glowing with fragments of divine energy. Not enough to be full godbloods—but enough to kill him ten times over.
"Kill the Hollowborn," one barked. "Secure the chamber. Do NOT touch the Void."
They knew about her.
Of course they did.
Kael clenched his jaw.
He couldn't fight, not without his power.
He couldn't win.
Not alone.
A chain rattled behind him, the broken one.
Her voice drifted to him, soft and deadly.
"Kael."
He pressed his back to the pillar, breathing hard. "What?"
"Bring me their power."
He blinked. "What?"
"They bleed godblood," she said. "If they get close, I can take it. But I need you to bring them within my reach."
"That's suicide."
"Yes."
She said it simply, like observing the weather.
Kael peeked out.
One Hunter advanced cautiously, spear raised, mask glinting in the faint light.
Kael ducked back.
If he moved wrong, he'd die, If he stayed here, he'd die.
Another spear crashed into the pillar above him, showering him with stone fragments.
Cool.
No pressure.
He took a shaky breath, then whispered back to her, "If I do this… if I get them close… do you promise not to kill me?"
She considered that.
"You touched me and did not die," she said. "That intrigues me."
"That wasn't an answer."
"Kael…"
Her voice rippled with strange warmth, like a dangerous creature turning curious.
"I can choose not to unmake you. If I wish."
He grimaced.
"…Good enough."
He sprinted out.
Immediately, the first Hunter lunged.
Kael ducked beneath the spear's thrust and slammed his shoulder into the Hunter's chest, shoving him backward. The Hunter stumbled toward the center of the chamber…
Toward her.
The Void Woman inhaled.
The world bent.
The chain around her waist glowed violently as if resisting—but her power surged anyway, leaking out like smoke made of night.
The Hunter screamed.
The divine energy in his veins flickered—
then was sucked from his body in a spiraling pull.
He convulsed.
His armor cracked.
His mask shattered, and in a blink, his existence simply…
Stopped.
Not death, not collapse.
Erased.
The Void Woman's chains strained so hard they sparked.
Kael stared, horrified.
"What did you… ?"
"I ate what makes him divine," she answered calmly. "It was not much."
Not much?
That was not much?
The remaining Hunters panicked.
"Keep your distance!" one shouted. "Do NOT let her touch… "
Kael grabbed a fallen spear and hurled it at the second Hunter. It bounced off armor, but the distraction was enough—Kael charged, dodged the return swing, and shoved the Hunter toward her.
This time, the Void Woman didn't wait.
The chain around her left arm…
Snapped.
She caught the Hunter by the throat.
Kael had no idea how she aimed without eyes.
But she moved with terrifying precision.
The Hunter thrashed, screaming, armor breaking apart as his divine fragment was ripped from his core and consumed whole.
The chamber darkened. The air warped. The pillars groaned.
The Void Woman breathed in—and the temperature dropped to freezing.
Only one Hunter remained.
He backed toward the entrance, shaking violently.
"Monster," he whispered. "Abomination—"
Kael stepped into his path.
"You shouldn't have come here."
The Hunter lunged.
Kael braced for impact, but the Void Woman's third chain shattered like glass.
She didn't move fast, she didn't need to.
The void pulsed outward in a silent wave.
Reality hummed.
And the last Hunter collapsed, lifeless, before he even hit the floor.
Kael staggered back, horrified at the raw power she wielded even half-chained.
Her head turned toward him.
"Kael," she whispered,
"come here."
"No," he said immediately. "Absolutely not."
"You freed me from danger," she said softly. "Now free me from the chains."
"That was not part of the deal!"
Her remaining chains rattled violently, as if sensing her intent.
The temple trembled.
"If you do not free me," she whispered,
"the Order will send more. Stronger. Blessed by full godblood."
Kael swallowed.
"How many?"
She smiled—or at least the shape of her faceless skin suggested it.
"All of them."
A distant horn answered her.
Closer than before.