The cathedral’s ruins held their breath.

Elias stared at the box in his lap, its lid trembling like a living thing. The black ooze had stopped flowing, but the single frayed cord holding it shut seemed thinner now—stretched to near-transparency. He could still feel the eye watching him from that slit of darkness.

The red-masked man tilted his head, his stitched grin widening. "Oh, you felt that, didn’t you?" He tapped his own chest. "Like something digging under your ribs?"

Lira’s knife pressed deeper. "Shut up."

A low rumble shook the ground. Dust rained from the cathedral’s broken arches as the tiles beneath them cracked in jagged lines. The cracks glowed—not with light, but with a thick, tar-like darkness that pulsed in time with the box’s heartbeat.

Elias scrambled back as the nearest fissure split open, exhaling a stench of rotting flowers and burnt hair.

The Hollow King was waking.

Father Mateo burst through the rubble, his robes torn and face streaked with soot. Behind him, a dozen church militiamen leveled rifles—not at Elias, but at the red-masked man.

"You were never excommunicated," Father Mateo spat. "You were infected."

The masked man laughed—a wet, gurgling sound. "And you were always a coward, Mateo. Hiding behind rituals while the real war raged." He spread his arms. "The King offers power. What does your God offer but chains?"

Lira moved first.

Her knife flashed toward the man’s throat—but he melted, his body dissolving into a swarm of flies that scattered into the cracks. His laughter lingered.

"The Vessel cracks, Elias. Will you fill it... or break it?"

The ground heaved. A militiaman screamed as a fissure yawned beneath him; his cry cut off with a sickening crunch. The remaining men fired into the cracks, their bullets sparking off stone.

Father Mateo grabbed Elias’s shoulder. "The box—"

"I know!" Elias clutched it tighter. The cord was fraying faster now, fibers snapping one by one. The eye in the darkness blinked.

Lira kicked over a shattered pew, creating cover. "We need to seal it. Now."

"How?" Elias’s voice cracked. "The prayers didn’t work before—"

"Not prayers." Father Mateo yanked a vial from his robes—holy water mixed with crushed sambong leaves and powdered bone. "Blood."

The militiamen’s shouts turned to shrieks as things clawed up from the fissures—skeletal hands wrapped in rotting Church vestments, their eye sockets crawling with centipedes.

Lira beheaded the first with a clean strike. "Whose blood?"

Father Mateo didn’t hesitate. "The last guardian’s."

Elias’s breath stopped. The box purred against his palms.

A hand burst from the nearest crack, grabbing his ankle. Bone fingers tightened, yanking him toward the abyss—

Lira’s blade severed the arm at the wrist. She hauled Elias up, her grip iron. "Choose. Now."

The cord snapped.

The box’s lid flew open.

And the Hollow King laughed.