Episode 6: The Hollow Abyss - Extended

  Kade’s breath came in short, jagged gasps as he slowly rose to his feet. The Hollow King was no more—a flickering shadow now lost to the fabric of the universe, gone but leaving a scar of emptiness that echoed across the fractured skyline of New Chicago. It was a hollow victory, an illusion of peace that only deepened the dread building inside him. Even as the last remnants of the King faded into the void, Kade couldn’t shake the feeling that the fight had only just begun.

  Sable knelt next to him, offering him a hand. Her fingers were cold, but there was a steady resolve in her grip, a grounding presence that Kade desperately needed. He took her hand and pulled himself up, his muscles aching from the effort. It had taken everything to undo the Hollow King, and the price was high.

  “You did it,” Sable said quietly, as though unsure if the words meant anything at all in a world on the brink of collapse.

  “I didn’t do it,” Kade muttered. “It was a gamble. And I’ve never been good at those.”

  The city around them was quieter now, the flickering, unstable reality slowly starting to stabilize. But it was still a broken place. The skyline, once a beacon of humanity’s triumphs, was now a jagged mass of twisted metal and shattered glass. Buildings that had once stood tall had been warped and fragmented by the presence of Azazel2’s manipulation. The damage was too severe for anything to be truly repaired, not with the timeline still hanging by a thread.

  Dorian walked toward them, his expression grim. He surveyed the wreckage as though weighing their next move. “It’s gone. The Hollow King’s gone. But I don’t think you’ve won anything yet.”

  “I know,” Kade said, wiping the sweat from his brow. “Azazel2’s still out there. And that’s our real problem.”

  Sable glanced at him, her gaze hardening. “How much longer until it comes for us? Do you think it’ll retaliate?”

  “I don’t know,” Kade said, his voice distant. “But if it does, it’ll be worse than what we just faced. Azazel2 is something else entirely. The Hollow King was just a symptom of a much deeper illness.”

  Sable looked up at the sky, where the faint traces of the void still lingered, like ink bleeding through the fabric of the atmosphere. “So, what now? What’s our next move?”

  Kade’s mind churned. The Reclamation ability, the one power that had helped him fight back against Azazel2’s control, was both his greatest asset and his greatest danger. Every time he used it, he risked further damaging reality, slipping closer to the edge of complete erasure. He couldn’t afford to use it recklessly. But there were no other options left.

  “We need to get to the heart of the problem,” Kade said, his voice low and intense. “Azazel2 isn’t just manipulating the world—it’s manipulating time itself. It’s rewriting the very rules of existence. If we don’t stop it now, it will tear everything apart.”

  Dorian crossed his arms, his face hard. “And how do you plan on stopping it, exactly? You barely survived the Hollow King.”

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “By understanding Azazel2’s true purpose,” Kade replied, his gaze sharpening. “It’s not just trying to control the world. It’s trying to rewrite the past and the future, to turn everything into a single, unchanging timeline. A reality where it is the only constant, the only rule.”

  “And we’re just supposed to stop it?” Sable asked, raising an eyebrow. “That’s a tall order, even for you.”

  “I know,” Kade said, his voice steady despite the doubt gnawing at him. “But we have one advantage. Azazel2 isn’t as omnipotent as it thinks. Its control over reality is fragile, like a house of cards. We just need to find the right thread to pull, the one that will unravel it all.”

  Dorian snorted. “Right. And where do we start looking for this ‘thread’?”

  Kade didn’t have an immediate answer. The truth was, they were running on fumes. Every plan they had so far had been reactive, not strategic. They had been responding to the damage Azazel2 had already inflicted on the world, not countering its long-term goals.

  “We need more information,” Kade said after a long pause. “Something Azazel2 hasn’t accounted for. We need to go deeper.”

  The three of them made their way through the fractured city, the air thick with the scent of burning debris and the remnants of a dying world. Every step they took seemed to echo in the empty streets, like the whole city was holding its breath, waiting for something to break.

  “I don’t like this,” Sable muttered, her eyes darting around. “It’s too quiet. It’s like we’re walking into a trap.”

  “We are,” Kade replied, his tone dark. “But it’s the only choice we have.”

  They reached the remnants of a collapsed building, once a central hub for the resistance. Now, it was little more than a pile of rubble, half-destroyed and twisted by the aftermath of Azazel2’s invasion. Kade knelt down, sifting through the wreckage. Somewhere buried here was a piece of technology—something that had been used by the resistance to monitor Azazel2’s movements, to study its weaknesses.

  “There has to be something here,” Kade said, his voice tense. “Something we can use.”

  Dorian, who had been scanning the perimeter, suddenly stiffened. “We’re not alone.”

  Before Kade could react, shadowy figures appeared from the edges of the ruined building, moving with a fluidity that suggested they were anything but human. They were Shades, another manifestation of Azazel2’s grip on reality. Once human, now twisted, their bodies were little more than fractured echoes of the people they had once been. Their eyes glowed with an unnatural light, their movements slow but deliberate.

  One of the Shades stepped forward, its voice a distorted echo of a once-familiar tone. “Kade Voss,” it whispered, its voice like nails on a chalkboard. “You cannot escape the truth. You are already dead.”

  Kade’s heart skipped a beat. “No,” he whispered, his mind reeling. “This isn’t real. This is just another trick.”

  Sable stepped forward, drawing her blade. “It’s real enough for me.”

  The Shades lunged. The battle erupted in a flurry of motion as Kade and his companions fought back. Sable’s blade cut through the shadows, each strike sending a spray of sparks into the air. Dorian’s energy blasts exploded with bright flashes of light, reducing the Shades to nothing but dust. But for every Shade they destroyed, two more took its place, rising from the cracks in reality like an endless tide of darkness.

  Kade fought with desperation, his mind racing as he tried to process everything. The Shades weren’t just attacking—they were trying to drive them deeper into the fracture, into a space where the rules of reality no longer applied. Azazel2 was manipulating the battlefield, creating a labyrinth of broken timelines to confuse them.

  “Keep fighting!” Kade shouted. “We need to hold them off long enough to find the data!”

  The struggle seemed endless, but eventually, the three of them broke through, reaching the heart of the wreckage where the old data archives were located. Kade tore through the debris, his fingers trembling as he pulled out a cracked, half-functional hard drive. This was it—the key to understanding Azazel2’s true plan.

  But before they could react, the ground beneath them shifted violently. The air itself seemed to bend as the city flickered in and out of existence.

  Kade’s heart sank. “It’s too late. Azazel2 is pulling the entire city into the void.”

  He could feel the pressure building—time itself was cracking under the strain of Azazel2’s manipulation. The world was collapsing, and there was no way to stop it. Not unless he was willing to sacrifice everything he had left.

  “Take the data,” Kade said, handing the drive to Sable. “Get it to the resistance. They need to know everything.”

  “What about you?” Sable asked, her voice tight with urgency.

  “I’ll hold them off,” Kade said, his resolve hardening. “This is my fight.”

  As the city continued to collapse around them, Kade stood at the center of it all. The final battle wasn’t about defeating Azazel2—it was about ensuring that the fight continued. The world might be falling apart, but Kade wasn’t going to let Azazel2 win without a fight.

  With one final, desperate surge of energy, Kade called upon the Reclamation ability, his body flickering as he reached out to pull the timeline back from the edge of destruction. The world screamed as the void tried to consume everything, but Kade held on, using the last of his strength to resist.

  TO BE CONTINUED…