Hope's lungs burned as he pushed his body to its limits, his legs threatening to give out beneath him. Every breath he took was like swallowing molten fire, and every muscle in his body screamed for relief.
But he couldn't stop.
Not yet.
Up ahead, he finally saw it—
The Hollow.
A vast depression in the rocky terrain, the ground beneath it unnatural, smooth, and almost glass-like—a clear sign that the Veil had shaped this place, bending the landscape to its twisted will.
Hope didn't have the luxury of questioning it.
He raced forward, his heart pounding like a war drum, his feet barely touching the ground as he forced himself into the pit.
Then, from his peripheral vision, he spotted Walker.
Walker was just as frantic, his face drenched in sweat, his mismatched armor stained with fresh cuts and blood. Behind him, a nightmarish tide of corrupted fiends came pouring in, their grotesque bodies clawing and scrambling over one another in their desperate pursuit.
For a brief moment, their eyes met—
And in that instant, they both understood.
If Kelvin didn't act now, they were dead.
Hope didn't slow down, and neither did Walker.
They dove into the hollow, letting their momentum carry them forward, their bodies hitting the ground and rolling before they could even think about stopping.
The fiends followed.
The monsters poured in like a black tide, their grotesque forms swarming into the pit, their shrieks and roars shaking the very air.
It was now or never.
"Kelvin, NOW!"
Hope's voice tore through the chaos, raw and desperate.
A shadow flashed above them.
Then—
Boom.
A brilliant glow erupted from the sky as multiple soul cores came crashing down, glowing with an eerie red and purple light.
The moment they touched the ground, a chain reaction ignited.
BOOM!
A shockwave of pure destruction exploded outward.
Hope barely had time to react before he felt his body being lifted off the ground, his ears ringing violently as the world turned into a chaotic blur of fire, dust, and shattered stone.
His body soared through the air, propelled by the force of the blast.
For a moment, all he saw was flashes of red and black.
Then—
Pain.
His body hit the rocky terrain like a ragdoll, tumbling uncontrollably, rolling across jagged stone as sharp edges ripped into his skin and clothes.
By the time he finally stopped, he had been thrown nearly a hundred meters away.
Dazed, he blinked up at the sky, his ears still ringing, his vision swimming from the sheer force of the explosion.
And then, he saw it—
The hollow had been transformed into an inferno.
The Aftermath
A towering pillar of black smoke rose into the sky, carrying the burning remains of twisted limbs and charred bodies.
Fiends screamed in agony, their flesh tearing away from their bones, their howls mixing with the crackling fire as the Veil-tainted explosion ripped through them mercilessly.
The blast had worked—
The corrupted fiends had been eradicated in the hundreds.
But it wasn't over yet.
As the smoke cleared, Hope's breath caught in his throat.
Standing at the edge of the inferno, untouched by the destruction—
Was the Centaur.
Its red eyes burned with cold amusement, its plated body barely scratched from the explosion.
And then—
It started moving.