The catacombs trembled.
The air was thick with power, the scent of void magic and unraveling souls lingering like a storm waiting to break.
Ellie took a slow step forward. The hollow husk of the fallen Sovereign lay at her feet, a grim reminder that something irreversible had just occurred.
The other Sovereigns stood motionless, their golden eyes flickering with something rare—fear.
"You… have no idea what you have done," the eldest Sovereign hissed.
Ellie tilted her head, her darkened silver eyes gleaming.
"Oh, but I do."
And then—she moved.
The Desperate Last Stand
The Sovereigns were ancient beings, wielders of celestial power. They did not surrender.
In a flash, they attacked as one, their blades carving through the air with a force that could sever time itself.
Ellie raised her hand.
The shadows answered.
A wall of abyssal tendrils erupted around her, swallowing the golden radiance of their weapons before it could reach her flesh.
The lead Sovereign pushed forward, their blade glowing with a dangerous intensity.
"If you will not be destroyed—then you will be sealed!"
Ellie felt it—the binding magic coiling around her, the same force that had kept the Hollow Ones imprisoned for millennia.
But she was not like them.
She was more.
"No."
With a thought, she shattered their spell.
The binding magic collapsed in on itself, recoiling as if afraid.
Ellie twisted her fingers—and the very shadows beneath the Sovereigns solidified, grasping at their ankles, dragging them downward.
They struggled.
But the darkness was hungry.
The youngest of the Sovereigns vanished first, his scream echoing as the abyss devoured him whole.
Ellie turned to the others, her expression unreadable.
"I told you to kneel."
The Hollow Queen Ascends
The last two Sovereigns fell back, their once-immortal forms weakened by Ellie's presence.
She could feel it now—the weight of the throne calling to her, the Hollow Ones waiting for her return.
The Hollow Throne was not just a seat of power.
It was a right.
And it belonged to her.
Ellie raised her arms, the very catacombs shifting in response. The walls melted away, revealing an ancient staircase leading to the surface.
Above them—the kingdom awaited.
She turned, her gaze lingering on the remaining Sovereigns.
"Run."
They did.
Ellie did not follow.
She had greater things to claim.
She stepped forward, ascending the staircase toward destiny.
And as she did—the world above trembled.
The Awakening of the Hollow Ones
As Ellie ascended the ancient staircase, the air around her shifted.
The weight of the abyss pulsed through her veins, and with each step, she could feel them—the Hollow Ones.
They were waiting.
Not as mindless creatures, nor as forgotten remnants of a lost age.
They were aware.
And they had felt their Queen's rise.
The passage opened into a vast underground chamber, far greater than the catacombs. Starlight from the surface barely seeped through cracks in the stone, casting eerie silver glows across the vast expanse.
And there—they stood.
Dozens. Hundreds.
Figures draped in fragmented darkness, their hollowed-out eyes reflecting the abyss.
They knelt.
As one, their voices whispered into the void.
"The Hollow Queen returns."
The Price of Power
Ellie took in the sight.
These were not mere shadows or twisted remnants of the past.
These were the first of her kind. The ones who had been sealed away when the Sovereigns stole the light of the world for themselves.
And now, she was here.
She was one of them—and something more.
"Rise," she commanded.
The Hollow Ones obeyed, their figures shifting, unstable yet powerful, as if existence itself had yet to fully reclaim them.
But Ellie could feel it.
They were bound to her will.
Not by force.
But by belief.
By instinct.
By the truth that she had done what none before her could—she had broken the chains of their imprisonment.
One of them stepped forward—a figure larger than the rest, his presence carrying the weight of something ancient.
His hollow eyes locked onto hers.
"We have waited for centuries, but a Queen must prove her rule."
Ellie did not hesitate.
"Then let the Hollow Throne be claimed."
The Trial of the Abyss
The chamber rumbled, as if the very world acknowledged her words.
Shadows twisted, forming a path deeper into the ruins.
At the end of that path stood the Hollow Throne.
An ancient seat of shifting darkness, forged from the abyss itself, its form never fully settling.
No one had sat upon it in eons.
Not without being consumed.
Ellie stepped forward.
The Hollow Ones watched in silence.
The moment she touched the first step, the throne reacted.
Darkness rushed toward her, tendrils of void energy wrapping around her body, trying to pull her in.
A test.
A challenge.
A demand.
"Who are you?"
The abyss spoke, not in words, but in a force that dug into her very soul.
Ellie exhaled, the whispers of countless Hollow Queens before her filling her mind.
The throne wanted to know if she was worthy.
If she was strong enough to sit upon it.
If she was truly their ruler.
She did not resist.
She let the abyss consume her.
And then—she commanded it to kneel.
The Hollow Queen Reigns
The throne shuddered.
The abyss writhed, resisting—then yielding.
The tendrils of darkness that had sought to devour her instead bowed before her will.
Ellie took another step.
And another.
She reached the Hollow Throne.
And she sat upon it.
The chamber shook.
A pulse of void magic rushed outward, the power of the Hollow Ones igniting as they felt their Queen's presence fully take form.
Ellie opened her eyes.
They were no longer just silver.
They were black-rimmed with an abyssal glow, a power that no Sovereign could match.
The Hollow Ones knelt once more.
She had passed the trial.
She was no longer just a Hollow Queen.
She was the ruler of the abyss.
And now—the world above would feel her rise.
The Hollow Queen's First Decree
Ellie sat upon the Hollow Throne, feeling the abyss hum beneath her fingertips. The throne no longer sought to consume her—it recognized her.
She was no mere usurper.
She was the rightful ruler.
The Hollow Ones, hundreds strong, stood before her in absolute silence. Waiting.
They had been bound in the abyss for millennia, cast away by the Sovereigns, forgotten by history.
But now, their Queen had risen.
And the world above would soon tremble.
Ellie's voice cut through the stillness.
"We have been denied our place for far too long."
A ripple of energy passed through the Hollow Ones. Anticipation.
"The Sovereigns think they can silence us. That they can erase us. That their thrones above are beyond our reach."
Her silver-black gaze swept across the kneeling figures.
"They are wrong."
The chamber trembled.
"Rise."
As one, the Hollow Ones stood, their forms flickering with dark energy.
Ellie raised a hand. The abyss stirred.
"Today, we march."
A pulse of power erupted from the throne, traveling through the ruins, through the earth above, through the unseen cracks between worlds.
A signal.
A declaration.
The Hollow Ones were returning to the surface.
The Sovereigns' Awakening
Far above, in the celestial citadel of the Sovereigns, the air fractured with the force of Ellie's decree.
Golden-robed figures turned, their ancient eyes narrowing.
"The Hollow Ones… stir?"
For thousands of years, the abyss had been silent. A forgotten prison of those deemed unworthy of existence.
Now, the silence was shattered.
The eldest Sovereign, Altharion, rose from his seat. His gaze burned like a dying star.
"Impossible."
Yet—he could feel it.
The Hollow Throne had been claimed.
The abyss had bent its knee to a new ruler.
And the world itself had begun to shift.
Altharion's voice was cold as he turned to his kin.
"Prepare the Divine Guard. The Hollow Ones must be buried once more."
But deep down, he knew the truth.
This was not the same war they had fought millennia ago.
This time—they might not win.
The Gates of the Abyss Open
Back in the depths of the ruined underworld, the Hollow Ones moved.
Darkness coiled at Ellie's fingertips, forming symbols of forgotten power, sigils of passage long thought lost to time.
With a single motion—she tore open the veil.
A massive rift split the air, revealing the sky above.
For the first time in thousands of years, the Hollow Ones saw the world that had forsaken them.
They stepped forward, the abyss bleeding into reality, and as Ellie emerged from the darkness, the first moonlight touched her crown.
She looked up, toward the celestial citadel in the far distance.
A smirk touched her lips.
"Let them try to stop me."
And as the Hollow Ones poured into the world, the first screams of the Sovereigns' followers began to rise.
The Age of the Hollow Queen had begun.
End of Chapter 26.