The blood would not wash off.
It clung to Kael's fingertips like oil, shimmering black in the thin morning light that crept through the cell's barred window. He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together, feeling the unnatural viscosity. Not quite liquid. Not quite solid.
*Alive.*
The Third Inquisitor had noticed. His one good eye tracked the movement of Kael's stained fingers with something that might have been hunger. Or fear.
*"Interesting,"* the man rasped.
Kael said nothing. He watched as the black substance slowly seeped into his skin, disappearing beneath his fingernails. The System flickered at the edge of his vision:
**[Blood of the Hollow Integration: 3%]**
**[Warning: Threshold Unknown]**
---
**They came for him at noon.**
Not the usual guards—their steps too light, their breathing too controlled. Three figures in Eclipse robes, their faces hidden behind masks of polished bone. They did not speak as they bound Kael's wrists with chains that hummed with latent energy.
*"Where?"* Kael asked.
One of the masked figures tilted its head. The motion was all wrong—too fluid, too many joints in the neck.
*"The Third Circle,"* it whispered, its voice like dry leaves scraping stone.
Kael's Skill Analyzation struggled, returning fragmented data:
**[Subject: Eclipse Acolyte]**
- **Status: Assimilated (Stage 2)**
- **Soul Integrity: 31%**
- **Warning: Cognitive Dissonance Detected]**
The chains grew heavier with each step upward.
---
**The Third Circle was not a room.**
It was a wound.
The chamber pulsed, its walls lined with what might have been tapestries at one point—now fused with the stone, their threads grown thick and vein-like. At the center stood an altar of black glass, its surface reflecting not the room, but a sky filled with dying stars.
And upon that altar—
A crown.
Twisted metal, jagged as broken bone. Empty sockets where gems should have been. It called to him without words, a pull deep in his marrow.
The Third Inquisitor stepped from the shadows, his robes whispering across the floor.
*"Kneel,"* he commanded.
Kael remained standing.
The Inquisitor's lips peeled back from those filed teeth. *"You will learn your place, bastard."*
A gesture. The masked figures forced Kael to his knees. The stone bit through his trousers, cold as a corpse's touch.
The crown floated from the altar, suspended by unseen hands.
*"Let us see what remains of you,"* the Inquisitor murmured.
The crown descended.
---
**Pain.**
Memory.
A thousand lives compressed into a single instant:
- *A throne crumbling to dust*
- *A sword plunged through a sun*
- *A whisper: "You were always meant to break it"*
The System screamed:
**[CORRUPTION SURGE]**
**[BLOOD OF THE HOLLOW INTEGRATION: 27%]**
**[WARNING: CONTAINMENT FAILURE]**
Kael's back arched as the crown settled onto his brow. His vision whited out—
—then cleared.
The chamber was different now. He could see the strings.
The veins in the walls weren't decoration. They were *connections*, pulsing with stolen life, all leading back to the altar. To the crown.
To *him*.
The Inquisitor took a step back. *"Impossible."*
Kael stood. The chains fell away like dead leaves.
*"No,"* he corrected softly. *"Inevitable."*
---
**Final Line:**
Some crowns are not worn.
They are *awakened.*