A faint pulse shuddered through the ground beneath them.
It began as a tremor—a guttural rumble that thrummed like a heartbeat.
Then came the rupture.
Ren stepped away from Nocstella's beaten form, unsure of the force rising from below.
From beneath her crumpled body, black ink erupted, screaming upward like a geyser. Tendrils thicker than the blackened trees coiled and slammed into the ground with tectonic force.
Ren staggered back as one tendril crashed where he had been standing, pulverizing the soil. He rolled to his feet, and looked up just in time to see her—Nocstella—hoisted upright by the writhing mass. Her body hung cruciform, suspended as if claimed by some unseen entity.
She didn't move. Her limbs were limp, her mouth slack, eyes sealed.
Yet, the shadows cradled her—tender, reverent, like hands worshiping their god.
A voice whispered from her barely parted lips, nearly inaudible.
"Caedros…You answer me, still…"
Then the ink poured into her, siphoning into veins as if claiming her fully. Nocstella's body seized, rigid, paralyzed by the ink flooding her.
And then—she healed. Every strike Ren had landed now meant nothing.
She spoke again, but her voice was layered, a blend of man and woman. "The debt has been acknowledged…The cost, to be tallied…The vessel, accepted…The trade, immutable."
Her body descended slow and graceful, hair floating in slow waves, as if submerged in deep water. Her toes hovered inches above the grass. Her voice returned to its familiar tone.
"So this…is the weight of your favor."
Then her eyes opened. No longer crimson, but pitch black, ink leaking from the corners and spilling down her cheeks like tears. Ren felt that same twisting hatred in his chest.
Without thought, he moved.
'Kill her…'
Ren charged like a beast freed from a cage.
'Kill her…'
She remained still, arms dangling at her sides, black ink dripping from her fingertips.
Ren's fist collided with her jaw, bones in his hand shattering on impact. Beneath her skin, black veins pooled at the point of contact. He didn't care.
He punched again and again, blood dripping from his fists, but to no avail.
Then—
SQUELCH
A tendril of ink lashed forward, impaling him and puncturing his chest. Blood pooled beneath him in seconds. He clawed at it, nails shredding against the inky tendril, but it was unyielding.
The tendrils had changed; now, they carried the same black ink coursing through her.
He hovered for a moment, before the tendril snapped him in half by the spine.
Darkness.
He woke with a gasp, face down in the grass with only one thought.
'Kill her…'
He didn't hesitate. Screaming, he charged, shoulders lowered.
A tendril whipped from behind, slicing through his abdomen, bisecting him from stomach to chest. Before he could comprehend, he was back. A new breath of life. Regenerated…
His arm trembled as he pushed himself upright.
The instinct was now his only thought:
Kill her.
He slammed a fist toward her jaw. Her delicate fingers caught his wrist like a lover's touch.
Then—pressure.
Her grip tightened, fingernails sinking through skin and tendon. Ren snarled, attempting to pull free, but she held him. Her breath grazed his cheek as she hovered inches above the ground.
"You think something like you deserves to touch me?" She hissed.
Ren's free arm swung, intercepted by a tendril curling around it like a snake.
"Think you can defeat me…an Overseer?!" Her voice shook with something beyond anger, something like betrayal. "You're Hollow…Nothing! You became a Respondent by an accident, some flaw in the Vale's design." A bitter laugh cracked the air. "I should have ended you long ago…Before you clawed this close."
'I'm still here,' Ren thought. 'I'll kill you!'
Nocstella responded, voice venomous.
"You dare think yourself as anything more than a hollowed vessel?"
In an instant, her fingers constricted with precision, shattering the bones in Ren's wrist.
RIP
She tore his arm clean off, the other following suit. Ren screamed, stumbling back from the sudden imbalance. But before he could hit the ground, a tendril surged behind him.
SQUISH
It slammed through the back of his skull, vision fracturing into shards.
Above him, Nocstella hovered, serene.
"Hollow…drown in the emptiness you embody," She intoned.
At that moment, Ren went limp once again.