The Price of Standing Back Up
They didn't attack right away.
That hesitation saved none of them—but it changed everything.
The leader dropped to one knee, hands clawing at his temples, screaming like his skull was splitting open. Blood leaked from his nose and ears as if something inside him was trying to escape.
"What did you do to him?!" one of the others shouted, backing away from me.
I didn't answer.
I was too busy trying not to collapse.
My legs shook violently. My heart felt wrong—too slow, too heavy. The echo of my death still rang through me, a phantom blade twisting in my chest.
[Mental Stability: 41%]
[Warning: Prolonged Exposure to Death Feedback]
So it wasn't free.
Nothing here ever was.
The woman with the runes recovered first. She raised her spear, eyes narrowed—not afraid, but calculating.
"Don't kill him," she said sharply. "Not yet."
Two of the others hesitated.
The fifth ran.
I watched him sprint toward the broken archway, panic driving him faster than thought.
Instinct screamed at me to let him go.
Memory disagreed.
If he escaped, he'd tell others.
About the Hollowborn who wouldn't stay dead.
About me.
I moved before I finished thinking.
The rusted blade left my hand in a clumsy arc.
It struck him between the shoulders.
He fell hard, skidding across stone. He didn't scream. Just lay there, twitching.
The courtyard went silent.
I stared at my hand.
I hadn't meant to throw it that well.
[Confirmed Kill]
[Soul Weight Acquired: Minor]
Something shifted inside me.
Not power.
Permission.
The leader convulsed violently, then went still. His eyes rolled back, body slack.
Dead.
The echo faded.
I exhaled slowly.
Three left.
They spread out instinctively, forming a loose semicircle around me. Veterans. Killers. Not good people—but not fools either.
"You're not Hollow," one of them said hoarsely.
"I am," I replied. "That's the problem."
The woman studied me openly now, spear still raised but no longer shaking.
"You died," she said. "I felt it."
"Yes."
"And you came back."
"Yes."
Her lips pressed into a thin line.
"A Revenant," she whispered.
The word carried weight.
Fear.
I took a step forward.
They flinched.
"I didn't attack you," I said. "You murdered someone in front of me. Then you murdered me."
One of them snarled. "That thing wasn't human anymore!"
"Neither am I," I said quietly.
Silence stretched.
Ash drifted down between us.
Finally, the woman lowered her spear.
"We don't have to fight," she said. "You leave. We burn the bodies. This never happened."
A reasonable offer.
A safe one.
I looked at the pit where the Hollowborn's body had been thrown. At the fire consuming what little he'd been allowed to be.
I thought about the words Dispose of it.
"No," I said.
Her eyes hardened.
"So that's it?"
I nodded once.
"Then die properly this time," she said, and lunged.
The fight was ugly.
I wasn't skilled. I wasn't strong. I was terrified and exhausted and fueled by the certainty that dying again would hurt more than anything they could do to me alive.
I took a spear through the shoulder.
A knife across the thigh.
I killed the first man by smashing his head against the stone until it stopped moving.
The second died screaming when he tried to stab me through the eye and slipped on blood that wasn't all his.
The woman was last.
She was better than me.
She disarmed me, slammed me into the wall, and pressed her blade to my throat.
Breathing hard, she stared into my eyes.
"What are you?" she asked.
I met her gaze.
"Learning," I answered.
I let myself fall backward.
Her blade followed.
Darkness swallowed me.
I rose again in silence.
The woman screamed.
[Death Echo Triggered]
[New Threshold Reached]
She dropped her weapon, clutching her chest as if her heart were being crushed from the inside.
I didn't hesitate.
I took her spear and ended it.
When it was over, I stood alone among the dead.
The fire crackled.
The pit glowed.
[System Update]
[Soul Weight: Sufficient]
[Evolution Available]
My hands wouldn't stop shaking.
I sank to my knees.
This wasn't victory.
It was momentum.
And momentum only goes in one direction.
Up—
or into something monstrous.
I stared at the burning bodies and whispered, "I'm sorry."
The system didn't respond.
End Of Chapter 4