Reborn in hell with a skill creation system

Chapter 18: The Hollow

The morning of the third day arrived without fanfare, no horn sounded, no announcement echoed through the settlemen, the Hollow simply opened, as it had every century for longer than any living demon could remember, and those with the right to enter knew it the way prey knows when predators have begun to hunt.

Mael felt it through Sensory Web, a pressure against his extended senses, like a door swinging open in a house he hadn’t realized was closed. The air changed. The faint background hum of demon souls that permeated the Pit shifted, became somehow more focused, more directed, as if every soul in the territory was leaning toward a single point.

He was outside the cell when Zara found him. She wore different clothes than before, not the simple robe of a master in her own settlement, but armor of layered black chitin that moved like silk and absorbed the red light rather than reflecting it. Two short blades rode her hips, their hilts worn smooth by use.

"You feel it," she said. Not a question.

"The opening."

"The Hollow doesn’t wait for ceremonies. It simply is, and we adapt." She looked him over, noting the changes three days of assassins and preparation had wrought. He stood straighter, moved with more economy, and his eyes, yellow, flecked with something darker, tracked his surroundings with the constant assessment of something that had learned to expect violence.

"Your skills?" she asked.

"Five active. Three new since the arena."

"Show me."

Mael hesitated, showing skills meant revealing capabilities, and capabilities were leverage. But Zara was his only ally in what came next, and the collar around his neck meant she could kill him regardless of what he hid.

He activated Sensory Web, let her feel the radius expand, then touched her shoulder and activated Leech Mark. She stiffened, felt the faint drain, and he released it immediately.

"Environmental detection," he said. "Stamina transfer. And this."

He touched the stone wall beside him, and Hollow Stomach activated. The stone didn’t change, but he felt the sudden knowledge that he could consume it, derive trace nutrients from it, sustain himself on it if necessary.

Zara’s gold eyes narrowed. "You can eat rock."

"I can eat anything. Not efficiently. But I won’t starve."

"Useful," she admitted. "The Hollow has flora that doesn’t exist elsewhere. Some of it is toxic to normal demons. Some of it is..." She paused, searching for the word. "Hungry."

"Hungry?"

"The Hollow is not a place. It’s an ecosystem. Everything inside consumes something else. The plants consume demons. The demons consume each other. The soil consumes what remains." She adjusted one of her blades, checking its edge with automatic precision. "Your ability to derive sustenance from non-standard sources may be more valuable than combat skills."

Mael stored that information. "The other champions?"

"Already gathering at the entrance. Syrus among them." Her voice was carefully neutral. "He requested to enter as your ally. I refused."

"Why?"

"Because Syrus doesn’t ally. He observes, he waits, he acts when the math favors him. An ally who calculates rather than commits is a blade at your back." She met his eyes. "The other three champions are Kess, the jointed one you spoke with. A female named Vora who controls swarms of smaller demons. And Thane’s replacement champion, a brute named Gorr who exists solely to kill you."

"Thane gave up on the fruit?"

"Thane gave up on winning personally. Gorr’s instructions are to ensure you don’t reach the tree, regardless of whether Thane’s faction claims it." Zara’s smile was thin. "Petty, but predictable. Thane was never graceful in defeat."

They walked through the settlement, which was quieter than Mael had ever seen it. Demons lined the streets, watching the champions pass with expressions that ranged from hunger to fear to something like religious awe. The Hollow was myth as much as territory, and those who entered were either legends or corpses in waiting.

The entrance was a wound in reality.

Mael had expected a gate, a portal, something structured. Instead, the Hollow opened into a canyon wall that hadn’t been there the day before, a jagged tear in the stone that pulsed with faint red light. The air that emerged smelled of copper and something sweeter, almost floral, beneath the rot.

Four other figures waited near the entrance.

Syrus stood apart from the others, his clay-colored skin almost invisible against the rock. He nodded slightly as Mael approached, that gentle smile in place, and said nothing.

Kess flexed his too-many joints in greeting, or perhaps in anticipation. "The pebble arrives. I wondered if you’d survive the assassins."

"Barely," Mael said.

"Barely counts." Kess’s black eyes flicked to Zara, then back. "Your master refused Syrus’s alliance. Smart. But in the Hollow, smart often isn’t enough. If you change your mind, I’ll be nearby."

He moved away before Mael could respond.

Vora was a cluster of shadows that resolved, when Mael focused, into a female demon of average size surrounded by a cloud of fist-sized insects. Their wings made a sound like distant screaming, and their bodies were translucent enough to show the souls they carried inside them, digested slowly, used as fuel.

She didn’t look at Mael, her attention was on the entrance, on the pulsing wound, on whatever waited inside.

Gorr was last, he was everything Thane’s original champion had been massive, scarred, armored in plates that seemed grown rather than forged. His eyes found Mael immediately, and the hatred there was simple, direct, almost childlike in its purity.

"I’m going to eat your heart," Gorr said. "Master Thane promised I could, if I kill you first."

"Get in line," Mael said.

Gorr’s laugh was like rocks grinding together. "No line. Just me. Just you. Just the Hollow watching."

A sound cut through the tension, a low tone, felt in the sternum rather than heard, that made every demon present go still. The entrance pulsed brighter, the red light intensifying, and a figure emerged from within.