Jack stood motionless beneath the Hollow Tree.
The air around him shimmered with fragments of broken reality, like pieces of glass suspended in water. His eyes, once bright with fire and fury, now mirrored the Hollow itself—endless, unreadable, and vast. The robes he wore had changed: darker now, woven with shadow and gold, etched with the runes of the Old Tongue—the kind that Auren had forbidden Jack to ever speak aloud.
Nyssa approached carefully, blade drawn but lowered.
"Jack," she said softly.
He didn't turn.
Behind her, Marek staggered forward, still clutching his shoulder, his breath labored. "Jack, buddy… you in there?"
Still no response.
Just the windless hush of the Hollow.
"Jack," Nyssa said again, louder this time, her voice cracking. "It's me."
This time, he moved.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
He turned to face them—and they froze.
It was Jack. And it wasn't.
His face bore the same sharp features, the same faint scar over his brow, the same wild dark hair. But there was something missing. Or rather—something added. A presence that didn't belong.
A hollow behind his gaze.
"Nyssa," he said at last, and his voice was like a blade drawn across silk. Beautiful. Wrong.
She stepped closer. "We came for you. We—"
"You shouldn't have."
The air around him warped. The roots of the Hollow Tree twitched as if they'd heard his words.
Marek raised a dagger. "Okay, yeah, not loving the energy here—"
"Don't," Jack warned, and suddenly he was there—right there—before them, his hand outstretched. Marek flew back, hurled across the clearing by an unseen force, crashing hard into a chunk of shattered stone.
Nyssa's heart pounded. "Jack, what happened to you?"
"I saw the truth," he whispered. "And now I am the truth."
The sky shifted. A second moon flickered into view, then dissolved like smoke. Nyssa gripped her blade tighter, though she didn't raise it.
"We merged the artifacts. We sealed the Devourer. You fought him, Jack. You won."
Jack smiled, but it wasn't his smile.
"I didn't win. I became him."
The words struck like ice.
Nyssa shook her head. "No… no. That's not possible."
"I thought that too. But the moment I entered the Hollow… the seal broke. The soul of the Devourer didn't flee. It returned—to me. Because it was never trying to consume me, Nyssa. It was trying to reunite with me."
He stepped forward, and shadows peeled away from the edges of his form like wings. "I am his vessel. I always was. And this place—this world—is mine to command."
"You don't mean that."
His gaze softened, just for a moment. "I didn't. Once. I fought it. Every second. But then I saw what lay beneath this world. I saw the First Sundering. The lies we were told. The gods we worshipped—they're not saviors. They're prisonersof their own fear."
"What are you talking about?" Nyssa demanded.
"The Devourer wasn't born from evil. He was the balance. Until the gods tried to unmake him. They split him. Locked him into time and flesh. Into me. And now that the Sundering is undone… I remember it all."
He reached out, slowly, like he was touching something fragile.
"I remember you."
Nyssa's breath caught.
"You remember me?" she whispered.
He nodded. "Every word. Every fight. Every fire we lit to keep the darkness at bay. But that Jack—the boy you knew—he was never whole. I see that now. And this world cannot be saved by half-truths."
Nyssa stepped forward and touched his hand.
The air sizzled.
Light flared between them.
Jack recoiled.
His expression twisted in pain.
"You still have light in you," she said. "I felt it. You can fight this."
"I am fighting," he said through clenched teeth. "You don't understand, Nyssa. The Hollow doesn't just reflect what is—it amplifies what hides within. And inside me, there is more than just Jack. There is Thalon. The Devourer. Auren's warnings. My mother's sacrifice. Everything."
"But you're still you."
Jack didn't respond.
Instead, he turned and looked up at the Hollow Tree.
A deep hum filled the air—ancient, low, resonant.
The tree was… waking.
Nyssa stared. "What is that thing?"
Jack spoke without turning. "The Hollow Tree is the anchor. The last remnant of what came before. The only thing still tethering this realm to the others. The gods thought they could bury it here. But it remembers."
"Remembers what?"
"The First Sundering. The moment the worlds split. The pain of being torn from the source."
Marek limped forward. "Okay, cool mythos dump and all, but why does it matter now?"
"Because," Jack said, "if the Tree dies… everything that came after it dies too. All the false worlds. All the illusions. And only the true realm will remain."
Marek frowned. "That sounds like total annihilation."
"No," Jack said calmly. "It sounds like rebirth."
Nyssa drew her sword. "You're going to destroy everything?"
Jack turned toward her once more.
"I'm going to restore everything."
"No," she said. "You're not."
Silence.
Jack's voice, cold and distant: "Then you'll have to stop me."
And with a wave of his hand, the Hollow opened.
The earth split beneath them.
From the depths, a creature rose—an ancient guardian of the Tree, all bone and shadow, with a thousand whispering mouths and wings made of broken light.
Marek staggered back. "That is not something I signed up for!"
"Nyssa," Jack said, eyes glowing, "if you kill the guardian, you can reach me. If not… this world becomes mine."
And then he vanished into the Tree's heart.
Leaving her to choose.
Face the monster.
Or lose Jack forever.