Warren felt the unmistakable pull of gravity seize him—weightless for a fleeting moment, then plunging headlong through the dense, choking mist. It was almost dreamlike, unreal, as if he were floating through some surreal nightmare. But the looming horror of the Blood Tower, streaking by in flashes of crimson and black, shattered any illusion of peace. Its monstrous silhouette clawed at the skies, casting deformed shadows behind its skin-stretched windows—inside, twisted figures writhed, illuminated by that infernal, sickly red glow.
"Exundans Impetus!", Warren spat the words through clenched teeth, fighting to regain control. He could still turn this fall into a desperate lunge back into the fight.
But his Meta-TEC answered with a dry, angry buzz before chiming in its usual, indifferent tone: "Mana low."
"Of course," Warren thought bitterly. "Mana’s gone. Figures..."
The fire shield spell had siphoned the last of his power, burning his reserves to save him from Lothorr’s devastating blow. The magic had done its job, transmuting raw impact into fire, but there was still too much force—his arm hung shattered, his shoulder and chest ablaze with agony. Lothorr had hit him hard enough to drain him dry, and the damage that remained was brutal, bone-crushing.
This was the end. He knew it, felt it in his battered bones. The Warlock of Canterbury was about to meet a grisly end, his broken body destined to be just another piece of decaying meat at the base of the Blood Tower. Game over. But Warren found himself disturbingly... indifferent. The prospect of death wasn’t so bad. In fact, the thought of slipping away—leaving behind the endless struggle, the fear, the gnawing anxiety that had consumed the last decade of his life—seemed almost inviting.
All that remained for him to do was let go.
And yet... something stubborn burned in his chest, something spiteful. If there was nothing left worth living for, why not try the impossible? What harm was there in one last reckless, defiant act?
His spear was long gone, lost in the heat of the battle atop the cursed tower. But his free hand drifted toward the pouch at his side, instinctively finding it. Inside was his mentor’s Meta-TEC—old, but still potent, just like she had been. The Blazing Phoenix, she had called herself. Warren had watched her soar, wings aflame with colors that danced like a fevered dream.
Perhaps, in the moments between life and death, there was still time to rise from the ashes.
Perhaps, if he activated the second device, he would become like the phoenix his mentor had once been—reborn in fire and fury. Or like the Green Man, twisted and transformed by the deep, old magics. Warren entertained the thought for the briefest flicker of time, the rush of desperate ideas born from the edge of oblivion. But almost as quickly, he dismissed it. His Meta-TEC was strapped to his shattered arm, useless now, hanging limp as dead weight. No matter how fiercely he willed it, no amount of mental command would make his broken limb obey. And without it, he couldn’t reach the second device. He couldn’t activate anything.
“So much for that,” Warren muttered under his breath, a wry grin pulling at his battered lips. “That’s life, I guess.”
But then he saw her.
She fell like a dark blade through the sky, slicing toward him with deadly precision—The Hollow Knight, shrouded in black, her cloak unfurling in the wind like a banner of shadows. The way she moved, she could have been mistaken for a living jet-stream, cutting through the air with an eerie, silent grace.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“What is she doing?” Warren wondered aloud, half-dazed by the sight of her plummeting figure. But then it hit him. She was coming for him again. She was coming to save him.
The Hollow Knight reached out, her gloved hand moving with the same deliberate precision that had always unnerved him. She grasped the edge of her mask, and in one smooth motion, she tore it away. Her face, unshielded at last, was revealed to him. And it was not what he had expected—it was something far more real, more beautiful, more... human.
“You are—” Warren began to say, his breath catching in his throat. But her lips found his, and in that fleeting, electric instant, the connection was deeper than flesh. It was a kiss that reached into the darkest corners of his soul.
----------------------------------------
Meanwhile, in Lothorr’s chamber, the manastone—a relic of unimaginable potency—rolled aimlessly across the cold, blood-stained floor. Neither the Lord of the Blood Tower nor Captain Marshall noticed it at first. Their attention was locked on the chaos outside, where they had just witnessed the Warlock being hurled from the tower’s window, only to see the Hollow Knight dive after him in a move that defied all logic.
So, the manastone continued its lonely journey across the stone floor, forgotten in the wake of madness.
Eventually, it came to a stop at Captain Marshall’s boot. The soft nudge of the gem against her toe was enough to snap her back to the present. She glanced down, and there it was—an artifact of raw, untapped power, simply lying at her feet. She bent to retrieve it, but hesitated, waiting for a voice that never came. The Runelord, who had always been her guide in such matters, was silent now.
She was alone.
For the first time in a long, long time, Captain Marshall was truly alone. Everyone else was dead—or as good as—and she knew with a cold certainty that her own time was coming. The moment the Charnel Sprite shifted his gaze toward her, she would be next. The tower would claim her, just like it had claimed all the others. There was no doubt about it. She would die here, trapped in this blood-soaked fortress, unless she could buy herself a few more precious moments.
With nothing left but that fleeting hope, Marshall sheathed her sword, stripped off her glove, and picked up the manastone.
The effect was immediate. Raw power surged through her the instant her skin touched the stone. Captain Marshall felt it rip through her body like a flood of untamed leyline energy, ancient and primal. She recalled one of Cypher’s stranger diagrams—the ones she’d barely understood at the time—images of chakras and energy channels, swelling and glowing with mystical power. Now, she felt it for herself. The energy pooled in her abdomen, pulsed through her heart, swelled in her throat, and roared in her mind like a storm at sea.
But it was too much—far too much. The sensation was unbearable, not in pain but in sheer intensity. She felt herself expanding, as if her very being was trying to contain something beyond human capacity, as though her organs and soul were being forced to accommodate the impossible. This power, this ancient force, was not meant for mortals. It had to be released before it tore her apart.
And she knew exactly how to do it.
"Oi, monkey man!" she roared, her voice sharp and defiant. The homunculus, Lothorr, turned sluggishly toward her. Despite being stripped of the manastone, the level fifty Charnel Sprite still exuded death—an angel of slaughter to anyone less than a demigod. But Captain Marshall had no fear now. She was beyond it.
"You think you’ve got big balls up here in your tower, huh? Well, let me tell you something, you’re locked in here with me. And I swear, even if it costs me my damn life, I’m going to smash your face in."
Lothorr sneered, his hideous mouth opening to speak.
"Now, how do you suppose—"
But he never finished.
Marshall moved faster than he could react, closing the distance between them in the blink of an eye. Time itself seemed to slow as she struck, her kite shield crunching brutally into Lothorr’s grotesque face. The impact rang out like a crack of thunder, reverberating through the chamber.
The power within her unleashed itself in that instant, discharging like a storm breaking free of its bonds. A wild gale exploded outward from one of the energy cores in her body, sending a shockwave of force rippling through the room. Motes of luminous green light spun in the swirling wind, tiny fireflies of power fluttering around her like some cosmic dance.
And there she stood—at once calm violence and raging serenity, the eye of her own hurricane. Captain Marshall had become the embodiment of nature’s raw fury and serene order, a primal force manifest for a singular purpose: to annihilate these twisted abominations that had defiled her world.
Her gaze locked onto Lothorr. She was no longer just a woman wielding a shield and sword—she was nature's vengeance incarnate. And nothing in this cursed tower was going to stop her.