Chapter 451: Hollow Vein XV
The tower didn’t stop. More limbs pushed out of its walls, some shaped like spears, others like giant claws, all swinging toward Asher at once. The ground shook with every strike, cracks running through the dirt as the weight of the blows smashed down.
Asher didn’t back away. He moved straight into the storm. His scythe flashed in clean arcs, each swing cutting through flesh and bone as if they were paper. He ducked under a claw, twisted past a spear of bone, and cut both apart in a single motion. Black ichor sprayed over him, burning the soil where it landed, but he didn’t slow.
The Herald’s voices rose higher. The tower itself groaned like a living beast in pain. Faces formed along its ribs, eyes opening and rolling wildly, mouths screaming in chorus. More limbs burst free, dozens now, all lashing down at him in a frenzy.
Asher spun his scythe once, and the bloodlight along its edge burned brighter. He stepped forward into the storm of limbs, cutting one after another, never wasting a strike. Each swing left more of the tower in pieces. Severed arms crashed down around him, shaking the ground, but he walked forward without pause.
The Herald leaned over the top of the tower, voice like a knife digging into his skull.
"You cannot cut the wound, vessel. You are the wound."
Asher’s eyes narrowed. He raised the scythe high, bloodlight coiling along its curve like fire. His voice came low, steady.
"Then I’ll cut myself into your heart."
And with that, he leapt, scythe carving a path upward through the raining limbs, aiming straight for the Herald at the top of the tower.
He flew up the last few ribs and landed on the tower’s rim. The Herald stood there, wrapped in that red robe, mask fixed like a crown. The choir of faces along the tower screamed in one thin, high note that made the teeth ache.
Asher’s boots struck the rim of the tower with a heavy thud. The bone beneath him pulsed faintly, veins of black sinew writhing through the ivory like it still lived. The air was hot, thick with the stink of ichor and burnt flesh. Across from him, the Herald stood straight and still, the red robe clinging like wet skin. Its mask, pale and cracked, was shaped like a crown of bone, hollow eyesockets glowing faintly with bloodlight.
The choir of faces along the tower’s ribs all shrieked at once—a single endless note, too sharp to bear. The sound rattled teeth, set nerves aflame. The Herald spread its arms in mock welcome, the voice slithering through every inch of the tower at once.
"Vessel. Chosen wound. The Maw breathes in you. You are cut from its hunger, shaped to open the world. And yet—" the mask tilted, the whisper deepened, "—you pretend you can silence the choir."
Asher did not answer. His scythe rested low in both hands, the blade trailing faint arcs of bloodlight. His shoulders rose and fell once with calm breath, and then he advanced.
The Herald struck first. From its side, bone surged outward, knitting itself into a spear of fused ribs and teeth. It thrust with a lunge like a serpent, fast and ugly. Asher stepped in, his scythe snapping up. The edge sang through bone and tendon, splitting the spear in two. The sound rang sharp across the tower’s rim.
The Herald reeled back, the mask twitching as if amused. Beneath it, cracks spread—revealing not a face but a knot of mouths and teeth, each whispering over one another.
"Good. Yes. Feed me your edge. Carve the hymn. Let every strike fall into the Maw’s throat. Let it taste you!"
The scythe gleamed as Asher swung again, his blow aimed to silence those whispers. The Herald caught the shaft with its hand—no, not a hand anymore, but a mass of black cords wrapped around jagged bone. It pulled, dragging him closer, trying to draw him into the tower’s pulsing ribs. The voices rose all around, clawing at the edges of his mind, pressing, demanding he kneel.
For a breath, the world warped—the sky bent, the ground tilted. He could almost see himself falling into the cracks, sinking into the great, endless Maw.
Asher’s grip never loosened. He let the flare of blood rise through the blade, burning faint and steady. Then, without a word, he twisted the scythe free and brought it upward in a ruthless arc.
The blade met the Herald’s throat. Bone cracked. Flesh split. The mouths shrieked, but Asher pushed through, cutting until the mask shattered in half.
The Herald’s voice came ragged, like a choir collapsing out of tune. "Wound... betrayer... the Maw waits... you will open... you cannot close it—"
The rest dissolved in a scream as its body toppled from the rim. It fell like rotten timber, crashing down the ribs until it struck the base and burst open in a rain of ichor and teeth.
The tower shuddered. The chorus of faces sagged, their screams dying one by one. Limbs that once lashed at Asher slowed, trembling weakly before collapsing into heaps of dead sinew. Black resin oozed freely now, like the life had been torn out of the whole structure.
The ribs split, snapped, and fell inward. A wave of bone and ash thundered down, crushing the shrines and zealots below. Dust rose into the air, choking out the stars.
Asher stood unmoved. He lowered the scythe to his shoulder and watched the tower fall. His expression was steady, eyes cold.
One voice gone.
One link cut.
But the Maw still whispered, distant and waiting.
Asher turned and walked from the ruins without a word.
The ruins smoldered behind him, the air thick with ash and the faint hiss of cooling ichor. Each step carried him farther from the fallen tower, but the silence it left behind was not clean. It was too deep, too heavy, as if something vast had only drawn a single breath and was waiting to exhale.
Asher’s cloak dragged through pale dust, the edges torn, still wet with zealot blood. The scythe’s crimson edge dimmed to a dull sheen, its hunger quiet for now. His face gave nothing away, but in the marrow of his bones he felt the truth—the Herald had been no master, only a mouth. The Maw’s call lingered like an echo against stone, faint yet certain.
He crossed the ridge where he had first looked down upon the cult’s gathering. From here the destruction was clear: the bone tower was a ruin, collapsed inward like a carcass torn apart, braziers smashed, tents shredded into rags by the shockwave. No zealot moved among them. No chant rose. The choir was dead.
But the ground still breathed. He could see it—tiny fissures spidering outward from where the tower’s roots had pierced the earth, each pulsing faintly with black light, as though veins still carried something below. The Herald’s last words pressed at the back of his mind. You will open... you cannot close it.
His grip on the scythe tightened."Try me."
He turned his back on the fissures and walked east, toward the line of jagged hills. Beyond them waited another trail of names in the ledger folded against his chest. Another mouth of the Maw.