Chapter 449: Hollow Vein XIII
He rested a moment longer beneath the tree, listening to the night. No cries. No hunters. Only the soft rustle of branches and the faint rhythm of his own breath. When the wind shifted, it carried with it the faintest trace of ash—remnants from the sanctum still burning behind him.
Asher closed the ledger and slid it back into his cloak. His hand lingered on the cover, not with hesitation, but with quiet certainty. The path was already decided.
The east.
He rose smoothly, taking up the scythe once more. The weapon’s edge caught the pale light, glimmering with faint crimson where his blood still lingered on it. He let it rest across his shoulder and stepped back onto the road. His stride remained the same—unhurried, measured, calm.
The Maw-Touched Herald would be waiting at the other end of this trail, surrounded by zealots who thought themselves chosen. To them, the Maw’s whispers were a gift. To Asher, they were just noise.
The night stretched long as he moved east. Now and then, he passed the signs of the Herald’s work: a shrine carved into a dead tree, its bark flayed to bare blackened symbols; a hamlet abandoned in haste, doors left open, tables still set, but every soul gone without trace. The silence of each place pressed deeper than the ruins of the sanctum had. Not destruction—consumption.
At dawn, the sky turned grey. Mist drifted low across the road. In the distance, a tower rose above the horizon, crooked and jagged, as though grown rather than built. At its base sprawled a cluster of tents and crude shrines, smoke rising from fires that smelled of blood instead of wood.
The Herald’s gathering place.
Asher stopped on the ridge, watching in silence. Even at this distance, he could hear faint chanting. A rhythm meant to call, to spread, to make the Maw’s hunger into prayer.
His cloak settled still around him. His expression did not change.
The Overseer had been a door.
The Herald was a voice.
Both would meet silence.
He began walking down the ridge.
The descent was slow, deliberate. Gravel shifted beneath his boots, sliding down the slope in muted trickles. Below, the gathering place stirred. Shapes moved among the tents, robed and masked, each with the same crooked posture—as if listening to something not in the world but beneath it. The chanting thickened, weaving into a pulse that pressed against the chest like a second heartbeat.
Closer now, Asher could see the tower for what it was. Not stone. Not wood. Bone. Vast lengths of rib, curved upward and fused together, bound with cords of sinew that still twitched faintly. From its cracks oozed a black resin that steamed when it hit the earth, leaving the ground pale and brittle. The tower wasn’t grown—it was fed.
At its base, the zealots knelt in ordered circles, their foreheads pressed to the dirt. Between them burned braziers filled not with coal but with organs, still wet, still dripping. Their smoke curled in slow spirals toward the tower’s peak, where a figure stood framed against the grey dawn.
The Herald.
Even from this distance, Asher felt the weight of that voice. The figure was robed in red too deep to be dyed, stitched with symbols that writhed when looked at too long. A mask of carved bone hid its face, but the mouth beneath it moved constantly, whispering to the congregation below. Each word slithered into the air, invisible yet sharp enough to raise the hair on the skin.
The zealots echoed in unison. A thousand throats, one chant.
Asher reached the edge of the camp. The first watchers turned, heads snapping toward him unnaturally fast, as though tugged by a single string. Their masks were simpler, crudely carved animals, cracked and blackened with ash. Behind them, others stirred, the chant faltering as more eyes fixed on him.
One broke from the circle, lifting a hooked blade. The mask tilted, voice rasping with the same cadence as the Herald’s whisper above.
"Another vessel... another mouth to be opened."
Asher shifted the scythe from his shoulder. Its crimson edge caught the weak light of dawn. He said nothing.
The zealot lunged.
The scythe moved once. A clean arc, quiet as breath. The zealot’s mask split down the center, and with it, the head beneath. Both halves fell in silence.
The chanting broke completely. The Herald’s whisper rose in pitch, a thin keen that scraped the air. The zealots screamed as if with one throat and surged forward, knives and hooks flashing.
Asher stepped into them.
The road east narrowed to a single truth—
Every voice here would end.
The first wave came fast—too fast for untrained men, but these were not merely men anymore. Their spines twisted under their robes, their steps jerking forward as if yanked by invisible cords. Knives swung low, hooks raked high, bodies hurling forward without care for their own survival.
Asher’s scythe met them with precise inevitability. He moved through the crush as though walking a path only he could see, each step set, each swing measured. A hook caught at his cloak—he twisted, letting it snag for a heartbeat before severing the zealot’s arm at the elbow. Another rushed from the side, jaw unhinged too wide beneath the mask; the scythe’s reverse curve punched through the throat, snapping shut with a wet crunch.
Blood sprayed the dirt. The chanting became shrieks.
Three came at once. One dove low for his legs, another swung a rusted cleaver for his neck, while the third leapt barehanded, nails blackened into claws. Asher pivoted. His heel drove into the first zealot’s skull, crushing it into the soil. The scythe rose in the same motion, catching the cleaver at its haft, dragging it down to open the wielder from shoulder to waist. The last found his claws sinking into nothing as Asher’s elbow crushed his jaw sideways, snapping it loose before the blade swept him down.
The zealots did not falter. For every body that fell, two more threw themselves into the gap, heedless of blood or fear. The Herald’s whisper lashed them forward, syllables breaking into static in Asher’s ears.
He answered in silence.