Rhea discovered the consequences of yesterday’s training before she had even managed to leave her bed.
The moment she tried to sit up, muscles across her back protested.
When she placed her feet on the floor, her legs joined the rebellion.
Even her shoulders somehow hurt despite most of the training having involved walking, falling, and repeatedly attempting to cross fifteen meters of ground while twenty Kaels made her life miserable.
She remained seated for several seconds, staring at the wall and reconsidering every decision that had led her to asking a stranger in the Hollow Depth to become her master.
Eventually, Rhea forced herself upright and made the slow journey toward the kitchen.
She found Kael already seated at the table with breakfast spread in front of him.
He looked entirely comfortable, which irritated her for reasons she couldn’t properly justify.
Kael looked at her once.
“You’re recovering well.” Rhea stopped halfway toward the table.
“I hate that you can see that.” “You are.” “I feel like someone beat me with a hammer.” “Your muscles disagree.” “My muscles are the ones complaining.” Kael pushed a plate toward her.
“Eat.” Rhea lowered herself into the chair with considerably more care than usual.
“We’re not training today.” “We are.” “Master.” “After the Guild.” Rhea stared at him before reaching for breakfast.
Apparently, becoming Kael’s disciple had removed her right to decide whether she was capable of standing.
What she didn’t know was that the Kael sitting across from her wasn’t Kael’s only occupied position currently paying attention to something.
Far away from Greyhaven, deep inside the Hollow Depth, another position remained in the ancient cavern where Kael had stored many of the objects collected throughout his years there.
His Absolute Spatial Sense extended downward through layers of stone into the enormous underground space he had noticed the previous night.
The thing inside was still moving.
Slowly.
Whatever it was didn’t appear to be attempting to reach the surface.
It simply shifted through the enormous underground region with movements separated by long periods of complete stillness.
Kael wasn’t worried.
He was curious.
The Kael in Greyhaven continued eating breakfast.
The Kael inside the Hollow Depth continued watching.
There was no division between those actions.
Both belonged to him.
By the time Kael and Rhea arrived at the Hunter Guild, the regional appraisers were already waiting.
Halren met them personally and guided them away from the public halls into one of the secured appraisal chambers.
Several people were gathered around a reinforced examination table.
Books, sketches, measuring instruments, preserved samples, and handwritten reports covered nearly every available surface.
At the center of all that attention sat a pale fragment of bone.
Kael recognized it.
Barely.
Rhea looked at the amount of work surrounding the object and then at her master.
“You really just had that lying around?” “Yes.” One of the appraisers visibly flinched.
Halren cleared his throat.
“Kael, this is Senior Appraiser Velric.
He traveled from the regional branch yesterday.” Velric was an elderly man with thin gray hair and several magnifying lenses hanging from his neck.
He looked at Kael with the expression of someone who had spent an entire night losing arguments with a piece of bone.
“You obtained this?” “Yes.” “From where?” “Hollow Depth.” Velric waited.
Kael didn’t continue.
“Where in the Hollow Depth?” “Deep.” Rhea covered her mouth.
Velric’s eyebrow twitched.
Halren intervened before the conversation could collapse entirely.
“Perhaps you should explain what you’ve discovered first.” Velric reluctantly nodded.
He carefully lifted the bone fragment with both hands and placed it beneath a metal inspection frame.
“We initially assumed this came from a large armored monster.
That assumption appears to have been incorrect.
The material is unquestionably biological in origin, and its structure resembles bone, but we’ve found no known species with comparable internal organization.” He pointed toward several sketches.
“The density is extraordinary.
More importantly, despite its apparent age, deterioration is minimal.
We’ve attempted several established dating methods, but the results contradict one another.” Rhea leaned closer.
“So you don’t know how old it is?” “We don’t.” Velric tapped another drawing.
“There is something more concerning.
Based on the curvature, growth pattern, and attachment markings, we don’t believe this was part of a major skeletal structure.” Halren’s expression became serious.
Rhea didn’t immediately understand.
Kael did.
“Small bone.” Velric looked at him sharply.
“Relatively speaking, yes.” Rhea looked at the fragment.
It was longer than her forearm.
Her head slowly turned toward Kael.
“Master.” “Hmm?” “You said the creature was very big.” “It was.” “How big?” Kael considered the question.
The room became quiet as everyone waited.
“Very big.” Rhea closed her eyes.
Velric took a breath through his nose.
“Do you remember what it looked like?” “Mostly.” “Please describe it.” Kael leaned back slightly.
“Many legs.” Velric immediately began writing.
“How many?” “Didn’t count.” The writing stopped.
“Approximately?” “A lot.” Rhea looked toward Halren apologetically, although she wasn’t sure why she felt responsible.
Kael continued.
“Heavy armor.
Mouth underneath.
I don’t remember seeing eyes.” “Size?” “Large enough that part of it remained inside the cavern when I first saw it.” Velric’s pen stopped again.
“What species?” Kael shrugged.
“I didn’t ask.” Rhea couldn’t stop herself.
“Master, monsters don’t introduce themselves.” “Exactly.” Halren coughed into one hand.
Velric stared at Kael for several seconds before deciding to move to a more useful question.
“Was it already dead when you found it?” “No.” Silence settled over the room.
Halren slowly looked toward Kael.
“You killed it?” Kael thought.
“Eventually.” Velric lowered his pen.
Rhea knew her master well enough now to recognize dangerous words when she heard them.
“What does eventually mean?” Kael’s attention drifted toward an old memory.
The Hollow Depth had looked different to him then.
Not because the forest itself had changed.
Because he had.
His Decay Domain had been crude in those years.
Powerful, certainly, but power and mastery were different things.
He remembered entering an underground cavern large enough to swallow several buildings and sensing movement ahead.
Back then, his Spatial Sense hadn’t extended nearly as far as it did now, and his control over multiple occupied positions still required conscious effort.
Then the cavern wall moved.
What Kael initially mistook for overlapping plates of dark stone unfolded into an enormous armored creature.
One leg struck the ground.
The cavern shook.
Kael had looked upward.
Then farther upward.
“That’s big.” The creature attacked.
Kael established Decay Domain.
The stone around him immediately began deteriorating.
Fungal growth collapsed into gray residue.
Moisture vanished from the surrounding earth.
Cracks spread across the cavern floor.
The creature’s armor barely changed.
Kael had stared at it.
That was new.
So he increased the intensity.
The monster charged.
Several Kaels occupied different positions around the cavern.
One disappeared beneath a descending limb.
Another emerged along the creature’s side.
A third observed from above.
He hadn’t been afraid.
He had been fascinated.
Decay worked.
Just not efficiently.
The creature’s armor possessed layer after layer of dense biological structure.
Trying to deteriorate everything simultaneously wasted too much of the phenomenon across its enormous body.
So Kael changed his approach.
Instead of attacking everything, he focused on the outermost layer.
Decay.
The armor weakened.
Then the next.
Decay.
Then the connective structure beneath it.
Then tissue.
Then deeper.
He stopped trying to destroy an enormous creature all at once and began dismantling it one layer at a time.
The battle became an experiment.
By the end, part of the cavern had collapsed, enormous sections of stone had deteriorated into loose sediment, and the creature lay motionless beneath the ruins.
Kael had walked across its remains afterward and found one piece that had resisted Decay better than most.
He picked it up.
That’s unusually durable.
Then he kept it.
The memory faded.
“At the time, my control wasn’t very good,” Kael said.
Nobody immediately responded.
Rhea stared at him.
Velric looked at the bone.
Then back at Kael.
“Your control wasn’t good?” “No.” “How difficult was killing it?” Kael considered the question.
“At the time?” That phrase made Rhea’s expression change.
Velric noticed too.
“Yes.
At the time.” “Moderately.” The room became silent again.
Rhea suddenly understood something she hadn’t properly considered before.
Every impossible thing she had witnessed came from the Kael standing before her now.
The creature represented an older Kael.
A less experienced Kael.
A Kael who hadn’t yet mastered Decay.
She looked toward the bone again.
How much weaker had he been?
And how long ago had that actually happened?
Halren broke the silence.
“If something like this lived inside the Hollow Depth…are there more?” “Probably.” “More of the same species?” “Maybe.” “How many creatures of comparable strength have you encountered?” Kael looked at him.
“I don’t count them.” Halren stopped asking questions.
Rhea almost felt sorry for him.
Then Kael’s attention shifted.
His eyes lowered slightly.
Rhea noticed immediately.
“Master?” Far away, beneath the Hollow Depth, the enormous thing moved again.
This time, the movement was different.
It changed direction.
Kael’s occupied position inside the cavern watched through Absolute Spatial Sense as the creature began moving toward the region where he stood.
Not quickly.
But deliberately.
Kael tilted his head.
Halren noticed.
“Something wrong?” “Something’s moving.” Every person in the appraisal chamber immediately looked downward.
Rhea’s eyes widened.
“Here?” “No.” She relaxed slightly.
“Where?” “Hollow Depth.” Halren stared at him.
“The Hollow Depth is days away even for a capable expedition.” “Yes.” “How do you know something is moving there?” Rhea understood first.
Her expression flattened.
“You’re still there.” “Yes.” Halren looked between them.
“What do you mean, still there?” Kael answered calmly.
“I’m in the Hollow Depth.” Halren looked at the man sitting several steps away.
“You’re here.” “I’m also here.” Another silence.
Velric slowly put his pen down.
Halren appeared to be attempting to reorganize several assumptions about how people were supposed to exist.
“You currently have another…version of yourself inside the Hollow Depth?” “No.” Halren waited.
Kael pointed toward himself.
“Me.” Then vaguely toward the distant Hollow Depth.
“Also me.” Rhea sighed.
“I warned Marcus not to ask too many questions about this.” Halren looked at her.
“He didn’t listen?” “He actually did.
That’s why he left with his sanity.” Kael ignored them.
His attention remained focused elsewhere.
The position inside the Hollow Depth moved.
There was no reason to search for one of the underground passages he vaguely remembered.
The thing he wanted to investigate was below him.
So Kael walked toward it.
Stone stood in the way.
Decay Domain spread.
Not outward.
Downward.
A circular section of rock directly beneath his feet began deteriorating layer by layer.
Stone became brittle sediment before collapsing away.
Kael descended through the opening and continued.
More stone.
More Decay.
Straight down.
Back in Greyhaven, Kael remained seated in the appraisal room while Velric cautiously resumed examining the bone.
Rhea watched him.
“You’re doing something, aren’t you?” “Walking.” “You’re sitting.” “Also walking.” Rhea decided not to continue.
Deep underground, Kael descended through kilometers of ancient rock.
His Absolute Spatial Sense spread ahead of him, mapping every fracture, mineral deposit, underground stream, and hollow space within range.
Then the enormous creature stopped.
Kael stopped too.
Something had changed.
It had noticed him.
His perception moved across its structure.
Kael’s expression slowly changed.
Not fear.
Recognition.
Years ago, when he had first explored this underground region, his Spatial Sense had been considerably less developed.
He remembered enormous formations lining sections of the cavern below.
Strange ridges of mineral-like material.
Massive pillars fused into the surrounding stone.
He had assumed they were geological.
They weren’t.
One of those formations shifted.
Then another.
The cavern hadn’t merely contained the creature.
Part of what Kael had believed was the cavern itself had been its body.
Back in Greyhaven, Rhea saw the faint change in her master’s expression.
He smiled.
Her stomach immediately sank.
“Master.” “Hmm?” “What did you find?” Deep beneath the Hollow Depth, stone fractured.
Something vast began pulling itself free from the cavern walls.
Layers of sediment accumulated over an unimaginable period broke apart and cascaded downward.
Structures Kael had once mistaken for ridges slowly unfolded.
His perception followed the creature.
Farther.
Farther.
Still farther.
It was considerably larger than the armored monster whose bone currently sat on the Guild’s examination table.
Kael watched with genuine interest.
Then he answered Rhea.
“Something I missed.” Rhea became very still.
She had seen enough of Kael’s perception to understand what those words meant.
Something had existed in a region he had explored, yet the younger, less experienced Kael of that time hadn’t recognized what he was looking at.
Rhea looked at the slight smile remaining on his face.
“You’re going to investigate it.” “I’m already investigating it.” Of course he was.
Kael’s position beneath the Hollow Depth stepped into the enormous cavern as the ancient thing continued pulling itself from the stone.
He looked upward.
Then farther upward.
His smile grew slightly.
“Interesting.” Back in Greyhaven, Rhea closed her eyes.
There was that word again.