Riven awoke coughing.
The world around him was charred stone and shifting ash. Above, the sky was quiet for the first time in weeks—no rifts, no screams, no burning hail. Just a grey overcast silence, like the world itself was holding its breath.
He pushed himself up with a groan, brushing flakes of charred armor and soot from his skin. His body ached like he'd been thrown off a cliff and set on fire. Which, in some sense, wasn't too far from the truth.
Memories of the fight came rushing back.
The Hollow Knight. The voice. The sword.
The fire.
His hand instinctively went to his chest. The place where the fire had awakened.
It was warm. Still glowing faintly under his skin, like living embers carved into his bones.
"I should be dead," he muttered.
The ground where the Hollow Knight had stood was a crater now—a glassed pit still steaming with heat. Nothing remained of the demon. Not even bone. The others hadn't been so lucky. Bodies of his former squad were still scattered across the battlefield.
Riven staggered to his feet, legs unsteady but functional. He wasn't sure where to go. Hollowreach was east, but he didn't know if it still existed. He didn't know if anyone had survived. More importantly...
What was he now?
[STATUS UNLOCKED]
The words blinked across his vision like spectral flames.
Name: Riven Ashenveil
Title: Ashborn
Mark: Incineration I
Core: Eternal Flame (Bound)
Rank: Unclassified
Abilities:
Flamewrought Weaponry (Locked)
Overkill Surge (Locked)
Ashen Rebirth (Locked)
Traits: Fireborn Resilience, Soulburn Echo
He blinked.
"Locked? Of course they're locked. Why make this easy?" he said aloud.
The system—whatever force governed this strange power—didn't answer. Just hovered at the edge of his awareness like a flame waiting for kindling.
He turned toward the edge of the crater, where a flicker of color caught his eye. A torn banner, stained in blood, fluttered weakly.
It was the sigil of Hollowreach—a cracked sun over a burning tower.
Riven gritted his teeth. No more running.
He started walking.
The journey back took hours.
Riven moved through ruined fields and collapsed stonework, stepping over corpses both human and Hollow. Burn marks traced the land where riftfires had poured down like divine wrath. He passed the remains of war camps, tents melted into the earth, and weapons half-buried in black glass.
Twice, he heard distant screeches—scouts, maybe, or stragglers. He didn't hide. He didn't run. Not anymore.
When Hollowreach came into view, it was worse than he imagined.
The outer walls had crumbled. Fires still burned in pockets. The city—if it could even be called that now—was a ghost of its former self. And yet, through the smoke, survivors moved.
Guards, battered and bloodied. Medics treating the wounded. Civilians digging through rubble. People still lived.
Riven stepped forward.
He didn't make it five feet before someone tackled him.
"Get down!"
A figure slammed into him from the side, dragging him behind a shattered wall. He hit the ground hard, the breath knocked out of him.
"What the hell are you doing out there, you idiot?" a voice snapped.
Riven looked up.
Kaela Virein.
Elite hunter. Cold, lethal, and probably the last person he expected to see alive.
Her face was smeared with soot, her silver hair tied back in a rough knot. Her eyes—piercing violet—scanned the horizon before settling on him.
"Riven?" she said, disbelief cutting through the anger. "You're supposed to be dead."
"Nice to see you too," he muttered.
She stared at him, then slowly helped him up.
"You look like hell."
"I've been there."
She didn't laugh.
"Come on. Commander needs to see this."
The inner sanctum of Hollowreach had fared better than the outer shell. Reinforced by soulstone and blessed wards, it was still standing—barely.
Riven stood in front of Commander Drexx, a giant of a man with half his face replaced by metal. His remaining eye glowed faintly with rune-circuitry.
Kaela stood to the side, arms crossed.
Drexx stared Riven down.
"So," he said finally. "You survived a Hollow Knight."
"I killed it," Riven corrected.
Silence.
Drexx didn't blink. "And how, exactly, did you do that? With your fear?"
Riven lifted his hand. Flame danced along his fingers—gentle but impossibly bright.
Kaela inhaled sharply.
Drexx leaned forward. "Where did you get that?"
"I didn't. It found me."
The room fell into a heavy hush. Then Drexx motioned to Kaela. "Test him."
Before Riven could protest, Kaela was already moving. She stepped forward, her hand going to the hilt of her sword—a long, curved blade that shimmered with spectral light.
"Don't hold back," Drexx said. "If he's what he says he is, he'll survive."
"And if not?" Riven asked.
"Then we bury what's left."
Kaela moved.
Fast.
Faster than any normal hunter should.
Her blade came in from the left, a crescent arc of death. Riven barely managed to raise his arm—flame coiling instinctively—and the sword clanged against a wall of burning light.
Kaela slid back, eyes narrowing.
"You blocked that. Without casting."
"I didn't mean to."
"Try again."
They moved in a blur. Blades and flame. Dodge, parry, strike. Riven didn't think—he reacted. The fire did half the work for him, responding before he could process the danger.
When the fight ended, they stood ten feet apart. Kaela's sword steamed from the heat. Riven's eyes were glowing again.
She lowered her weapon slowly.
"He's not lying," she said.
Drexx let out a long breath.
"Then we have a problem."
"How is this a problem?" Riven asked. "I just killed a Knight."
"You awakened the Eternal Flame," Drexx said. "That power hasn't been seen since the War of Sundering. Since the old gods died. And every Hollow left in the realms will feel it."
Kaela looked at Riven. "You're a beacon now. They'll come for you."
Riven swallowed.
"So what do we do?"
Drexx stood, turning to a map carved into the wall. Symbols glowed on it—fractures in reality, growing by the day.
"You train. You grow stronger. Because if you don't become a god..."
He looked back at Riven.
"...this world will burn before winter comes."
They wasted no time.
The next morning, Riven was sent deep beneath Hollowreach, into the Crucible—a place where power was honed or shattered. The walls were etched with ancient runes, and echoes of former warriors haunted the air.
Kaela stood in the center.
"First lesson," she said. "Fire is not your weapon. It's your shadow. You don't use it—you become it."
Riven stepped into the circle. "Sounds poetic. Got anything useful?"
She smiled coldly. "Let's find out."
And then the real pain began.