It had been several days since Lady Maria first arrived at Hollowmere. Now, beneath the starless veil of a new moon, her expression had shifted—no longer calm, but tight with quiet dread. She stood with her knights atop the windswept hill, watching the village below as dusk threatened to stir the mist.
At last, she broke the thick and restless silence.
"A bell once tolled at dusk, and the land held its breath.
From silence came the curse—not flame, nor flood, but remembrance.
And thus the calamity walked, not cloaked in shadow,
but draped in daylight—wearing the face of faith, and the scent of ash."
Those were not idle words. They were the truth of her mission.
The knights stirred, their faces darkening at her tone.
"A calamity?" one muttered. "Faith? Are you saying… the priest?"
Maria gave a soft, solemn nod.
"Prophecies are riddles, not roads. What seems obvious is rarely so. But we cannot overlook any path they illuminate."
Sulvyan stepped forward, brows furrowed with unease.
"But the original prophecy—it spoke of a rising sword of faith. A beacon, not a curse. How could it twist into calamity?"
Maria's eyes lifted to the blackened sky. Her voice, low as distant thunder:
"Perhaps the sword was never meant to save… only to judge."
She paused, then added, "Has the priest made his decision yet?"
Jack, the knight who had once trailed the priest, stepped in.
"He's a stubborn one, but I believe he'll come to his senses before dawn."
There was a strange weight to his tone, as though he'd glimpsed something the others had not.
Far below, in the slumbering village of Hollowmere, subtle movements betrayed the calm.
Alucard, perched at the edge of the hill, peered through the strange glass fixed over his eye—an enchanted lens tied to a miracle. He had watched the village for nearly a month, and tonight, something had shifted.
"S-Something's off… The villagers—they're moving strangely," he muttered.
Then, like a chorus from a forsaken temple, a familiar sound rose from Hollowmere's heart—a melody of unrest, of riot… of revolt.
"What's the meaning of this!?" he cried, just as the noise swelled.
Jack paled. "Impossible. I've felt Hollowmere's miracle with my own soul. And yet ..."
Maria remained calm, her orders swift.
"Jack, go to the priest. Bring him here. Sulvyan, try to quell the chaos, but be ready to fall back at my signal. I will scan the perimeter."
The knights obeyed, though unease lingered.
"To abandon the villagers like this?" Jack protested. "This defies the teachings of our benevolent god! If it's only a riot, we can still uphold the light—prevent the calamity!"
Then came the scream. Piercing. Terrible. A sound so sharp, it rippled through the grass.
"Jack," Sulvyan snapped, "we serve the realm. Sacrifices are inevitable. And… this isn't a normal riot."
He cast a sidelong glance at Maria.
"Lady Maria knew the calamity drew near—yet brought no reinforcements. Could it be… she expected this? Or worse ..."
There was no answer. Only the shifting of steel, and the wind moaning through the pines.
Maria moved first, her cloak trailing like the shadow of judgment.
Behind her, the knights began to form ranks under Alucard's command, his eye never leaving the restless village below.
A few hours earlier, dusk had settled upon Hollowmere like a veil of smoke. The air was damp, clinging, and the scent of wet earth mixed with burning oil from shuttered lamps. It should've been a quiet evening—just another lull in the eternal rhythm of the village.
Then came the dispute.
It was not uncommon. Newcomers arrived often enough, drawn by Hollowmere's hush, its whispered legends of safety and sacred ground. Disagreements over coin and trade flared like embers—but they rarely caught fire.
This time, it was different.
A man from the south, silk-tongued, argued over a batch of preserved nightroot. The seller, a stooped old woman with one eye and a reputation for sharp deals, refused to lower her price. She'd lived through three wars and the long silence after the fall of Eastgarde. She did not flinch when the merchant raised his voice.
Others gathered—not to fight, but to watch. That's how these things started in Hollowmere. A dozen sets of eyes from a dozen distant corners of the world, drawn to the tension like wolves to a twitching branch.
Another merchant chimed in, then a third. Words grew barbed, voices sharper. Someone laughed—a nervous sound that didn't belong. A hand went to a hilt. Not drawn. Not yet.
The moment tightened, stretched.
A bottle shattered.
And like breath held too long, it broke.
Chairs scraped stone. Someone shoved. The merchant's guard stepped forward, not to strike, but to shield. A boy slipped and was caught beneath the heel of a heavy boot. His cry pierced the growing noise.
Not yet a riot.
But the kindling was lit.
Men and women who'd once fought in border skirmishes, who bore the look of exiles and veterans, now stood facing each other like ghosts remembering how to fight. Old instincts flared behind weathered eyes.
And through it all, the villagers waited—for something.
A sign.
An intervention.
A miracle.
The breath of Hollowmere.
For centuries, it had always come.
A soft hush before danger. A sudden breeze that turned a blade. A misstep from one would-be killer that spared a child's life. They called it the "Shield of Aric," and every soul born of Hollowmere bore the tale in their bones. Fathers told it to sons as they learned to hunt. Mothers whispered it beside cradles. Even the wanderers who passed through came to know the story: that no evil could take root in Hollowmere, for the land itself remembered the hero's sacrifice.
It was not a legend.
It was a fact.
A truth etched across generations, proven time and again.
But not tonight.
Tonight, the cries went unanswered.
The hand that should have faltered struck true.
The child who should have been spared was not.
The riot did not dissolve—it spread.
And in the silence between shouts, between the clang of overturned carts and the tear of angry voices, something colder moved through Hollowmere.
Doubt.
Not the kind spoken aloud, but the deeper kind.
The kind that coils behind the ribs, slithering past memory and faith.
The kind that asks, without mercy:
What if it was never real?
What if we were abandoned long ago—and only now noticed?
Was this not sacred soil?
Had God not anointed this place through Aric's blood?
Had the blessing faded?
Or worse—had it turned away?
The unrest did not fall like thunder, did not scream like flame.
It seeped. Like rot in the beams of a long-standing house.
Quiet. Patient. Certain.
And as the sun bled out behind the hills,
Hollowmere held its breath—
but no breath answered back.
The land, once cradled by a hero's dying grace,
now lay still.
And where mercy once lingered, only silence remained.
Not the silence of peace.
But of judgment.
And of something older still, beginning to wake.