The trees towered over him like silent sentinels, their massive trunks cloaked in creeping green moss, bark scarred with the weight of ti. Aether flickered faintly between their limbs, making the shadows stretch in strange ways. The forest wasn’t just big—it was hulking, alive in a way the academy never was. The wind murmured like breath through leaves.
Zephyr stood at the treeline, the scythe balanced over his shoulder, and stared into the ancient wild.
And then he froze.
Wait.
He blinked.
His brows furrowed.
"...How do you even activate Hollow Art?".
He’d walked all this way with bandaged hands, sore muscles, and a vague, heroic idea of hunting sothing for his empty stomach. But now that he was here, staring at this ominous forest, a horrible realization dropped into his gut like a stone.
He had no idea how to activate his Hollow Art.
He hadn’t read a manual. No instructor had told him. There was no handy "Beginner’s Guide to Not Dying in the Forest While Using Your Newly Acquired Murder Technique."
"...Shit," he muttered under his breath.
He looked down at his palm. Clenched it. Waited.
Nothing.
He tried gripping the scythe tighter. Willed sothing—anything— he tried to force Aether into it but his Aether didn’t respond to his command.
Zephyr narrowed his eyes at a nearby tree, raised his scythe, and tried slashing with purpose.
Fwsh— the blade cut through air, clean, sharp.
Nothing happened.
He tried whispering, "Activate."
Nothing.
He tried shouting, "Hollow Art: Sothing-Cool!"
Still nothing.
A bird flapped away sowhere above, startled.
Zephyr lowered the scythe and pressed the heel of his palm to his forehead, groaning softly. "I’m a bloody idiot."
Was there a phrase? A trigger emotion? Was he supposed to bleed on it? Spin in place three tis and scream?
Then he rembered that he had a trusty assistant called Elden.
Zephyr slumped onto a root jutting from the nearest tree, his scythe resting against his shoulder, frustration crackling through him. How could he have forgotten he had help with him.
He reached into his jacket and tapped his phone lighting up the screen—Elden, the AI assistant given to every students.
A soft chi responded.
"Elden, how do I activate the Hollow Art?". He asked impatience clear in his voice.
Elden’s voice buzzed calmly in his ear, "You has not completed the Engraving Process. Activation of Hollow Art requires the ntal inscription of your designated Runes onto your cognitive map. This allows the resonance between your will and the blade to form a Hollow Channel."
"...So I need to draw it in my mind?". Zephyr asked in affirmation.
"Affirmative. Focus on the rune symbols embedded on your weapon. Bind them to your intent. Comprehension is connection."
Zephyr turned his gaze toward the scythe, now leaning against a mossy boulder. The blade still held a subtle, nacing shimr in the light—etched just beneath its curve was the Rune of Rend, jagged and harsh like a lightning scar across steel. Further down the shaft, coiled around the dark handle like a coiled predator, was the Rune of Phantom nace, almost ethereal in shape, difficult to focus on— birthmarks of slayed creatures.
He took a breath, and laid the scythe across his lap.
The Rune of Rend.
He stared at it.
Focused.
His mind locked on the shape—not just its form, but its feeling. It felt like fracture, like tearing, like sothing cleaving through lies, masks, and flesh alike. He imagined it searing itself into the surface of his thoughts.
A sharp pain blood behind his eyes.
His teeth clenched, but he held it. The Rune of Rend sizzled across his mind’s canvas, branding itself in burning silver across the front of his consciousness.
Then the Rune of Phantom nace.
This one was harder.
It shifted the longer he looked, its lines twisting like smoke or fogged glass. But then he understood. It wasn’t just shape—it was intent. Elusiveness. Threat unseen. A presence that lingered even after the body vanished.
He imagined it unraveling in his mind, creeping around the edges of his awareness like a shadow with eyes.
Pain again.
Worse this ti.
A cold, slithering pressure moved down his spine like soone whispering directly into his skull—but he did not stop.
The mont the second rune locked into place—
Click.
Sothing inside him shifted.
There was no sound, but he felt it—a hollow drumbeat deep in his soul. A resonance between him and the weapon.
The scythe pulsed.
Aether stirred in his chest like awakening embers.
He inhaled.
And poured.
Red Aether flowed from his Aether hearth, guided by instinct, funneling down his arm, threading into the runes etched into the scythe.
The Rune of Rend lit up first—glowing bright as lightning, a tear-shaped crack of hungry energy running down the blade. The air around it warped slightly, as if it was slicing air itself.
Then the Rune of Phantom nace awakened—its glow was softer, dimr, but deeper. The Aether around him responded not just to his will, but to the rune’s pull. Mist-like tendrils of ambient Aether from the forest drifted toward the scythe, drawn in like moths to a fla.
Zephyr’s eyes widened.
He wasn’t pushing anymore.
The scythe was feeding.
The runes drank from the environnt, Aether dancing across the blade’s surface like threads caught in a storm. He could feel his Hollow Art now— because it was hollow it could only sustain itself by reliaing on both the wielder and the world’s Aether.
He stood slowly.
Tested the weight.
It felt... lighter.
Sharper.
Not in the physical sense, but as if it existed half a step into another realm. One strike now could cutthrough flesh and bone.
He looked toward the forest, now strangely quiet. The trees no longer lood. They waited.
Zephyr adjusted the grip on his scythe.
"...Alright. Let’s see what you can do."
He positioned himself and exhaled then with a tug he poured his Aether into the rune on the blade.
The rune on the blade lit up with a red light and then Zephyr swang the blade. From the blade a thin crescent current of air flew out and struck a tree in front of him.
The tree had a thin line that dug deep into it but cut short of reaching halfway through it. But Zephyr was certain if that attack t a human head on, he or she was bound to be cut in half except if they were from Vermilion clan and even then they would be greatly injured.
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