As Grandpa started hovering so kind of golden discs over my chest, I saw the room light up in different rings.
A strange sound buzzed in my ears as if my whole body was vibrating with mana, but the weird part?
It wasn’t mine.
I felt like a glass being filled with soone else’s water.
"Your mana’s oddly... silent," Venus Grandpa murmured.
"Like sothing’s sleeping beneath it. Like a locked door."
"Well, that’s comforting," I said, feeling a little uneasy.
He ignored .
His eyes were sharp now, flicking from the golden disc to a set of ancient books laid open beside him.
Finally, he reached for the flask of red blood that I felt so connection with.
Yeah.
That blood.
It was glowing faintly again, even though it was sealed behind a thick glass vial.
"Just a drop," he said more to himself than .
"No direct contact. Let’s confirm the reaction threshold."
He pulled out a thin silver needle and, with steady hands, pierced the barrier at the top of the flask. A single drop of the crimson liquid hovered at the tip of his needle, as he swirled it like a living thing.
I swear I saw it move.
"This might tingle," He said.
Then, Grandpa tapped the drop onto the centre of my forehead, right where the skin between my eyebrows was.
I didn’t feel a tingle, though.
Instead...
I felt like I got hit by lightning.
My back arched.
My eyes flew wide.
My heart punched my ribs like it wanted to escape.
The mont that blood touched , sothing woke up inside my head—inside my body.
I wasn’t on the table anymore.
Or in the vault.
Or even here.
I was falling—falling through red skies, black oceans and screaming stars that whispered nas I didn’t understand.
It was all sound and colour and pain and power.
And then the world cracked.
I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound ca out.
All around , I saw shadows—tall, crowned beings wrapped in flowing cloaks, their eyes glowing like hollow moons.
They stood in a circle, watching ...waiting?
I blinked, finding myself back on the cold, stone slab, gasping.
And then the flask exploded.
Venus shouted sothing, but I couldn’t hear it over the high-pitched hum now screaming in my ears.
The red liquid inside the flask didn’t spill—it moved.
It shot out.
Like a living snake of blood, it printed forward and stabbed right into my forehead.
Right into my glabella.
I scread this ti.
The blood burned as it sank into my skin.
It wasn’t like mana, I realised, feeling sothing deeper connecting itself to ...like it was going straight into my soul.
My fingers twitched, and I could almost feel my eyes rolling back as veins lit up in crimson flashes, like molten lines all over my body.
I felt everything and nothing all at once.
And then...silence.
Not a peaceful silence, but a heavy one instead...
I lay there, my plump chest heaving as my eyes opened wide at whatever just happened to , it was almost like-
I felt like a different person.
Looking around, I realised that the blood had disappeared from Venus’s hands as shards of glass were scattered all over my body and the floor below ...but none of it mattered.
No matter how much I tried, but I almost felt like my ability to care about things had suddenly taken a deep hit.
Venus was standing still, staring at like I’d just turned into a ghost.
"What... was that?" I rasped.
He didn’t answer.
His hand trembled slightly.
"Venus?" I sat up slowly, realising that I no longer felt that urge to call him grandpa like he was soone close to again. "Are you gonna say sothing or just...stare?"
He blinked.
Once.
Slowly.
Then, finally opened his mouth.
His voice was quiet.
Too quiet.
"...That wasn’t supposed to happen." He said blankly.
"Understatent of the year?" I tried making a joke, but it was almost like he wasn’t even listening to what I was saying right now.
He stepped toward , eyes still locked onto my forehead.
"It didn’t just react to you," he said, voice low.
"It chose you."
"I an, cool? But also—scary? Because I feel like I just got possessed by so spicy blood."
He didn’t laugh.
He just stood there for a long mont.
Then he sat down on the nearest stool, still staring at as he voiced sothing that shook my very existence to the core.
"...That was the blood of the Hollow King."
"What... was that?" I asked, breathless.
He didn’t answer.
"Venus?"
My head throbbed.
"You do know who the Hollows were, don’t you?" he asked to all of a sudden.
"Aliens, right? Sothing about a war...but that was ages ago."
He shook his head. "Not ages. Just a few generations back."
I froze.
He walked to a nearby shelf, picked up a worn book, and slamd it on the table beside . The cover read:
"The Third Apocalypse: Invasion of the Hollows."
"They weren’t just aliens. They didn’t co in peace. They ca to conquer.
And they almost did.
They wiped out half of humanity before they were stopped." Venus said Warily.
I swallowed, realising what had happened only now. "And you had their king’s blood in a flask just lying around in your treasure room?"
"I didn’t know that’s what it was.
No one did.
We thought it was dormant. Harmless."
"Harmless?" My voice cracked. "It just crawled into my head."
Venus didn’t argue.
He just sat down heavily in the stone chair across from , staring at the floor.
"The Hollow King wasn’t just a ruler," he said quietly.
"He was the last of their royal bloodline. Their most powerful warrior. A creature whose power distorted reality itself. They didn’t just use weapons, Pixie.
They used deception, manipulation, and illusions that could trap people for years in their own heads."
My stomach twisted, unable to believe all this.
"But don’t other people integrate with hollows too?"
"It didn’t just integrate with you, Pixie," he said, looking up. "It rged with you. Which ans..."
His voice trailed off.
"Which ans what?"
I don’t know what took over this oldie as he stood up all of a sudden, walking towards slowly as he looked at my forehead again.
His brows were furrowed like he was trying to solve a puzzle made of nightmares.
"...it ans that you might not be fully human anymore."
***
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