The village of Hollowmere was finally behind them, its jagged ruins lost to the mists.
For days—or perhaps weeks—they had walked its cursed streets, breathing in air too still, air too heavy.
The silence there wasn't just silence.
It was a wound.
A scar stitched into the world.
Now, with the dirt path crunching underfoot and dying trees giving way to wind-bent hills, Alucard walked not in solitude but in awkward company.
Lucien was several paces ahead, cloak drawn tight around him, muttering into a bound leather tome etched with runes only the truly paranoid would inscribe.
He never quite looked back, but Alucard could feel his gaze now and then, like the brush of cold fingers on the back of his neck.
Elysia, the Demon Queen herself, walked to the left, distant yet near, her presence never subtle.
Regal even outside a throne room, her gait silent but deliberate.
Her violet eyes seldom met his.
They were three names of weight.
Yet, they were not friends.
Not allies.
Not yet.
Merely three wandering shadows, bound by uneasy purpose and a shared desire to understand the corruption that Hollowmere revealed.
A gust of wind pulled at Alucard's cloak, and he glanced up.
Grey skies stretched far overhead—no sun to greet them, only the ever-present gloom that had become the world's constant companion since the Black Sky Event. Strange, how long it had been since the sun had felt... warm.
[System Message: Hollowmere Exited. Region flagged as "Corrupted Zone." Prolonged exposure risk: C+ tier Veil Contamination. System sync rate recovering... 94% → 98%... Complete.]
He grimaced.
The System was more talkative now.
Reawakened, repaired—perhaps even reinvigorated by Hollowmere's unnatural energy.
But it spoke to him alone.
No one else knew.
No one could.
Not the summoned heroes left behind in the Human Kingdom.
Not the Queen walking beside him.
Certainly not Lucien, whose words felt too precise to trust.
[System Thread: "Veil Fracture Mechanics" unlocked.]
Host eligible for passive extraction of localized Will-bound anomalies.
Note: Resistance may provoke Will awareness.
"...Fascinating," Lucien said ahead, snapping his tome shut.
"The resonance lines haven't stabilized. If anything, they've grown more erratic since our departure."
Alucard slowed.
"You expected them to?"
"I hoped they might." Lucien adjusted his gloves.
"But Hollowmere was just the surface. Whatever lies beneath... it didn't end when we left."
"I don't think it ever ends," Elysia murmured.
Her gaze remained forward.
"The Veil simply shifts its masks."
They walked in silence for some time.
Alucard's thoughts churned, fragmented, pressing against his skull like rising steam.
Hollowmere hadn't just disturbed him.
It had touched something deep in his core.
Memories he hadn't known were still alive.
The cold of his throne in the old Demon Realm.
The way souls screamed as they shattered under his old claws.
The weight of absolute power.
He'd sealed that part of himself when he was summoned—when the world, unknowingly, pulled his soul from the ashes of reincarnation to stand among heroes.
But the Veil saw it.
It whispered to the parts of him he had hoped were buried.
And worse, it recognized him.
[You are known. You're the thread that will not severed. The veil remembers.]
He clenched his jaw.
Elysia broke the silence again, voice calm but edged.
"You two were in Hollowmere as well. Did either of you feel it? The pull? The... pressure in your dreams?"
Lucien's lips tightened.
"A pressure, yes. Like something wanted in. But I do not sleep easily, Your Majesty. And I keep my dreams guarded."
She looked to Alucard.
"And you?"
He met her gaze, unreadable.
"I dream of war and flame. Whatever Hollowmere offers pales beside that."
Her brows twitched, almost imperceptibly.
She didn't press further.
Smart.
They weren't comrades.
Merely travelers crossing the same battlefield, each guarding a blade behind the back.
Still, the Queen studied him more than once.
Lucien, too, had his tells—the careful pauses in his steps, the deliberate way he placed himself never between them, but just adjacent.
Like someone used to escaping if things went wrong.
He had the look of a man who'd worn other faces before choosing this one.
"Lucien," Alucard said finally, "you're no ordinary scholar."
The man raised a brow.
"Is that an accusation or a compliment?"
"A fact."
Lucien smirked faintly.
"Before I read books, I read people. You might say I changed careers after my last mission. Swords gave way to words. Easier to bury knives in politics."
"So, a spy turned scholar," Alucard mused.
"Something like that."
"Why come here?"
Lucien's smile faded. "Because the Will isn't just a myth. Because I've seen men consumed by something that wears despair like a second skin. Because I think you and I are the only ones who understand how deep this goes."
"I wouldn't presume to know you."
"No," Lucien said.
"But you understand masks. That much is clear."
They kept walking.
Elysia's silence was a presence in itself.
She listened, observed.
Royal, but not vain.
Sharp, but not cruel.
She reminded him of someone from his past world—a general perhaps, or a rival queen whose empire he once ground into ash.
That was the problem with summoning.
The past never stayed dead.
It just changed masks.
The wind picked up.
Ahead, a broken sign marked the old roads—directions to towns that had long since vanished from maps.
One path led south toward the Veilwood Marsh, where the mists grew teeth.
Another curved east, toward the capital of Caelareth, where the human king ruled, still blind to the true enemy.
Alucard turned slightly.
"The heroes. Are they being moved yet?"
Lucien nodded.
"Rumors say they're preparing a dungeon incursion. Some ancient temple. Forgotten domain of a lesser god. Pretty generic if you ask me."
"They'll find more than monsters."
Elysia's voice cut through.
"Of course. The Will touches all things now."
Alucard didn't answer. But inside, the System whispered.
[Influence nodes detected. Four potential anchors: Yukimura Aoi, Fujiwara Daichi, Hanabira Reina, Hoshino Sota.]
Recommendation: Veil Influence extraction available. Risk Level: B- (Containable). Initiate Protocol?]
He dismissed it—for now.
But the idea had merit. If he could siphon the Veil's grip from the heroes, redirect it through his System—he could grow.
Not just stronger. Beyond that. Beyond limits.
He could become the counterforce this world needed, not the one it wanted.
Even if it meant stealing from the chosen.
The Will stirred again, faint but undeniable.
A breath beneath the surface.
Watching.
He whispered internally, a single command:
System.
Silence all interface prompts unless manually triggered.
A flicker.
Then stillness. Good.
Lucien's voice returned, casual but sharp.
"You've changed since we left the village. Whatever you saw in Hollowmere—it got to you."
Alucard stopped.
"I saw myself," he said.
Neither of them replied.
The wind whispered again.
The world was breaking.
Piece by piece.
Through mists, through minds, through dungeons and empires and summoned children playing at being heroes.
And somewhere deep in its shattering bones, a Veil hungered.
They walked on.
And behind them, in the wake of Hollowmere's corruption, other eyes began to stir—
Not human.
Not demon.
Bound neither by gods nor realms.
The next breach would not be ignored.
And the heroes' dungeon—what they would find—was no mere ruin.
It would be a trial.
For the world. For the summoned. For the force awakening beneath them all.
And Alucard would be watching.