With the help of the Hollow Avatar, the Conclave’s psychological attacks — whatever Veilcraft variations Orath might deploy — would find no substrate to operate on. Pain would become information rather than an overwhelming sensation, which meant I could fight through injuries that would shut down an ordinary practitioner.

The forty percent reduction in Anima consumption was substantial on its own, particularly given the cracked Anima Depth’s reduced budget.

And the hollow operated on pre-set commands. The lightning-encoded Fight command that had carried the headless body through thirty seconds of combat after my brain was gone, the hollow had executed that command without needing me. I could prepare combat sequences before entering the state, and the hollow would run them while my conscious mind was effectively absent.

This was not only useful against demons, but my other enemies as well, because this was the kind of capability the Conclave had no model for. They had been fighting magus practitioners for centuries; they understood how mages thought, what could be expected of them, and what could be predicted.

They had no framework for a practitioner who could deliberately remove himself from his own combat decisions and let a different consciousness execute pre-set commands.

I would be unreadable in the hollow state. Unpredictable. Unstoppable by the methods they had perfected.

And what was interesting about this ability was that I knew that I was just scratching the surface, and the deeper I used and understood it, the more options would be open for me in the future.

The cost would be paid in fragments of myself, and the smart answer was both gratitude and horror.

I dismissed the screen and let the wider perception settle. My body felt different, even my skills felt different. The hollow rested beneath my soul, patient, knowing I was paying attention to it. Or perhaps that was my imagination. The line between the two was, I suspected, going to become difficult to maintain.

"Accumulate scars until you can no longer be hurt by them," I murmured.

The hollow shifted slightly. Or perhaps not.

I would file that worry alongside the others. There was work to do.

∞

I sat on the cot for a moment after the screen faded. The morning sounds of the camp drifted through the canvas; they were all filled with life, and in less than an hour, the pyramid would pulse. The ground would crack, and the demons would come.

I knew all of this. I had known it for thirteen loops. And yet the morning still felt new, because I was not the same person who had woken to this tent the first time.

I had fought without a soul, severed an Adept’s arm. I was sixteen years old, and I was not a normal Acolyte anymore.

I reached for my staff with Staff Resonance, and the bond answered. The wood lifted from the pole and crossed the tent to my hand, and the moment my palm closed around it, the transformation began.

The pale blue veins in the grain brightened, and the claw at the head tightened. The Focus Crystal was now glowing with a light that came from the staff itself rather than from any external fuel. The wood was learning to sustain itself, learning to draw ambient Essence the way my body was learning to draw Lightning Resonance through my channels.

It would not be enough. The transformation needed more Focus Crystals, and I had none. I suspected that there may be some in the Adept’s supply crates under the watch of people who would kill me if I tried to steal them.

Not yet, I told myself. Not this loop... this loop was for Hollow Avatar.

I needed to test the skill, to understand what the deliberate activation cost, whether the Avatar could be directed, or whether it simply attacked whatever was closest.

And I needed to do all of this without drawing attention to what I was doing. So I would not go to the cookfire this morning, but a small part of me was wondering whether I was not going to the cookfire because it was becoming too painful to look at the faces of my friends, knowing that I could do nothing to prevent their deaths in a short while.

I stood; these were not the considerations that should be on my mind. My staff was warm in my hands as the transformation continued.

Cutting through the canvas with a hardened thread of Threadwork was easier this time, as the thread held its edge without my Concentration wavering.

I reached the position from my last loop faster than I had before, despite how long it had taken me to leave the tent this morning.

The bowl was empty when I reached it. The grass was undisturbed, the eastern wall still intact. Forty meters across, shaped like a cup, the perfect killing ground.

I descended to the center and sat down with my staff across my knees. I closed my eyes and reached for the hollow place in my chest.

There was a slight hesitation in my heart before I dismissed it.

’Hollow Avatar,’ I thought. ’Activate.’

...and nothing happened.

I scratched my head. Well, that was slightly awkward.

Closing my eyes, I focused on the hollow place the way I focused on my Anima reservoir when preparing a cast, and I pushed my intent into it the way I pushed Anima into my channels.

This was the right thing to do, as the hollow place answered.

Realization flowed into me. This was not a spell. It was not a discipline, but was something that did not operate on the same rules as the magic I had been taught.

There were similarities, of course, but it seemed control was more about intent and command than the flexible application of Anima to my spells that I was comfortable with.

The hollow place opened, and I felt my body shift.

Something in the relationship between me and my flesh changed. The bond that Mortal Shell had deepened was still there, but now there was a second bond, running parallel to it, a channel through which intent could flow without consciousness.

And I opened my eyes and saw the world with new eyes.

My body was still sitting, my hands were still on my changing staff, and everything was where it should be.

And yet, I could feel another me, folded inside the same flesh, waiting for instructions.