The town of Higashi had once been a place of peace and simplicity, nestled in a valley where the fields brimmed with lush, bountiful crops and the sun warmed the hearts of its residents. The laughter of children and the murmur of daily life had once filled the air, creating a sense of harmony that made the town feel alive. But that was before the whispers began.
Now, the fields stood barren, the soil cracked and lifeless, as if the land itself had given up. The crops that once flourished rotted in the earth, their twisted remains a silent testament to the slow death of Higashi. The market square, which once bustled with the energy of people selling fresh produce and catching up with neighbors, lay abandoned. A heavy, suffocating silence hung over it, the kind that feels wrong, unnatural. The air, once fragrant with the scent of fresh bread and flowers, now carried the sour, decaying scent of rot, as though something vital had been sucked from the very air itself.
Kaito, an alchemist who had once been part of the prestigious United Federation of Alchemists, found himself tethered to this place, unable to leave. His grandmother, frail and fading, had required his care, and so he stayed, though part of him wanted nothing more than to escape. He had abandoned the alchemical world years ago, but his instincts—those unrelenting urges to solve problems, to dissect and understand—had never left him. And Higashi, now a hollow shell of itself, was a puzzle he couldn’t ignore.
One evening, Kaito found himself wandering down the empty streets, the only sound the echo of his own footsteps, each one bouncing off the walls of houses that had long since lost their warmth. His gaze fell upon a house, one that had once been vibrant with life. Now, it was completely empty. The windows, once adorned with delicate curtains, were bare, and the door hung ajar, as if abandoned in a hurry. The familiar smell of decay clung to the air around it. Inside, the furniture had been stripped away, the walls bare and peeling, as though someone had tried to erase any trace of a life once lived. The faintest trace of something, however, caught Kaito’s attention—a single white feather, lying still on the floor. Its starkness against the darkness of the house felt wrong, as if it belonged to something that should never have been here, something not of this world.
A chill ran down Kaito’s spine. His breath hitched, but he could not pull himself away. This was only the beginning. Word soon spread that the town’s livestock had been found dead, their bodies grotesquely emaciated, as though the very essence of life had been drained from them. Their skeletal forms lay abandoned in the fields, the air heavy with the grotesque stench of death. But it wasn’t just the animals. No, it was the people too. Whispers began to circulate about a “Pale Stranger” who had been seen lurking near the outskirts of town. Those who had laid eyes on him spoke of his footsteps, of how the grass beneath him would freeze, turning brittle and white, as though his very presence warped the laws of nature. No one knew who he was, or where he had come from, but all agreed on one thing: he brought with him an unnatural cold, an emptiness that gnawed at the very soul. And with him came the death of everything he touched.
As the days dragged on, the tension in the town thickened, a palpable strain suffocating every interaction. Fear gnawed at the edges of every conversation, turning familiar faces into strangers. Suspicion bubbled under the surface, the faintest gesture or word twisted into a potential betrayal. Trust, once abundant, became as rare as the dwindling food supplies, hoarded and jealously guarded. The very air seemed to carry a hollow vibration, a constant reminder of the creeping emptiness that was consuming everything.
Kaito couldn’t shake the unease that gnawed at him. His discovery of the strange feather had sparked a deep, insistent compulsion, pulling him toward the edge of town. There, at the site of an ancient, abandoned shrine, the world felt wrong. The crumbling stones seemed to shudder under the weight of forgotten history, the once-sacred grounds now neglected, abandoned by time and reverence. The air was heavy with an oppressive quiet, as if even the wind dared not disturb the sanctity of what was about to unfold.
The trail of feathers guided him like breadcrumbs leading deeper into this unsettling place. His heart pounded in his chest, each beat a throb of dread that seemed to synchronize with the unsettling chill creeping up his spine. The feathers were wrong—imbued with an unnatural stillness that made his skin crawl. They didn’t flutter in the breeze; they clung, as though reluctant to be touched by the world around them.
The shrine itself seemed to pulse with a life of its own, a disquieting energy that beckoned him closer. And then, there they were—figures cloaked in immaculate white robes, their faces obscured by porcelain masks that gleamed like death. Their chant reverberated in the silence, strange syllables that seemed to reverberate deep within Kaito’s mind. The words, heavy with a foreign, otherworldly cadence, spoke of a “Hollow Sovereign,” a being that promised salvation through bloodshed and sacrifice. Each word felt invasive, as though the very essence of his thoughts were being twisted, violated by their unholy rites.
The ritual felt like a direct intrusion into his psyche. The voices, faint at first, began to swell, worming their way into Kaito’s mind, making the very air taste bitter. It was as if the words were reaching for his thoughts, scraping at the edges of his consciousness, leaving behind a dull ache. Every breath he took seemed to weigh heavier, as though the ritual itself was leeching the life from him, pulling him closer to the dark void they sought to summon.
And then, from the shadows, a figure emerged—a silhouette draped in black. The Ritekeeper. The very atmosphere around him shifted, growing colder, more suffocating. The flickering candles cast strange, twisted shadows, the flames themselves seeming to bend and consume the light as though hungry for it. The ground beneath Kaito’s feet rippled, warping and twisting in impossible angles, as if reality itself was being twisted by the force of the ritual.
It was then that the apparition appeared. It was neither man nor beast, but something that defied understanding, a thing that should not be. His crimson eyes gleamed with an emptiness so profound it seemed to reach through Kaito’s very soul, pulling it, twisting it, as if to devour him whole. His gaze alone suffocated the air from Kaito’s lungs, an invisible weight that pressed down on him, crushing every ounce of resistance. The figure’s voice was smooth, laced with an unbearable calmness, its tone a promise of inevitability.
“In greed, there is growth. In famine, there is truth. Those who wish to escape hunger must first become empty.”
Kaito stood frozen, unable to move, as the figure raised his hand. The air around him distorted, a ripple of distortion spreading outward. There was no flash of light, no sound—just an overwhelming force that tore through the town. With a single, casual motion of his hand, the figure wielded a power that defied comprehension. The very fabric of existence bent under his will.
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Half the town was obliterated in an instant. A violent burst of compressed air tore through the streets, a shockwave of unimaginable force. The buildings crumbled, their foundations shattered, the very earth splitting under the pressure. Kaito’s heart raced, his mind struggling to process the sheer magnitude of destruction. The dust and debris hung in the air like an ominous fog, a testament to the horrifying power that had just been unleashed. The screams of the dying were swallowed by the blast, their bodies crushed and their souls stripped from existence, reduced to nothing more than ash and ruin.
The cultists, once fervent in their devotion, were no more than brittle husks, their forms collapsing in on themselves, their bodies withering as if the very life had been drained from them. The offerings, the sacrifices—everything turned to dust. There was no mercy. No hesitation. Just the cold, unyielding hand of a force that had no need for explanation.
In that moment, the town had become a graveyard. And the figure, standing amidst the devastation, watched it all with the cold, calculating gaze of one who had no need for pity, for empathy, for understanding. To him, this was merely the price of his desires, the inevitable consequence of his hunger. The price of everything he craved—life, souls, reality itself—was nothing less than annihilation.
His presence alone was a force of nature, and in his wake, there was nothing but the hollow, all-consuming emptiness of Famine. The very air seemed to grow thinner, the world itself starting to crumble, as though it too had been drained of its vitality. As the last echoes of destruction faded into the void, Kaito remained standing, trembling, a mere witness to the horrors wrought by the one who called himself the Hollow Sovereign.
Kaito staggered back, the world spinning around him as his mind tried to make sense of the horrors before him. His breath came in ragged gasps, and his legs trembled violently, struggling to hold his weight. The sight he had just witnessed was an assault on every sense, an unbearable wave of nausea crashing over him. He clenched his fist around the white feather, the delicate softness of it in stark contrast to the gnawing, jagged coldness sinking into his bones. It was a cruel reminder of the nightmare he had just become a part of, a vile proof of his helplessness.
He turned, his body moving in spasms as if it had a mind of its own, dragging him away from the grotesque image burned into his retinas. His feet felt like lead, the weight of the feather pulling him downward as he stumbled through the landscape, desperate to escape, yet knowing deep down there was no real escape. His thoughts were fractured, jagged, full of fragmented images and half-formed fears.
When Kaito finally arrived in Higashi, it was unrecognizable. The town that had once been alive with the hum of human existence, bustling with its familiar rhythms and subtle sounds, now lay silent, as if the air itself had been sucked from it. The houses were stripped bare—no furniture, no signs of life. It was as though someone had erased the town, wiped it from the earth with a single, brutal stroke. The buildings stood like hollowed-out skeletons, their frames sagging with the weight of abandonment.
And the streets—God, the streets were empty. Not even the wind dared to stir the dust. It was the kind of silence that gnawed at your insides, the kind that felt like it was pressing against your ribs, suffocating you from within. There were no people, no animals, no movement. Just the cold, oppressive stillness. As Kaito walked through it, the void seeped into him, filling every crevice of his being with an unnameable dread. It was as if the very essence of the town had been sucked away, leaving behind only a hollow shell, a grotesque imitation of what once was. It was as if the Hollow Sovereign had passed through, leaving his malignant touch, draining everything from within, until nothing remained but the ghosts of memory.
The land itself reflected the emptiness. The earth seemed to have withered under the weight of despair, the once-thriving crops now shriveled and brittle, like old bones forgotten under the sun. The trees stood bare, their branches twisted and malformed, as though they too had been corrupted by whatever malevolent force had done this. The animals—if there had ever been any—were gone, leaving nothing but the smell of rot and decay that clung to the air like a stench of death.
Kaito’s steps were mechanical, his mind too consumed by the overwhelming sense of loss to think clearly. His chest tightened, the weight of the world pressing down on him, suffocating him with the cruel realization that everything he had known, everything he had cherished, had been torn away. He wandered, as though in a daze, toward the highway, where the asphalt stretched endlessly before him like a scar across the land. The cold wind sliced through him, its bite sharp and unrelenting. It howled, carrying with it the faintest echo of something lost—a memory of something he could no longer name.
And then he saw them. Figures, out of place in this forgotten wasteland. Strangers, moving with a purpose, searching, though Kaito could not fathom for what. Their presence only made the emptiness more unbearable, as though they too had been drawn into the desolation that had claimed this place. They were figures of mystery, with eyes that seemed to look through him, past him, into the void.
Among them, a young girl with fiery red hair stepped forward, her gaze sharp and keen. She studied him with an intensity that sent a chill down his spine. She sensed the aura of deprivation that clung to him like a shadow, the weight of everything he had seen, and it unsettled her. Her eyes fixed on the white feather in his hand, a silent recognition flashing across her face. There was something about the way she looked at him, something knowing—something too familiar, too unsettling.
“Are you alright?” Her voice cut through the silence, but the words felt hollow, as though they were meant to pull him from some nightmare. It wasn’t concern for his well-being—it was a question that bore into him, an inquiry that demanded an answer he could not give. What had happened here? What had he witnessed? Her eyes did not wait for a response. She had already seen the truth written on his face.
Kaito couldn’t answer. The words, all the explanations that could have spilled from his mouth, felt like they had turned to ash in his throat. What could he possibly say? That everything had been consumed, eaten from the inside out, leaving only a gaping wound where a town had once stood? How could he convey the terror, the sheer emptiness that had engulfed everything? How could he explain that what had happened was not just a loss, but a profound, existential erasure?
As the group moved past him, their eyes flicking over him with a strange mixture of pity and curiosity, Kaito’s gaze drifted back to the town. Now, it was nothing more than a ghostly scar on the landscape, the fading remnants of a place that had once been so full of life, now reduced to ashes. The wind picked up again, swirling around him, cold and relentless, as if it, too, was trying to drive him away from this cursed land.
And then, in the distance, a faint voice whispered—so soft, so distant, that it felt more like a thought than an actual sound.
“When nothing remains, only then can the truth be seen.”
The words hung in the air, piercing through him like a blade. They reverberated in his chest, leaving a dull ache behind. And as the town vanished into the horizon, Kaito understood. What he had witnessed was not the disappearance of a town—it was something far more sinister, something far more profound. This was not the end. This was only the beginning of a darkness that was yet to unfold, a truth so terrible that it could never be fully understood until it was far too late.
