The mayor’s office was easy enough to find, with signage pointing them in the right direction. They gathered outside the door without making a sound, Luke and Ilya at the back.

  “Are you sure she’s in there?” Luke asked, his voice a whisper.

  Ilya nodded. “I’m sure.”

  Mateo and Lucy stood right next to the double doors, each of them with a hand on a doorknob, Penny right behind them. Mateo counted down from three... two... one! They threw the doors open with a war cry and all three rushed in together. Luke gripped his staff in both hands, hurrying after.

  Rather than moving forward, he tumbled through the air. His staff dropped to the floor and he crashed against the wall on the opposite side of the corridor, collapsing to the floor. The doors to the mayor’s office slammed shut, leaving Luke still outside, separated from the rest of the party.

  Coughing, he got to his feet to face Ilya.

  “Why?” he asked.

  She took a languid step towards him. “It is in my nature.”

  Through the closed doors, the rhythmic words of Penny’s spellcasting cut through the sounds of combat: groans, steel clashing against steel, and Lucy summoning her powers.

  Backed in a corner? I bite back!

  Spark it, strike it, burn it all down!

  Mateo’s voice boomed even through the closed doors. "?A la madre con los dragones! ?Por los sue?os que arden! ?Mateo viene con fuego!"

  Luke forced his attention to stay on Ilya. “I don’t understand."

  “When we spoke last, really spoke, you named us Hollows. That is indeed what many call us, but we ourselves? Deceivers. That is the name of our race. Not Hollows, not Host. We rule through deception. By taking your place and making it ours.”

  Luke’s breath caught. “You’re the Queen.”

  “I am the Queen,” Ilya said, her face twisting into a wicked grin as she took another step forward.

  "Why go through all this trouble to mess with us?" Luke asked, eying his staff on the floor. Too far away to grab.

  "For this," she said, her voice taking on a hissing quality as her teeth elongated. After another step forward, she lunged and buried her clawed fingers in his shoulder. Pulling them back out, Ilya grabbed Luke's shirt and threw him like a doll, so he tumbled and spun on the floor along the corridor.

  Coughing, Luke reached for the staff, trying his best to ignore the pain, but Ilya was there faster than what should've been possible, stomping on his arm with enough force to crack the bone. Luke cried out and pulled the arm back, rolling to get back up on his feet, but she just kicked him again.

  A crooning sound bubbled out of Ilya's throat, and an itching, almost burning pain set in all throughout his body. His health, mana, and stamina all began dropping at a dangerous pace. Down by his health bar, a debuff icon appeared.

  Inspected Status. Chant of Entropy: Those touched by your chant shall suffer.

  "Ilya's Chanter class has some interesting abilities, but your power intrigues me more. There have been others able to detect my kind, but they are few and far between, and never healers. I wanted to see it for myself."

  Luke's health had dropped to about half, and he used a health potion from his inventory rather than try to summon the focus to heal himself. Not having a weapon in this situation, even if the only weapon usable for him was a staff, hurt his chances of coming through this terrible situation alive.

  System Message: Integrated Shop disabled during combat.

  Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  Dammit.

  "So what? You're going to take my face and then the city?" Luke spat, heaving himself up by leaning much of his weight against the wall.

  "There's no need for you to learn of what will happen after you've fallen into the void," the Hollow said as her face turned from Ilya's likeness to the blank featurelessness of a Hollow.

  The mouth remained, growing wider as the monster approached Luke without a semblance of urgency. Its arm shot out, taking Luke in the stomach. His knees buckled, bringing him down to the floor. He reached for the Hollow's leg, but another kick on his arm was enough to break the damaged bone, and he let out a groan as the Queen grabbed and flipped him over so he was on his back.

  She sat down on top of him, straddling his chest, and leaned forward. The Hollow's face split open with a wet, sucking sound, showing a cavernous maw with thin tendrils rising from within its throat. Luke kicked his legs, trying to get out from under the Hollow, but it was futile.

  Those fleshy, wriggling strands made for his face as the smell of rot and decay reached him from within the Queen's gullet. Luke winced, trying to turn his face away from it, and failed, as a strand latched on and burrowed into his cheek. To his horror, it didn't just enter his body, but he felt it reach through to his mana channels.

  Luke used Threads of Mana and lashed out, squeezing the life out of the tentacle inside his mana channels. The Hollow froze for a second, then a host of tentacles followed the first few, and a crooning sound erupted from deep within its throat.

  Another debuff icon appeared by Luke's health bar.

  Inspected Status: Silenced. Unable to use active skills.

  Desperate, Luke grabbed hold of that first tentacle and pushed Threads of Mana up through it, racing along its mana channel, heading into the Hollow Queen's main body. While he did this, he was forced to use a second Thread of Mana to fight off the invading tentacles burrowing into his face.

  Her teeth scraped against the skin of his face as her mouth opened wider to wrap itself around his head. Luke ignored it as best he could, focusing as his mana thread reached its destination. At first, a meta-heart appeared before his inner eye, but with a push of focus and willpower, he tore the deception apart, revealing the monster core.

  System Message: Boon of Potential grants you an attribute point (+1 Willpower).

  Silenced as he was, Needle of Life was unavailable. Still, Luke wrapped his threads around the monster core and the main mana channel, squeezing with all his might. The Queen let out a strangled sound and stopped her crooning, and her horrid breath came quicker as she withdrew a little from around Luke’s head. Rather than stopping her advance, though, she redoubled her efforts. Pin-pricks of pain appeared all over his body, hundreds of them, as the thin tentacles wriggled through his skin. He couldn't hope to get them all, but, using his mind, he lashed out again and again with Threads of Mana, hoping to keep her at bay for long enough that he might get the upper hand.

  Afraid she'd pull back, Luke attempted to reach out and grab her. If he lost hold of her monster core now, he wouldn't get another chance. But his arm wouldn't move. Nothing would. He opened his eyes just a crack, holding his focus with iron discipline as he kept squeezing. The Hollow Queen’s body had lost its shape. With only the head remaining solid, the rest of her had formed a flesh-pale cocoon which was now wrapped around his body. That was how she hoped to overwhelm him with all those tentacles, by wrapping herself around him.

  Pain surged, and Luke would have cried out if he could, but the risk of tentacles wriggling into his open mouth was too great. At least he had one thing going for him. Squeezing the Queen's monster core put a stop to her chant. Needle of Life became available to him again.

  Rather than cut at the monster core, which would take too long, he brought out a third Thread of Mana, used Needle of Life, and sliced into the one part of the Hollow Queen that was still a viable target. Her head. This, he knew, would not put an end to her horrible existence. What it did accomplish was to give him a moment's respite. The tentacles stopped their burrowing as the Hollow's focus shifted to regeneration. It healed at frightening speed, but Luke's use of Threads of Mana were fast enough.

  Affixing Needle of Life to a thread, he used it to cut at her main mana channel. Just as he did so, the Queen regained control of herself and a screech erupted from within her mouth as she reached back down, closing her maw around Luke's head, cutting off both air and his sight as pain erupted, sharp teeth biting into his scalp, jaw, and the side of his head. The strength of her bite was incredible. Luke felt his consciousness slipping away, but he refused to let go. He cut again and again, pulling at the monster core with all his might, trying to tear it out of her chest.

  "Die!" she hissed.

  Luke was in no state to reply with words, but he didn't need to. With another slice and tug, he severed the main mana channel and felt the monster core appear in his hand. The Hollow Queen's entire body shuddered and lost its rigidness, and the pressure from her jaw disappeared. He drew in a deep, choking breath as the now lifeless head fell away and all tentacles turned to a liquid-like substance that oozed out of his skin, the whole of the Hollow's body dissolving.

  System Message: Quest complete: The Hollow Queen has been slain.

  Reward: Bonus Experience.

  System Message: Congratulations! You have reached Level 10!

  System Message: Congratulations! You have reached Level 11!

  System Message: Dungeon closing in 60 minutes.