Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women
Chapter 843 - 845

Chapter 843: Chapter 845

Before the Hollowed, before the old empires, there had been a gate. Buried beneath the world, sealed by sacrifice and guarded by those who carried blades like the Sorrow Steel. But over time, those guardians were forgotten. The seals weakened. And the gate began to whisper. The Tear of Midnight was never meant to be a weapon, it was a key. One that could either lock the gate again or open it fully.

Jude didn’t know which path he was walking. Only that time was running out.

On the final night, a scout returned from the east. He bore wounds too clean to be natural, and his mind was broken. He spoke only in fragments. "The Table... they’ve begun... the Hollowed are marching... Leonork will fall."

At that name, something in Jude twisted. It wasn’t just a city. It was the heart of the new power, the place where everything began again after the last collapse. If it fell, the world wouldn’t recover. Jude stood in the war room, surrounded by maps and murmurs of fear. "We’ll go," he said. "Now." "You won’t make it in time," said the commander. "Then we die trying," Nyra said. "Because no one else will."

Jude looked at her and nodded. They had survived the Withered Sea, the Hollowed woods, the memories that tried to drown them. They had seen the edge of the world and chosen to keep walking. Now, with the Tear burning in his chest and truth on his blade, he would march toward the storm again.

Because some things were worth fighting for, even if the world forgot them.

The road to Leonork was no longer a road. What had once been a path carved by trade and travelers was now a graveyard of broken wheels, discarded armor, and scorched symbols left behind by those who no longer needed names. Jude walked ahead, his hand resting lightly on the hilt of the Sorrowsteel, each step echoing with the weight of unspoken memories. Nyra moved beside him, silent but steady, her presence grounding him more than any commander’s words ever could. Behind them trailed a handful of scouts from Redharbor, volunteers who had chosen to follow the fire instead of waiting for it to consume their walls. They had no banners, no chants, no cause to rally the masses. All they had was purpose.

The first day passed in rain. Cold and constant, the kind that soaked through cloaks and bones. The scouts muttered under their breath, but no one stopped. Jude’s eyes scanned the tree lines constantly. There was movement in the woods, not hostile yet, but watching. The kind of presence that didn’t need to attack to make itself known. On the second night, they camped near a ruined shrine, the stone altar cracked and overgrown, its carvings faded beyond recognition. Nyra sat beside Jude near the fire, her eyes reflecting the flames. "Do you ever think," she began, then paused, searching for the right words, "that this world doesn’t want to be saved?" Jude didn’t answer at once. He looked at the distant shadows dancing beyond the firelight, the way the smoke rose like a warning. "Maybe it doesn’t," he said finally. "Maybe that’s not our job."

"Then what is?" "To remember," Jude said. "To hold on to something real, even when everything else turns hollow."

On the fourth day, the signs of battle became clearer. Burned fields. Trees split down the middle. Deep gouges in the earth, like something massive had dragged itself across the soil. They found a group of refugees near the bend of a river, ten people, all ragged and silent, their eyes wide with the kind of fear that comes only after the screaming stops. Jude knelt before a woman holding a baby wrapped in stained cloth. "What happened?" he asked gently. Her voice trembled. "They came from the sky. Not ships. Not birds. Just... light and then nothing. And when it cleared, people were gone. Just gone." Jude’s grip on the Sorrowsteel tightened.

Further ahead, they reached the outskirts of a village called Meldor’s Hollow. It had always been small, barely a mark on most maps, but now it pulsed with unnatural silence. They moved in cautiously, weapons ready. The buildings were intact, but every door stood open, every chair overturned. Plates of food sat untouched. No blood. No signs of struggle. Just absence. "This wasn’t an attack," Nyra murmured. "It was a claiming." They found a sigil burned into the center of the town square, an open eye, bleeding from the center. Jude crouched beside it, tracing the edges without touching. "They’re not just taking bodies," he said. "They’re taking identity."

That night, sleep didn’t come. The scouts posted watches, but even they couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched from within their own thoughts. Jude dreamed of a door deep underground. Black, breathing, pulsing with heartbeat sounds that didn’t belong to him. A voice whispered through the cracks. Not words. Just grief. He woke drenched in sweat, the Tear glowing softly beneath his tunic. Nyra was already awake, staring at him from across the fire. "You saw it too," she said. "The door." Jude nodded. "It’s getting closer."

By the sixth day, they reached the Ridge of Hollowvale. From there, Leonork could be seen in the distance, a shimmer of stone and smoke nestled in a valley. It should have been alive with light and movement, but instead, it looked like a city frozen in mourning. They descended slowly, staying low, using the old tunnels left behind by miners decades ago. When they emerged near the southern gate, what they saw stopped them cold. The gate was open. The walls untouched. No signs of siege. But the city beyond was empty. Not destroyed. Just... abandoned.

Jude led the group inside, the sound of their footsteps echoing too loud on the cobblestones. The market square was littered with goods, as if people had vanished mid-bargain. A fruit stand had apples still gleaming under the gray sky. Nyra picked one up, turned it in her hand. "Fresh." "They didn’t leave," Jude said. "They were taken." The air shimmered faintly, like heat rising off stone. It wasn’t magic in the traditional sense, it was memory. Strong, layered, recent. The Tear pulsed harder, reacting to the weight of what lingered.