The founders are free.

Their light flows with you as you descend deeper—Seraphine’s silver, Aldric’s gold, Thornwen’s green. Three souls released from three centuries of imprisonment, now lending their strength to yours.

But there’s something else here. Something at the very center.

The Core is emptiness given form. A void so complete it has weight, so dark it has texture. You walk on nothing, surrounded by nothing, moving toward a speck of light in the infinite black.

A figure.

Curled in on itself. Chained with bonds made of shadow. Sobbing.

It’s Varek.

No—not the Varek you’ve faced. Not the Hollow King with his charming smile and empty eyes. This is someone else. Someone smaller. Someone human.

“Please,” the figure whispers. “Please, make it stop. I can’t watch anymore. I can’t—”

He sees you.

Eyes—human eyes, filled with human horror—meet yours.

“You came,” he breathes. “After all this time, someone actually came.”

You approach slowly. The chains tighten around him, as if protecting their prisoner from hope.

“Who are you?” you ask, though you already know.

“I’m Varek. The real Varek. The one who existed before—before I did this to myself.” His voice cracks. “I was ambitious. Hungry for power. I found rituals that promised immortality, and I didn’t ask what they would cost.”

“You murdered the founders.”

“I did. I remember doing it. I remember enjoying it.” Tears stream down his face. “And then the ritual completed, and I was… split. The part of me that wanted power, that was willing to do anything—that part became the thing you’ve been fighting. The Hollow King.”

“And you?”

“I became this. The anchor. The sacrifice.” He laughs bitterly. “I thought I could escape death. Instead, I’ve been forced to watch a monster wear my face for three hundred years.”

“It’s true,” Seraphine’s voice echoes. “We didn’t know. We assumed the fourth soul was consumed entirely. But he’s been here all along.”

“Suffering as we suffered,” Aldric adds quietly.

“Perhaps more,” Thornwen says. “We were trapped. He was erased.”

You look at the figure before you. Varek’s humanity. The seed from which the monster grew.

If you freed him…

If you could reach this part inside the creature you’re fighting…

A possibility opens before you. A choice you didn’t know you had.