Bullied Hollowborn: My Tribrid System Awakening

Chapter 10: Hidden Chamber

Richard's POV

The training vault beneath Miracle Academy was a tomb of silence, its stone walls etched with runes that hummed like a distant heartbeat. I stood alone in the center of the chamber, sweat dripping from my brow, the air heavy with the weight of laws I was trying to tame. My glyphs pulsed faintly under my skin—sacrificial, elemental, constructive, quantum—all whispering possibilities I couldn’t yet grasp. Null Drive and Null Counter were my weapons, but they were wild, untamed, threatening to tear me apart every time I reached for them.

“Focus,” I muttered, clenching my fists. The vault’s runes flickered in response, amplifying the laws I channeled. I needed control. Rank E- wasn’t enough—not for Squad Seven, not for the eyes that now watched me with fear or hate, not for the fire in my chest that refused to let me kneel.

I activated Null Drive. The chamber’s lights dimmed, the air thickening as laws receded like a retreating tide. My core strained, glyphs flaring gray. Pain needled my temples, but I pushed deeper, trying to weave Null Counter into the mix. The ground trembled faintly. I could feel it—something responding, something ancient buried in the vault’s depths.

A crack split the far wall.

I froze, Null Drive faltering. The runes along the wall pulsed erratically, then died. Stone groaned, and a hidden door slid open, revealing a staircase descending into darkness. A pulse of forbidden law—sharp, cold, wrong—slithered up from below, curling around my senses like smoke.

“What the hell…?” I whispered.

Against every instinct, I stepped forward. The academy didn’t just hide chambers like this without reason. Whatever was down there, it was calling me.

The staircase ended in a vast, circular chamber, its walls alive with glyphs I didn’t recognize—twisting, jagged symbols that seemed to writhe under my gaze. In the center stood a pedestal, a black orb hovering above it, pulsating with a sickly violet light. The air was thick, oppressive, like breathing through a storm of ash.

Before I could move, the orb flared. Shadows coalesced, forming a towering figure—astral beast, humanoid, its body a patchwork of mist and law. Its eyes glowed white, and its voice echoed in my skull.

“Intruder. Prove your worth.”

I barely had time to blink before it attacked.

The astral beast moved like a nightmare, its arms splitting into tendrils of elemental fire, constructive steel, and quantum distortion. I dove aside, Null Drive snapping into place. The chamber dimmed, the beast’s attacks slowing as its laws weakened. But it adapted, shifting to raw physical force, slamming a fist into the ground. The shockwave sent me sprawling, my shoulder screaming as I hit the wall.

This wasn’t a duel. This was a test meant for a full squad—cooperation, strategy, and synchronized laws. Alone, I was outmatched.

I scrambled to my feet, channeling Null Counter. My glyphs burned, and I touched the ground, shattering a wave of steel spikes the beast summoned. But the effort cost me—blood trickled from my nose, my vision blurring. I couldn’t sustain both abilities. Not yet.

The beast lunged, its tendrils coiling around my legs. I roared, pouring everything into Null Drive, suppressing its laws enough to break free. I struck back, fists laced with Null Counter, each hit dissolving fragments of its form. But it was endless, reforming faster than I could destroy it.

“You are not enough,” it intoned, its voice a chorus of judgment.

I gritted my teeth, forcing my core to channel multiple laws at once—sacrificial as the base, elemental to amplify, and constructive to stabilize. The glyphs on my skin blazed, pain ripping through my nerves. For a moment, I felt it—harmony, power, Rank E surging within me. My next strike cracked the beast’s chest, light spilling from the wound.

“I can do this!” the thought flashed through my head.

But I overreached.

My core faltered, the laws clashing. Null Drive collapsed, and the beast’s tendril pierced my shoulder, pinning me to the wall. I gasped, vision darkening. The orb pulsed as if disappointed.

“Failure,” the beast said, dissolving into mist.

I slumped to the floor, blood pooling beneath me. The chamber was silent again, the orb dim. I’d lost, but my core hummed stronger—Rank E, solidified. No rewards, no secrets unlocked, just pain and a lesson: I wasn’t ready for what lay hidden here.

But I’d come back.

As I staggered to my feet, a sharp pang hit my chest—not pain, but something else. A pull, urgent, like a thread tied to my core. Lena. Squad Seven’s law connection pulsed, screaming danger.

I bolted up the stairs, ignoring the fire in my shoulder. The academy’s halls were eerily quiet as I sprinted toward the training grounds, the pull growing sharper, laced with Lena’s fear. My heart pounded, not just from the run but from a gnawing dread. If she was in trouble…

I rounded a corner into the sparring pits and froze.

Lena was cornered by five rogue cadets, their crests marking them as mid-tier Awakened from a rival squad. Her wind blasts flickered weakly, her face pale, blood dripping from a gash on her arm. The leader, a burly guy with stone gauntlets, loomed over her, sneering. “Half-Hollowborn trash. You and that fluke Sol are a disgrace to Squad Seven.”

Lena’s eyes blazed, but her voice was strained. “Keep talking. See what happens.”

A shadow-wielding cadet lashed out, tendrils pinning her other arm. She stumbled, gasping, her wind faltering. The others closed in, elemental flames and ice shards glinting in their hands, ready to end it.

Rage roared through me like a wildfire.

“Get away from her!” I bellowed, Null Drive erupting. The air warped, laws collapsing in a silent thunderclap. The cadets’ abilities fizzled—stone gauntlets crumbled, tendrils dissolved, flames and ice snuffed out. They staggered, eyes wide with panic.

The burly leader swung at me, but I was already moving, Null Counter igniting my fist. I ducked and slammed it into his chest, sending him crashing through a sparring dummy with a bone-rattling crunch. The shadow wielder lunged, but I grabbed his arm, twisting until he screamed, then kicked him into the dirt.

The remaining three attacked together, a desperate flurry of fists and fading laws. I wove through them, Null Drive holding strong, each strike precise—knee to a gut, elbow to a jaw, fist to a temple. They dropped, groaning, defeated.

I turned to Lena, chest heaving, blood pounding in my ears. She was on one knee, clutching her arm, her breath ragged. Our eyes locked, and the world shrank to just us. Her gaze held fire, gratitude, something deeper—something that made my heart stutter. Her lips parted, no words coming, but the air between us crackled, alive with unspoken promises.

“Richard…” she whispered, voice trembling.

I stepped closer, hand twitching to reach for her, but I stopped, the weight of the moment anchoring me. “You okay?”

She nodded, struggling to her feet, her eyes never leaving mine. “You didn’t have to—”

“I did,” I said, voice rough, certain.

For a heartbeat, we stood there, the space between us electric, fragile. Then her expression shifted—shock, fear. She pointed behind me. “Richard!”

I spun, Null Drive still active, just as the ground beneath the sparring pits shattered. A violet rift tore open, the same sickly light as the orb’s, spewing shadowy tendrils that lashed toward us. From its depths, a colossal astral beast emerged, its eyes locking onto me, its voice a deafening roar in my mind: “You failed once, Hollowborn. Now, you die!”