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Rise of the Tamer ( Bound by the Beast) Episode 177: The Hollow Crown the Ashen Reckoning
The sky bled ruin.Colors with no place in this world twisted through the heavens, putrescent violets and rotting blacks that twisted like wounds in the seat of reality.But the battlefield, already a Sargasso Sea of lost flesh and cracked subsoil and the hush of final embers, trembled under something formless, merciless, only hungry.Asha stumbled, dragging a streak of blood from her brow, the air heavy with the decay that made her lungs hurt. Cain was still rising to his feet, his sword a useless tremor in his shaking hands. Raven, always the specter, had already melted into the dark, cold and observing. Calculating.And then there was Ethan.Or what was left of him.He stood at the center of the slaughter, his body cloaked in writhing coils of silver and black, his eyes those twin eclipses alight with something beyond human understanding. He avoided looking at his friends. He did not acknowledge their pleading, horrified stares.He was staring into the face of the Warden of Ash.A
Rise of the Tamer ( Bound by the Beast) Episode 178: The Maw of Perdition
The world was broken.Asha could still taste ash in the air, thick and acrid, clinging to the insides of her lungs like something alive. The battlefield if it could still be called that was no more than broken earth and bleeding sky, a wound rent in the very fabric of reality.The cuneiform figure had done something to Ethan, something that couldn't be explained. He was standing, yes, breathing, yes, but incorrectly.The void had taken him.And now it was looking at him through them.Cain remained rigid with the sword trembling in his hands.His face was ashen, and he was panting in short, coarse breaths.Even Raven, the ghost of them all, was the only one to be unnaturally still, her fingers flitting along the hem of her cloak as though she’d just be giving up on this place and leaving.But Asha could not move.She could only stare at Ethan at what had once been Ethan.His formerly recognizable features had contorted, the planes and angles of his face darkened by a thing moving under
Rise of the Tamer ( Bound by the Beast) Episode 179: The Lament of Hollow Thrones
The world had ended.And yet worse was already on the way.Asha was breathing hard and scrambling up off the ground, the field of battle a tangled, unrecognizable wreck. Colors that didn’t exist churned in the sky above, the very air shredding itself as if in rebellion against reality itself.The Nameless Choir, by contrast, had smashed the order of things to flinders, a song out of tune digging into the very bones of reality and unraveling them, one thread at a time.Yveth loomed a thing of infinite hunger, its zillions of teeth grinding together as it feasted upon the world itself. But now even it hesitated, its impossible form quaking under the weight of something even it could not comprehend.Ethan, or what's left of him, stood recklessly before it. And the voice it was speaking in strange languages, a new tongue he once knew, but each word had been swallowed whole, replaced by the buzz of death, the rumble of hell.Asha had witnessed him cheat death before. She had witnessed him
Rise of the Tamer ( Bound by the Beast) Episode 180: The Throne of Forgotten Names
The world was breaking.Not in body alone, not in land alone in memory itself.It was happening; Asha could feel it, her thoughts fraying at the edges, unraveling like some old tapestry being picked piece by piece by piece. What was she forgetting? What had she already lost? Her own name tasted heavy in her mouth, as though it was at best half hers.And yet the Architect of Graves stood, unchanged, untroubled, unblemished, and its being was a chasm in the fabric of reality.Ethan remained on his knees, breathless, his body warring with reality.The black chains that had bound him before were gone but only because they’d been replaced by something worse.The very shadow he cast had turned against him.It slithered up his body like ink, like living tar, sliding beneath his skin, staining his veins.His fingers trembled, his breath hitched, and for the first time since Asha had met him, he looked frail.Defiance had always been his strength.His will, unbreakable.But now?Now something
Rise of the Tamer ( Bound by the Beast) Episode 181: The Hollow Crown
Darkness bore down on the world.It wasn't lack of light. It wasn't even the press of shadow.This was more than that. This was old. A hollow that didn't just devour it recalled.And Asha was suffocating in it.She tried to breathe, her lungs spasming, but there was nothing only the overwhelming feeling of being observed. The battlefield was gone. The Architect of Graves was gone. Raven, Cain, and Yveth all gone to the black.But Ethan remained.Somewhere.She could not see him, could not hear him, but she felt him like a distant, fading heartbeat being consumed inch by inch.And the throne.The thing seated upon the throne.It breathed through the darkness."Did you think you were the first?"Asha gritted her teeth, pushing her feet onto something nearly solid. The emptiness writhed beneath her, curving in slow, ravenous spirals. The scream that had ripped through reality a moment before still rang in her bones. It had been more than sound it had stripped something from her, something
Rise of the Tamer ( Bound by the Beast) Episode 182: The Fractured Oath
The battlefield was wrong.It hadn't just changed it had been rewritten.Asha knew it in her bones, in the air she breathed, in the way time itself dragged between each heartbeat. The world was still here, but it was cracked at the edges, as if something huge had gnawed on its shape and spat it back out.The Hollow Crown was no more. The occupant of the throne had departed, but its departure was worse than its arrival.For it had left behind something.Ethan.Asha's fingers still throbbed where he had held them.The black was receding from his eyes, but not all the way, as if whatever had attempted to take him had only rested, waiting for the moment when it could drive its teeth in deeper.He wasn't talking.He was observing.Observing the throne. Observing the void where the thing had sat.Observing his own hands, as if he didn't know if they were still his.Asha pushed aside her discomfort and stepped closer."Ethan"A breath. A flash of movement.She wasn't aware of him getting up,
Rise of the Tamer ( Bound by the Beast) Episode 183: The Name That Was Never Meant to Be
The Night That ListenedThe world did not settle.Though dawn crept over the ruins, coloring the shattered stones with pale light, the air stayed restless, tinged with the resonance of something that shouldn't have been said.The words of the chronicler had shattered the thin silence Ethan had held onto, fracturing something within him that was never whole to start with.Asha watched him, still.He had not budged since those words had escaped the Chronicler's lips."You were never supposed to leave that throne.""You were the last."Ethan had just stood there, his shadow reaching in directions that did not exist, his shoulders rigid, his fists at his sides. He did not flinch, did not question.He only listened.As if he had known this truth all along.The Chronicler had withdrawn back into the ruins, its shape breaking down into parchment and ink, but its words remained.Cain, usually the most vocal of them, sat in uncharacteristic silence.Raven moved restlessly, eyes flicking betwee
Rise of the Tamer ( Bound by the Beast) Episode 184: The Rift Remembers
A World UnravelingAsha's cry was gone into the abyss.The Rift opened wide, devouring them in a sea of nothingness.No, not nothingness.Something far worse.Something that had existed and had no business ever existing again.The instant her hand had curled around Ethan's wrist, the world had collapsed. The sky tore apart like shattered glass, the earth curved beneath her, and then there was a tug, a savage, screaming tug tearing her down, down, down.The feeling wasn't like falling.It was like being erased.The blackness that surrounded them wasn't anything. It was everything thick, choking, heavy with whispers, heavy with names.Asha held onto Ethan as hard as she could, her heart pounding against the cage of her ribs. But he was frozen, too frozen, like the force of the Rift had already gotten inside him, already started its slow, inexorable claiming.She opened her mouth and attempted to call his name.The words did not exist.Something was amiss.Something was re-weaving itself
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Episode 212: The Last War, The Last King
It was no longer their battlefield.What had once been a sky became a dirty mirror of a world that had died before history itself.The ground shook under Ethan and Asha’s feet, not from ruination, but from something attempting to rewrite existence itself.And at the center of the whole thingThe light belonged not to this world, and it now burned behind their eyes, at last uncovered from the shattered mask.The End.They weren’t human.They weren’t divine.They had been something before those things.And as they walked closer, the mere act of them distorted the air nearby.“You have tread too far, Hollow King.”“You’ve broken too many chains.“And now you will see what was meant to be forgotten.”Ethan’s hands made fists.Asha took a slow, deep breath.They had no time to think.Because the First King moved.And the final battle began.Ethan had little time to even react before he found the First King in front of him.Their movement flouted space itself—not teleportation, not speed, ju
Episode 210: The Beast That Devours Fate
Ethan felt nothing.No pain.No weight.No time.Just… absence.As if he had entered the void of creation itself.As if he never existed at all.But somewhere through the deafening silence.He could still hear Asha calling his name.Still feel the tug of who he was.What he had been.What he refused to lose.Because this wasn’t merely an enemy.This was something worse.Something beyond the throne.Farther than he had ever ventured beyond the kings and wars that had shaped his life.And if he didn’t stop it.There would have been nothing left to save.Not this world.Not Asha.Not himself.Nothing.Asha was losing him.She saw it.Felt it.Ethan was fading, his form wavering between real and unreal, his shadow bending, extending—being consumed.The Nameless Horror stood in front of them, a shape that had shape, a thing that had life, but nonetheless the presence of hunger.It had no eyes.No mouth.And yet.She could hear it laughing.Not a sound.Not a voice.A feeling.A whisper in
Episode 209: The Breaking of the Seal
Ethan and Asha fell through the floor.Not from an explosion.Not from an attack.But because something below it had stirred.A being older than the Hollow Throne.Something that had been locked away since the beginning of this world.And they had just released it into the wild.Or the very ground they fought upon, as Asha staggered backward, as wide-eyed as the battlefield ripping itself asunder, huge stone slabs rising into the air like broken sheets of a long-lost history.Ethan breathed slowly, steadily.But his shadow is his power.Trembled.For whatever was coming out of the cracks.It wasn’t a monster.It wasn’t a ruler.It was more than those things.That should have never come back to life.The tyrant coughed violently, blood leaking from between their lips, but they were smiling.Smiling as they knew exactly what was in store."You thought you won."Their voice was raw, not much more than a whisper.“You thought you could kill me and end this war.Their half-broken gaze sett
Episode 208: The Hollow King’s Last Breath
The battlefield had long been a maelstrom of destruction.But when the tyrant came down.Everything changed.The atmosphere twisted, warped by the mere gravity of their existence.Reddish-golden light poured off their form, writhing into physical might, bending the battlefield as if the very fabric of reality was willing itself to conform to their will.Ethan and Asha knew it immediately.The pressure.The difference.The monsters they’d fought before Vaelros, the tainted Tamers, the Eclipse Titan.They had been powerful.But this?This was a god entering the fray.Asha’s pulse pounded.She gripped her sword more tightly, but her fingers were numb.Ethan’s shadow trembled wildly.His power, which had always been bound to the throne, was now battling against him.Because the throne no longer belonged to him.And there before him stood its new ruler.The tyrant’s voice was calm. Smooth.Amused."Tell me, Hollow King…"“It’s like being powerless. How does that feel?The War Begins Again
Episode 207: The Tyrant Descends
The battlefield had long been a maelstrom of destruction.But when the tyrant came down.Everything changed.The atmosphere twisted, warped by the mere gravity of their existence.Reddish-golden light poured off their form, writhing into physical might, bending the battlefield as if the very fabric of reality was willing itself to conform to their will.Ethan and Asha knew it immediately.The pressure.The difference.The monsters they’d fought before Vaelros, the tainted Tamers, the Eclipse Titan.They had been powerful.But this?This was a god entering the fray.Asha’s pulse pounded.She gripped her sword more tightly, but her fingers were numb.Ethan’s shadow trembled wildly.His power, which had always been bound to the throne, was now battling against him.Because the throne no longer belonged to him.And there before him stood its new ruler.The tyrant’s voice was calm. Smooth.Amused."Tell me, Hollow King…"“It’s like being powerless. How does that feel?Ethan moved first.He
Episode 206: The Colossus That Eats Light
The Nightmare GrowsThings were coming apart at the scene of the battle.The colossus towered, hovering over Ethan and Asha, contorting, warping, and turning into something worse.Its shape contorted, once a lump of shadow and machination and now remolding itself in the heat of battle.Razor-sharp spines of obsidian jutted from its back. Its arms stretched, transforming into monstrous blades of pure void.And worse, it was learning.Ethan clenched his fists.Asha swallowed hard. “Tell me we have a plan.”Ethan exhaled. “We destroy it before it’s fully developed.”A pause.Then Asha grinned. “Good. That, I can do.”And then.They attacked.So, The Hollow King and the Tamer Strike BackAsha was first.She darted ahead, her knife glinting in the fractured light, stitching her way through the maelstrom of sorcery pulsing from the colossus.The air itself struggled against her, the raw force of the beast’s power stretching time like chewing gum around it.But Asha was faster.She ducked be
Episode 205: The War of Beasts and Kings
The battlefield ceased to be a desolation.It was a slaughterhouse.Asha’s boots skidded on the cracked earth, her blade shining as she plunged it into the chest of a monstrous soldier. The creature screeched, but it did not fall.It had no blood to spill.No flesh to break.It was a manifestation of the throne’s will, a life that was never meant to be extinguished.And it was multiplying.For each one she felled, two more crawled from their cracks, skeletal eyes fixated on her with unbowed faithfulness.Asha gritted her teeth.They were trapped.And Ethan.Ethan was fighting in another way.The Final Fighter: A King Without A Throne, A Fighter Without ChainsEthan had stopped using his shadow.The energy of the throne, his old throne, was throwing him out, and now the power of himself was turning against him.So instead he had been battling with his fists.With pure, relentless force.He slammed his heel into the earth, pushing himself forward, his body running faster than the though
Episode 204: The First War of the New King
The Rising StormThe wind was wrong.Not just heavy hostility.It contained something other than natural, something that made Asha’s skin prickle with unease.Standing with Ethan at the edge of the battlefield, she stared across the devastation of their greatest fight.But this was no victory here.Only loss.The throne was gone.Taken.And the world was already writhing under its new monarch.Ethan’s hands balled at his sides. His shadow, which he used to wield with ease, was still thrashing.Still smarting from being spurned by the throne that had once been his.Asha took a slow breath.“So,” she said, looking at him, willing to steady the weight at her chest. “Where do we start? ”Ethan didn’t respond right away.His eyes were fixed on the horizon.For the long walk back in the far distance past the shattered ruins, past the crumbling ashes of the old world.A new kingdom was forming.And it was spreading faster than they could contain it.The New King’s DomainThe sky was splittin
Episode 203: The New Tyrant
The throne was gone.The battlefield was wreckage, but it wasn’t the desolation that made Ethan’s chest a hollow place.It was the absence.He had spent every moment of his life struggling with the past, against it, trying to only be defined by what he could make of himself and his family rather than that throne.And now, someone else was in possession of it.Now, the world was breaking in ways he couldn’t control.Ethan blew out, trying to keep his breaths even.But Asha noticed the tension in his shoulders.She felt it too.The shift in the air.The change in, really, the world itself.Whatever this masked ruler had done, it had not simply been to take the throne.They had redefined something basic.And now, the reckoning was at hand.Fast.A First Indication of the New OrderThe ground quivered.Not from a battle, not an attack, but from something deeper.Asha’s instincts screamed.She grabbed Ethan’s arm.“Move.”Before he could ask it, the ground opened beneath them.An enormous
