Not every enemy wears a face. Some are older than nations, older than memory itself. In The Last Patriot, no force is more terrifying—or more inevitable—than the Hollowing.
The Hollowing is not a man, a beast, or even a singular being. It is a cycle. A hunger. A living absence that feeds wherever blood is spilled and war is waged. To encounter the Hollowing is to feel the marrow of the world being drained, the air itself growing thin, as though reality is collapsing inward.
The Beginnings of the Hollowing
Its origins are shrouded in mystery. Some among the Wardens of the Veil whisper that the Hollowing was not always what it is—that it was made. That once, long ago, someone sought to pierce the Veil not for wisdom or healing, but for power. In opening that rift, they unleashed not light, but void.
The Seer hints at this when she speaks of “the first breach”—a wound in time itself where a mortal hand reached too far. The face of that first offender is lost to history, but the consequence remains. Others believe the Hollowing was born at the dawn of creation, when the first drop of blood was shed in violence, and that it has grown stronger with every war since.
Perhaps both are true. Perhaps the Hollowing is not just a force, but a legacy of human ambition—fueled by choices, sustained by conflict, and shaped by the one who first invited it in.
The Nature of the Hollowing
The Hollowing manifests in many ways. In shadows that move where light should banish them. In whispers that turn brother against brother. In soldiers who fall in battle, only for their echoes to linger, feeding the void. It does not roar, it consumes.
Its presence is felt most strongly at places of slaughter. Battlefields become feasts. Forgotten graves become doorways. Even in times of uneasy peace, the Hollowing waits—starving, but never gone.
What sets it apart from any ordinary curse is its persistence. Nations rise and fall, revolutions come and go, but the Hollowing remains, ever hungry, ever circling.
The Hand Behind the Void
Yet there are darker rumors still. That the Hollowing is not wholly self-born. That behind its cycles lies a hand, a mind, a will. Some claim the Faceless Man was once its herald, others that General Harland seeks to bend it to his command. But the most chilling possibility is this: that the Hollowing was not discovered, but created—a weapon forged in secret, a wound deliberately inflicted upon the Veil.
Who would do such a thing? Was it a desperate act to end one war, heedless of the cost to ages to come? Or was it a calculated betrayal—an ancient figure who saw in destruction the truest path to dominion? The answers lie buried, and the Hollowing itself is not eager to reveal them.
Why It Endures
The Hollowing thrives because men are ever at war. So long as muskets fire, blades clash, and empires rise and fall in blood, the Hollowing feeds. It cannot be slain in battle, for battle is its breath. It cannot be starved, for history itself sustains it.
This is why Elias Mercer’s struggle is more than survival. To face the Hollowing is to face the very pattern of history—the truth that destruction always hungers, and that someone, somewhere, may still be guiding its hand.
✨ Stay tuned for the next character spotlight, where we’ll return to the realm of the living and meet Daniel Albright—Elias’s childhood friend, presumed dead, whose betrayal cuts deeper than any blade.