There are a lot of dumb ways to die in the Ash Wastes. Drinking cursed water. Stepping on a mimic rock. Looking directly at a sunstorm. Accepting soup from a smiling merchant (never trust the smiling ones). But top of the list?
Trying to fuse two world-ending dooms in a cave when you haven't slept in thirty-six hours and you're shaking like a wet leaf in a blender.
Yeah. That's exactly what I did.
After the mirror plague incident, which, by the way, still gives me nightmares about mirrors sneezing blood, I ran until I found a cave shaped like a collapsed throat. Dark, weirdly warm, smelled like stale smoke and regret.
So, I crawled in, kicked off my boots, and flopped onto the stone floor like a sad pancake.
The Ledger rested beside me, humming with a soft, pulsing light. Every now and then, it'd twitch. Like it was breathing.
Creepy, but... oddly comforting. Like having a pet that occasionally rewrites physics.
I tried to sleep.
Didn't work.
Kept seeing that hand in the mirror. That voice. That thing that wasn't part of the doom. It had known me. Or wanted to. Or... something worse.
And so, instead of sleeping like a normal, sane apocalypse merchant, I opened the Ledger again.
"Show me everything," I whispered.
Pages flipped themselves. Doom after doom.
Flood. Plague. Ashfall. Bone-Crack Winter. Glass Rain. Laughter Doom. Night That Hates the Sun.
Each one had a weird trade requirement. Some wanted divine relics. Others, body parts. A few just wanted memories.
But then I saw it.
[Doom Fusion: LOCKED]
Requirement: Trade two dooms to the same entity within 24 hours. Fusion will unlock.
My eyes widened.
"Fusion...?"
Because here's the thing, trading one apocalypse is wild enough. But mixing two? That's a whole new level of disaster.
And I wanted in!
So I pulled up two dooms I still had stocked from earlier:
[Echo Rot] # Makes people relive their worst moment on loop until their soul gives up.[Singing Dust] # Airborne. Infects lungs. Turns your final screams into haunting lullabies that never stop echoing.
Separately? Nasty.
Together?
I didn't know. But I was gonna find out.
"Okay, Ledger," I said, lighting a scrap of parchment from my pack. "Let's make a deal. Combine these two. Right here. No target. Just test the fusion."
The book didn't say anything.
Then, just as I was about to call myself an idiot and sleep, it shuddered.
Words scrawled in blood-colored ink.
Fusion Accepted.
[DOOM FUSED: THE BLEEDING ECHO]
Effect: All sound within affected area becomes memories screaming. Victims hear their worst thoughts from loved ones, looping forever. Dust infects their breath, turning every word into a weapon. Area becomes emotionally radioactive.
Value: High. Extremely unstable.
Warning: May attract... attention.
I blinked. "What kind of..."
The cave screamed.
Like, the actual stone walls around me. They echoed with voices that weren't mine.
"You're not enough."
"Why didn't you save me?"
"This is all your fault."
"Stop running."
I couldn't cover my ears fast enough. It was in my head. My blood. My breath.
I clawed at the Ledger. Slammed it shut. Threw it across the cave.
Silence.
My breath came back in jagged chunks.
Okay. New rule: Don't mess with doom fusion before breakfast.
But the worst part?
I wasn't alone anymore.
Something stood at the mouth of the cave.
I didn't see it. I felt it. A pressure, like the air had been turned inside out.
The figure stepped forward slowly, one hand dragging a long, metal briefcase behind it. Its face was masked, porcelain, blank, with a single crack across the left eye.
"Dren Vorsk," it said in a voice like dry paper catching fire. "You've made your first fusion. Congratulations."
I took a breath. "Thanks?"
It tilted its head. "You are now eligible for the Hollow Auction."
The Ledger began to vibrate. Not gently, but violently. Like it was trying to escape gravity.
The masked figure extended the briefcase. Set it down. Opened it.
Inside: a glowing gavel made of star-bone, pulsing like a heartbeat.
"You have one week," the figure said, stepping backward into the dark. "The Final Bidder is watching." Then it was gone. No flash. No smoke. Just gone!
I stared at the briefcase. The gavel.
Then down at the Ledger, which had one new message burning in its center.
New Doom Unlocked: [Doom of Auctions]
Passive effect: All trades are now visible to bidders across realms.
Bonus: One free slot in the Hollow Auction.
Warning: First Bidder approaching.
I should've run.
I should've buried the Ledger in the cave and left.
Instead?
I whispered, "Bring it on."
Somewhere far away, in a room made of shattered realities and gold teeth, a figure in a robe stitched from contracts smiled.
Karys the Final Bidder was on his way.
You ever walk into a room where the air smells like burnt gold and unfinished promises?
No?
Then you've never been to a Hollow Auction.
Me? I got my invite straight from a porcelain creep in a dead cave after accidentally fusing two dooms into a mental breakdown cocktail. Classic me.
Anyway, the gavel, the glowing one in the briefcase, was my ticket in. The second I touched it, my eyes did this wild inside-out pop thing, and next thing I knew...
I wasn't in the cave anymore.
I was standing on a floating platform in what looked like a broken star.
No gravity. Just vibes.
The sky, or whatever was pretending to be sky, was black silk stitched with glowing white cracks, and below us, nothing. Just a howling void full of unsold apocalypses and discarded timelines.
There were others. A lot of others, all of them terrifying.
A two-headed banker with ticking clocks for eyes.
A slime priest made entirely of melting contracts.
A seven-year-old girl with a plague mask and a candy necklace made of teeth.
Each one stood behind their own auction podium, glowing with power, waiting to bid.
Me, I was the guy with messy hair, torn boots, and zero clue what I was doing.
Typical Tuesday.
"Welcome to the Hollow Auction," said a voice, cool and sharp like iced wine over a knife blade.
It came from him.
Karys the Final Bidder.
He stood on a throne made of receipts. Black suit. Blacker smile. His face was hidden behind a ledger-shaped mask, and where his heart should've been, there was a spinning hourglass full of flickering dooms.
He raised a hand.
"Today's first item," he said, "is a rare fusion doom, fresh, unstable, unrecorded."
The crowd leaned in.
Karys looked straight at me.
"The Bleeding Echo."
My heart stopped.
Oh. Oh, no!!
"Seller: Dren Vorsk," he said. "Starting bid: One divine weapon, forged in a dying sun."
The two-headed banker banged his podium. "I bid the Sword of Regression. Cuts things backward in time."
The slime priest burbled, "A memory scythe. Harvests forgotten regrets."
Then the girl in the plague mask giggled.
"I bid... my childhood."
Everyone went silent.
Even me.
Karys tilted his head. "Accepted."
I blinked. "Wait, hold on, what happens if someone buys my doom?"
"You gain what they offer," the Ledger whispered. "And they gain your apocalypse."
My pulse jumped. "And if they use it?"
"That's... not your business anymore."
Of course.
Because once you sell a doom, it's out of your hands. Unleashed. Spreading somewhere else. Hurting someone else.
I looked at that plague girl, all teeth and nightmares and sad laughter.
Could I really sell this to her?
Could I let her take the Bleeding Echo and let it live?
Then the world glitched.
Time slowed.
A ripple moved through the Auction.
Everyone froze, except for the man who just appeared behind me.
Long coat. Skin like polished obsidian. Silver crown hovering above his head. A dozen clocks floating around him, each ticking in a different language.
"Time Emperor Vael," whispered the Ledger.
His voice was calm and deep.
"I bid... a future."
Karys sat up.
The others gasped.
Even the plague girl stopped giggling.
Because that? That was a big deal.
A "future" in this place wasn't just a fancy word.
It was literal.
A tradeable, packaged, future. Yours. Someone else's. Who knows.
Karys said, "Accepted. Going once..."
I panicked.
"WAIT!!"
Everyone turned.
I slammed my hand on my podium. "I retract the sale!"
Silence.
Long, awkward, pressurized silence.
Karys stood.
"No seller has ever backed out after bids have been made," he said coldly. "That's against the rules."
The Ledger buzzed in my hands.
"Offer a counter-trade," it said. "Something impossible. Something bold."
I looked around.
Then I shouted:
"I offer... the Doom of Forgetting!"
Everyone paused.
Whispers. Murmurs. A few chuckles.
"That doom doesn't exist," Vael said.
"It does now," I snapped.
The Ledger vibrated. Pages flipped. Words burned into existence.
[DOOM CREATED: Doom of Forgetting]
Effect: Erases a moment, an event, or even a location, from memory, records, and time.
Trade Value: Catastrophic. Dangerous. BANNED in four dimensions.
Karys stared at me. Then, slowly, smiled.
"A clever merchant," he said.
Then he banged the Final Gavel.
Trade accepted. Doom of Forgetting activated.
You ever feel reality skip?
Because I do.
A second later, the auction was just... over.
No one remembered what happened.
Not even me.
The platform was gone. The bidders? Gone. Karys? Gone.
I was back in my cave.
Ledger in my lap.
Heart beating so fast.
My doom, the Bleeding Echo, hadn't been sold.
The auction?
Erased.
All because I traded a doom that hadn't existed five minutes ago.
Guess I'm that kind of merchant now.
Far away, in a crumbling tower wrapped in regret, Karys the Final Bidder stood alone.
He touched his mask, frowned. "Interesting," he muttered. "The boy made a forbidden trade."
Then, behind him, a door opened.
A woman stepped in. Messy silver hair. Sharp eyes. And a grin like trouble wearing perfume.
Syphine.
"I want in," she said. "Let me break your little merchant."
Karys nodded.
"Do it fast," he said. "Before he finds out about cursed dooms."