Lee found himself inside the Hollow King.
Not physically spiritually. The King had pulled him into his core, into the place where all the consumed souls screamed and writhed and begged for release. It was worse than the Sunken City. Worse than the Eclipse Engine. It was hell, distilled and concentrated.
"You see now," the King's voice echoed. "This is what I am. This is what I have always been. A billion souls. A trillion. All screaming. All hungry. All mine."
Lee looked at the souls at the faces, the suffering, the endless agony. And he felt something he hadn't expected.
Pity.
"You're not a monster," Lee said. "You're a prison. These souls aren't your food. They're your cells. You've trapped yourself in your own hunger, and you can't escape."
The King was silent.
"You're lonely," Lee continued. "That's why you consume. Not because you're hungry because you're desperate. You want to fill the emptiness inside you with something anything but nothing works. Because emptiness can't be filled. It can only be accepted."
"SHUT UP!" The King's voice cracked. For a moment, the screaming souls went quiet.
"You're afraid," Lee said softly. "You're afraid of being alone. Of being nothing. Of being forgotten. So you consume and consume and consume, hoping that eventually you'll find something that makes you feel whole."
"SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!"
"But you won't. Because wholeness doesn't come from outside. It comes from inside. From accepting who you are. From making peace with your own darkness."
Lee raised the Dawnblade.
"I can't kill you," he said. "But I can free you."
He drove the blade into the heart of the darkness.