7 Dark Souls: Killing a Hollow--s?

Drake was overtaken by an intense sense of euphoria from his newfound strength, an arrogance born from victory bubbled up from his subconscious before he hastily hammered it back down.

" I nearly died, to what might well be, the weakest thing in this entire universe. Stupid. shameful."

Drake scolded himself internally for a short while before bending down to search the body, rummaging through, he found nothing. The hollows only belonging a stinking rotten cloak.

"Seems Dark Souls 3 was a toned-down version of this world. I don't remember struggling in the game with this 'tutorial enemy." Drake shuddered thinking of the boss Ludex he so easily trounced in the game

"It would be like a sickly child trying to fight an experienced martial artist, I don't stand a chance."

He stood at a diverging crossroad, to his left were crumbled buildings that had been worn down by the elements over time, and to his right, a tight dark winding alley formed between the smashed remains of stacked coffins.

"If I remember right," he said, looking towards the winding alley, "there's a soul this way.

With his foreknowledge guiding him, he turned right and walked through the alley, waist-deep, in water filled with bits of mangled maggoty flesh, until he reached the soul he sought.

It sat atop a rotting corpse, the body was curled into a ball, looked small and feeble. A child possibly.

Drake poked the corpse a little with a dead branch he found nearby, after confirming with absolute certainty, the body was dead, he picked up the soul, and like the one before, it entered through his hand.

The gain in strength was lesser this time, the soul he found being smaller, dimmer than the last.

Drake returned to the crossroads, he sat down for a moment resting atop a coffin. He planned out his next move.

There were a lot of hollows ahead, and he wouldn't be able to sneak up on all of them, he needed a game plan for fighting the Hollows, straight up. Not to mention a way to defeat the boss that blocked the path ahead.

Having learned a little from his first encounter with them, contemplative, he went over there strengths and weaknesses.

The hollows were strong and robust, but they had a few key weaknesses. One was there speed. They moved sluggishly, dragging their feet, maybe he could take a tip out of Ali's book. Dance like a butterfly, and with his dagger, sting like a bee.

Another was their lack of self-preservation born out of either a dull wit or maybe the fact that they were already dead and left little in the ways of desire, to be 'alive.' The Hollow had acted without any caution leaving itself open for all and any attacks.

Lastly, came something Drake was still uncertain about. At the time, he hadn't noticed, but the Hollow hadn't reacted to the sounds of his rush, hadn't budged an inch and after, when he was knocked back, he had time to prepare himself for attack partly because of the hollows slow movements, but also because it looked around first. Its eyes glassy, it took some time to find him.

The Hollow was half-blind and deaf.

These weaknesses might not be relevant to all hollows but Drake hazarded a guess, that it was true for most, at least for any of the common rabble.

Taking the left path this time, towards the crumbling ruins, he noticed another hollow, it was facing him this time, sitting down and gnawing on its arm, trying to eat its own flesh.

There was no chance of sneaking up on this one, it sat in a clearing, the only thing nearby a large broken chalice made of stone, a dead knight leaning on it, glowing with subtle blue light.

Not wanting to grapple the thing, as it was probably much stronger than him, he picked up a pebble from the ground and lobbed it at the hollows head. It stopped its chewing and looked about.

Drake wanted to test his theory from before, he was standing approx. 10 meters from the thing before throwing the pebble, and it didn't see him. He moved in towards it, one step at a time, mentally calculating the distance until he heard a predatorial growl, the beast had noticed him.

"Roughly 4 to 5 meters then," Drake muttered to himself, before getting into a battle stance.

His plan was to keep his distance as much as possible, act like a matador to this bullish creature waiting for an opportune moment before tripping it and stabbing his dagger into its spinal column, giving it a quick death.

The Hollow had got to its feet and was stumbling towards Drake when something unexpected happened.

Before Drake even had the chance to carry out the first half of his plan, the Hollow had stubbled upon its own feet, tripping, it smashed its head off a protruding rock, letting out a deathly rattle, it died.

"The f*ck!"