They walked for what felt like hours across a plain of dark glass.
It stretched endlessly, unbroken by ridge or ruin. The surface was flawless — a cold black mirror that reflected no sky, only the small huddled group that moved across it. Sometimes it felt like they were the only real thing here. Sometimes Raen wondered if even they were reflections, staggering through someone else's abyss.
Ember Vow kept close. Her hand never left his, and though her steps had regained their usual grace, her eyes remained faintly glassy, pupils slow to adjust. Memoryweaver pulsed gently in Raen's chest, nursing itself after the strain of the last trial. Each beat was a quiet reassurance: still here. still whole.
Hollowfang padded ahead, head swinging side to side. Its singed fur had begun to regrow in short, stubborn tufts. Despair Maw drifted to the side, its massive shadow rippling across the glass like a slow tide.
Silence reigned. Not the heavy, pressing hush of earlier layers, but something stranger — a patient stillness that felt almost watchful.
Eventually the plain broke.
A single line ran across it, thin as a hair at first, then widening into a slender crack. Light bled up from it. Not Abyssal light. Not the sickly phosphorescence of beasts' eyes or the glow of system sigils.
This was warmer. Almost sunlike, though dim and strained, like light forced through thick cloth.
Ember Vow crouched beside the crack, her hand hovering just above it. A faint heat rose to meet her skin. Her lips parted slightly, confusion mixing with a fragile awe.
"This isn't from here," she breathed.
"No," Raen agreed. Memoryweaver thrummed sharply, tugging at the edge of his mind as if trying to prepare him for something it couldn't quite put into words.
Hollowfang sniffed the crack, ears pinned back, then let out a confused huff. Despair Maw approached and simply stared, its massive jaws slightly open, tasting something it didn't understand.
Raen knelt. Peered down.
Through that thin fracture, he didn't see more Abyss.He saw a city.
Or the remnants of one. Tall towers of pale stone stood against a bruised sky, their tops wreathed in drifting ash. Fire smoldered in pockets, painting long black scars across avenues. Figures moved below — soldiers in shining mail, swords drawn, herding people toward makeshift barricades. Somewhere distant, bells clanged in a frantic, off-tempo chorus.
Ember Vow leaned in close, shoulder pressing against his. Her eyes were wide, pupils normal for once. "Is that… your world?"
He couldn't answer right away. Something inside his chest curled tight. Memoryweaver showed him brief flashes — the smell of hot iron from the forges, streets where he'd once marched as a decorated captain, voices raised in drunken song outside old taverns.
Then he found his voice, hoarse. "It's a mortal city. Could be one of dozens. But yes — that's the world beyond this pit."
As they watched, something massive moved through the streets. A shape of shimmering distortion, as if the air itself had gained teeth. People fled. A woman stumbled and fell. The shape surged over her. When it pulled back, there was nothing left but a dark stain.
Ember Vow flinched. "The Abyss is pushing through."
Raen's hand curled into a fist against the glass. "Or it's being pulled. By the cracks this place is bleeding into the mortal realm."
[System Notice: Observation Window Stabilized]
[Cross-Realm Integrity Breach: 0.08%]
[Projected Impact: 12 Mortal Cities Under Abyssal Strain]
His breath left him in a shaky rush. Twelve. And that was only what the System admitted to seeing.
Hollowfang gave a sharp bark, pawing at the crack. The glass shivered but didn't break further. Despair Maw lowered its head, one vast eye focusing through the fracture. For a moment, its jaws twitched — an old instinct to devour grief. Even here, it could taste the collective fear that rippled through the mortal city below.
Raen rested a hand on its heavy brow. "Not yours to eat, old friend."
Despair Maw let out a disgruntled huff. Ember Vow managed a small, strained laugh, the sound thinner than usual.
They rose together. The crack slowly narrowed behind them, sealing like a wound, leaving only faint spiderwebs in the glass. The faint sunlight vanished, replaced by the same cold dark.
For a few long moments, no one spoke.
Then Ember Vow said softly, "That's what this has all been leading to, isn't it? This place isn't content to be forgotten. It's trying to claw its way into your old world."
Raen nodded. "Or someone is trying to drag it through. Kahless, or something older pulling strings from deeper still."
Her hand tightened in his. "If your world breaks, there's no going back for it."
"I know."
"Do you still care?" Her voice was very quiet. Almost frightened of his answer.
Raen turned to look at her fully. Memoryweaver flared, showing him a hundred tiny images of the mortal world — soldiers who once called him friend, market streets where he'd stolen bread as a boy, a single soft-eyed horse that had carried him through more campaigns than any man ever would.
"It was never about just leaving it behind. I ran from it because it nearly killed me. Because it did kill me. But letting it fall to this place? That's not why I survived."
Her eyes searched his, then softened. She leaned in until her forehead rested against his. "Good. Because it means when the time comes, we'll tear even this realm apart to keep it from devouring more."
They walked on.
The path reformed beneath them as needed, slabs of dark glass and slow-growing veins of that faint pearlescence. Raen's thoughts turned over and over — not just to the mortal realm, but to what waited deeper. The Abyss was reacting now, throwing more trials, more desperate manipulations. Because it was under threat too. If it spilled out fully, it might cease to be the thing it had always been — an endless, self-contained pit of memory and despair.
Maybe that was why it kept testing him. Not just to forge a king, but to find something strong enough to stabilize it. Or something ruthless enough to let it rot into the world above.
Hollowfang stayed close, shoulders brushing Raen's leg occasionally, as if needing the physical contact. Despair Maw drifted beside Ember Vow, its breath slow and even, no longer rasping from earlier poison.
They moved together in a tight cluster — not because the Abyss demanded it, but because they chose it. Because against whatever monstrous trials waited in deeper corridors, they were stronger like this.
Eventually, the path widened again, opening into a vast floor of cracked black plates. In the center stood an obelisk, faintly glowing with the same gold as Memoryweaver's threads.
Raen paused. A soft tug under his ribs urged him forward.
[System Notice: Adaptive Trial Complete — New Path Opened]
[Authority: Emotional Bond Sovereignty Increased]
[Secondary Effect: Observation Windows Stabilized Across Select Mortal Sites]
Ember Vow tilted her head, eyes narrowing. "It's giving you more control over your own connections. And… glimpses back into the world above."
"So it can watch what I'll do with them," Raen muttered.
"Then disappoint it." Her hand found his again. "You're very good at that."
He actually smiled — a small, tired thing. Then together they stepped forward, past the obelisk, deeper into a realm that now seemed aware its shadows were not the only stakes on the board.
Somewhere above, mortal kings were shoring walls that wouldn't hold. Somewhere below, the Abyss twisted, scheming. And in between walked a man with beasts and a curse at his side, ready to cut down whichever world demanded the higher price.