The abyss did not measure time in hours or days, but in shifts—in the slow hardening of flesh, in the quiet evolution of hunger.
The Vraalmur felt it in his bones.
His claws were heavier now, their edges serrated by countless hunts. The Kharis Larva no longer clung to him like a helpless parasite, but rode his spine as an equal—her bioluminescence pulsing in tandem with his movements, her acidic venom now laced with something sharper, hungrier.
They had grown.
And the third stratum was too small for them now.
The smoothstone stairs were crawling with humans—armored patrols, their weapons glinting under torchlight. The Vraalmur avoided them, slipping instead through fissures too narrow for men in metal shells.
They descended through a tunnel choked with purple vapors, the air thick with the scent of iron and spoiled nectar. The walls here wept a viscous fluid that shimmered like oil, and the Larva glowed gold-green in warning, her tentacles twitching at every distant echo.
Then—
Open space.
The tunnel spat them out into a cavern so vast it defied the abyss's very nature.
The Meadow of Forgotten Stars
A valley stretched before them, its borders hemmed by towering ridges of black coral. Above, the "sky" was a false firmament—a dome of bioluminescent specks drifting in the gloom like frozen fireflies. Some were insects. Others, spores.
And some... were eyes.
The ground was a tapestry of abyssal flora:
Grass the color of a fresh bruise, its blades curling toward warmth.
Lichens that pulsed emerald with every subterranean tremor.
Fungi that exhaled pale mist, their caps opening and closing like lungs.
Flowers that turned slowly, tracking movement with unsettling precision.
There was no wind, only the slow push-pull of thermal currents, sighing through vents in the stone.
The Vraalmur froze, his instincts flaring.
Had humans found this place?
The thought sent a ripple of unease through him. This meadow was too perfect, too quiet. Like a trap draped in velvet.
The Larva's glow dimmed to near-invisibility, her colors muted to black-blue caution.
The corpses were the first sign.
Dozens of them—human, mostly. Some fresh, their armor still gleaming under the false starlight; others long dead, reduced to bone and tattered cloth half-swallowed by the blue grass.
The Vraalmur's hackles rose.
Humans had been here.
So where were they now?
The answer came in a shuddering boom that rolled across the meadow like thunder.
Zark'Ul-Murr moved like a landslide given flesh.
Six meters tall, ten long, its body armored in plates of black bone studded with organic crystal. Its skull yawned open, pocked with sensory pits, its branching horns crackling with bioelectric charge.
And on its back—symbiotic larvae, writhing in a living carpet, their tiny mouths drinking its blood, their bodies trembling at every vibration in the earth.
It did not graze.
It hunted.
The Vraalmur watched as it charged a group of human stragglers—survivors, perhaps, of some ill-fated expedition. They scattered, too slow.
The beast's bellow hit like a hammer.
Pressure waves shattered ribs, burst eardrums, sent one man flying like a doll. Then—impact. Bones crunched under its hooves, the sound wet and final.
It did not stop to feed.
It simply moved on, a force of nature with no need for mercy.
Above, the false sky twitched.
At first, it seemed like a trick of the light—a shifting of the bioluminescent specks. Then the Vraalmur saw it:
Myrrhex-Vaal.
Folded into the cavern's ceiling like a nightmare origami, its form was nearly indistinguishable from the rock—until it unfurled.
Wings of fused fingers spread wide, each digit tipped with an iris-less eye and a flickering, heat-seeking tongue. Its head was a fossilized bird skull, its jaw splitting three ways with a soundless snap.
And then—
The song.
Not a sound, but a thought, slithering into the brain like a worm.
Come closer.
Closer.
The humans below froze, their faces slack. One by one, they turned and walked toward the creature, their steps dreamlike.
Myrrhex-Vaal's tongues lashed out, spearing through chests, lifting its prey into the air as they drained, still alive, still smiling.
The meadow was not empty.
Between the titans' hunts, the Vraalmur spotted them—humans who had stayed.
Some were clearly mad, their eyes vacant as they wandered the fields, whispering to the pulsating lichen. Others, though—hunters. They moved in tight formations, harrying smaller abyssal creatures:
Púlkari, docile quadrupeds with flower-petal eyes, their hides prized for their hallucinogenic spores.
Nezzil, luminescent worms that left glowing trails like cursive on the grass.
Blackfly, spherical insects whose wings hummed in harmonic chords as they swarmed.
One group knelt before a cluster of Erdalik—bipedal fungi that released emotion-laden spores. The humans inhaled deeply, their faces twisting in euphoria, before the fungi scattered, sensing the approach of something larger.
The Vraalmur understood now.
This meadow was not a sanctuary.
It was a battleground.
And the humans here were not conquerors.
They were prey who had learned to hide between the footsteps of gods.
They ran.
The meadow was beautiful, yes—but beauty in the abyss was just another kind of predator. It lured you in, made you lower your guard, and then ate you alive.
The Vraalmur knew this. The Larva knew this.
Yet no matter how far they fled, no matter how many ridges of black coral they scaled or bioluminescent thickets they pushed through—there was no exit.
The meadow stretched endlessly in every direction, its false stars taunting them from above.
Then—
The Larva jerked on his back, her bioluminescence flaring red-black-danger.
Something was coming.
From the endless floral walls ahead, the flowers parted—not like plants bending in the wind, but like a curtain being drawn aside by unseen hands.
And through it stepped humans.
Twelve of them.
"Wow, I never knew a place like this existed!" A young woman—Kira—breathed, her white hair catching the eerie glow. Her fingers traced the air as if plucking invisible strings, her mystic tattoos shimmering.
"So this is the 'Lunaris Virelda' from the reports," mused a lanky tracker, Auren, his gray eyes scanning the grass. "Supposedly rich in minerals. But…" His voice trailed off. No corpses. Just scattered gear, as if people had vanished mid-sprint.
Behind them, the floral passage sealed shut, leaving no trace of their entry.
"Quiet," growled Rugal, their grizzled captain, hefting a massive sonic hammer. "Form diamond formation. Something's—"
Then it happened.
One of their scouts—a rookie—staggered forward, his eyes locked on the sky.
"Hey, wait—!" Elion, the squad's lancer, reached for him.
Too late.
The man walked into the tall grass, his body dissolving into the blue stalks like smoke.
Above, a "star" twitched.
Hidden in the shadows, the Vraalmur watched.
These humans were doomed.
The meadow's rulers would find them—Zark'Ul-Murr's crushing charge, Myrrhex-Vaal's hypnotic song.
Yet…
The Larva pulsed gold-green, her gaze fixed on Kira. The mystic's staff hummed in response, its bone-carved runes flickering.
She could hear it.
The abyss's whisper.
And for the first time, the Vraalmur hesitated.
These humans were not hunters.
They were prey, just like him.